• You can now help support WorldwideDX when you shop on Amazon at no additional cost to you! Simply follow this Shop on Amazon link first and a portion of any purchase is sent to WorldwideDX to help with site costs.

Palomar 225 w/2 MRF 455's

fastfreddie1269

New Member
Dec 9, 2025
28
3
3
59
I recently aquired a Palomar 225 linear amp (has black label & 2 MRF 455 pwr transistors, not blue label). It has a burnt (so badly I can't read the value) 2 or 3 watt resistor right next to the transmitter input. Does anyone know of a schematic for the amp? Or what other components maybe affected by the resistor burning? Thanks!
 

Btw, here area couple pictures of the Palomar 225...
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20251208_173840656.jpg
    IMG_20251208_173840656.jpg
    1.8 MB · Views: 65
  • IMG_20251208_173846992.jpg
    IMG_20251208_173846992.jpg
    2.2 MB · Views: 67
That resistor is in series with the radio's drive power to the transistors. A pair of MRF455s only needs about ten or twelve watts peak to smack them fairly hard. Even a wimpy AM CB does half-again more or twice that. You'll be hard pressed to find a radio that small. The resistor serves two purposes. FIrst, to bleed off some of the radio's excess drive power, and to hold the amplifier's input impedance somewhere close to 50 ohms. The input of an amplifier should fool the radio into thinking that it's connected to an antenna with a low SWR. The resistor increases the amplifier's input impedance, hopefully to pin it near that 50-ohm mark. That resistor took it on the chin when somebody used a radio with two final transistors, or some other excessively-large output circuit.

That amplifier sure looks like the ones a friend was selling back around 96 or 97 when yours was probably made. The transistors are marked with a 1996 production date. The amplifier was probably built soon after that. I'll look to see if any diagrams of those amplifiers can be found next time I get to our shop.

73
 

dxChat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • @ 357:
    holy man no activity or what?
  • dxBot:
    357 has left the room.
  • @ Hambones amps:
    Does anyone know if you can replace the 2290 in a galaxy dx 93t twin turbine with a 2sc2879 red dot? If so, what would have to be tuned?
  • @ ShadowDelaware:
    Hambones the entire amp section would have to be retuned, and the rf transformers re wrapped.