built in preamp on boomer 250 deluxe

[9Lives]

This preamp is built in to the amp. 2 x 2n3904 boosting receive. It works with the tx relay. It's it ok to keep this preamp on at all times since the relay cuts it off when key up? I have my amp hidden in upper panel in my truck and i can't get to it.the

 

[9C1Driver]

I would leave it off, 75% of the time those cheap pre-amps are worthless. On a quiet night and on a channel with little or no traffic they can help pull in a weak signal. Beyond that all they do is pull in more noise and static.

Make sure your Boomer has some airflow around it and not covered in that cubby hole. Boomers are already one small step above junk, if it gets too hot it will burn up. I would also run it on Lo or Med and just leave it be. Sometimes on Hi power you can have high SWR issues.

Do you run it on AM most of the time then?

 

[9Lives]

This amp doesn't have a ssb option that i know of. Unless it's a switch inside. I hooked it up and never looked inside bc i knew it wasn't any thing special. At, the time i didn't know Jack about radios, just wanted to be heard at the port. I have it with a chrome cobra that I've literally done all the mods including ekl and variable, feedback loop, tantalum cap changes echo... all myself. For what it is, i have it sounding damn good. Your telling the truth, it is a piece.. lol it's a250 deluxe and on my shitty meter weakly pegs out on 100 watt scale. But when i turn the variable dead key down it swings like a mofo. I wish i had the dough to get a good set of meters. I cc think my out of the box lx w rfx75 and other mods sound almost as good, but i wanna put that radio in my house, as a driver in the future