SP-2000 Internal Pictures of Circuit Board

The Mitsubishi MGF 1302 FET's are known for popping very easy, sometimes due to near-by lightning strikes while powered on or just some excess static build-up on the antenna that decides to discharge. I lost my first 1302 due to a storm about 10 miles away during a June VHF contest (what timing!, if you haven't lost a FET before, it basically turns the preamp into an attenuator at 144 MHz). I ordered the replacement FET from Advanced Receiver Research for about $14 a piece, had the preamp up and working with no problems. Now 2 years later I loose another 1302 (no lightning this time), luckily I had a spare, from the first order. Well this replacement didn't go so well, after putting the 1302 back in the board and kicking the preamp on, it still acted as a attenuator rather than amplifier. So guessing I put the FET in backward or a number of other things, lead me to searching all over the internet trying to find a picture of the circuit board (yes I looked at the schematics, but wanted an actual picture as reference). I did find a couple, but nothing that helped me with this problem or that had a close-up picture of the 1302. This in turn lead me to contacting a good friend (JD/N0IRS) who had a new SP-2000 in hands reach. I asked him to take as many pictures of both sides of the board for future reference for me and anyone else that finds themselves in this predicament. So after ordering a larger batch of 1302's this time, I installed one very very carefully and also replaced the protection diodes (see picture below for caption) while I was at it. Everything is functioning as it should now, this is a great preamp and very well worth the time to keep it up and running strong.

If you have any questions or need replacement MGF 1302's/protection diodes, just send me an email.  I can install the 1302, replace the protection diodes and put a fresh coat of silicon on to seal it back up.