I recently purchased one of the Mirage mast mounted preamps from DX Engineering. Conflicts in documentation and a lack of labeling on the unit caused be concern as to whether I had the right unit. After spending two days back and forth with DX Engineering / Mirage, I’m told the following with respect to the Mirage KP-2 Series Mast Mounted Preamps: 1. Only the 1.25 m (KP-2/220) and 70 cm (KP-2/440) units are being manufactured with N connectors. All other variants have SO-239 UHF connectors. 2. None of the units in this series have any band specific labeling but have the generic label “KP-2”. The only indication of what band the unit is intended to operate on is the labeling on the box. Thanks to Mike at DX Engineering for clearing up the confusion. This caused me to plan the wrong cables at the antenna end. Not a major inconvenience but bothersome just the same. Mike assured me that they are going to correct this information on their website. There is no information on the Mirage web site so I felt it was worth letting everyone know. The experience so far with Mirage does not instill a lot of confidence but I’m going to install it and see how well it works.
This is because they are now an MFJ product and have a lot to be desired. If you can get a hold of the older version that were sold under Mirage themselves, they are much better units and labeled. The old units also had the nice 1 1/2" cubed power box for dc into the coax. Much better than the little mini-box they now give you. The newer box moves with the coax if using RG-8 or similar and is a pain.
The newer MFJ units also are not shielded and subject to cross talk during satellite full-duplex operation. As a result I got rid of the 2-meter newer version I had. I do have several of the 70cm and two meter units which are correctly marked and in shielded cast boxes. They work great.
Even though more expensive I would probably now go with SSB or similar.
Reid. W4UPD
On 10/20/2016 1:20 PM, Steve Appleton wrote:
I recently purchased one of the Mirage mast mounted preamps from DX Engineering. Conflicts in documentation and a lack of labeling on the unit caused be concern as to whether I had the right unit. After spending two days back and forth with DX Engineering / Mirage, I’m told the following with respect to the Mirage KP-2 Series Mast Mounted Preamps:
- Only the 1.25 m (KP-2/220) and 70 cm (KP-2/440) units are being manufactured with N connectors. All other variants have SO-239 UHF connectors.
- None of the units in this series have any band specific labeling but have the generic label “KP-2”. The only indication of what band the unit is intended to operate on is the labeling on the box. Thanks to Mike at DX Engineering for clearing up the confusion. This caused me to plan the wrong cables at the antenna end. Not a major inconvenience but bothersome just the same. Mike assured me that they are going to correct this information on their website. There is no information on the Mirage web site so I felt it was worth letting everyone know. The experience so far with Mirage does not instill a lot of confidence but I’m going to install it and see how well it works.
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