Posted: 11/2/2013 5:56:14 PM EDT
| I know everyone has their opinions. I think lots of their stuff works and the rest is like harbor freight ham gear. But anyways....I use their hf hamsticks. I have a 20 m one that had been acting up and I had tried to fix. Well Thursday I happened to be in Starkville and ran by the factory. I asked the receptionist if they had a warrenty and she said a year on these antennas. Mine is 2 years old but she called a tech up anyways. About that time a man walks up Yonkers and says I looknlike a ham operator and introduces himself as Martin Jue. We spoke a while and he was a great guy. Then when the tech got there I explained my problem. I said I know its out of warrenty but I wanted to.see what we could do. He said he would just give me a new one. And he did. I hear a lot of negative but I wanted to pass no a positive experience. |
|
I hear a lot of complaining about MFJ, but I have used their products almost since their inception and have never had any problems. I did have one diode go out in an antenna tuner, but that was right after a nearby lightning strike. The unit was several years out of warranty, but they sent me two new ones no charge. Of course, diodes being as inexpensive as they are, the postage was probably 20X the cost of the diodes.
I'm glad to see they've started selling the components they use in their products as individual items. It's a boon for us home-brewers. |
|
Like Frank, I've used several MFJ tuners and TNC's over the years. I've had the fried diodes in the tuner syndrome and keep some on hand for replacements. I had a 948 tuner back in the 90's that had cold solder joints on the antenna connectors but no issues with the several units I've had since.
Ham radio on a budget. 
|
|
I've had mixed results with MFJ.
Early on I needed a CW keyer and digital interface box. Gave MFJ a try. Never could get my rig to like to the box. This may not be a MFJ issue but an issue with my rig. However I've since used one upper end all-in-one interface and now use a Signalink and K1EL keyer with no issues. MFJ manufactures the Ameritron line of amps and mine has been trouble free even though I've made every rookie mistake in the book. One rocker switch needs replacing as it's contacts are intermittent. Since I bought the amp used who knows how many cycles that switch has gone though. Mechanical parts wear out. Not a MFJ problem. Have a couple of their air cooled dummy loads and both work just fine with no issues. Have a 269 antenna analyser that worked like a champ and was about to restore my faith in MFJ. Until a major malfunction hit. I've always used the MFJ supplied and part numbered wall wart to run the unit. One day to check a glitch in my system I hooked up the unit and was getting all kinds of strange indications. Turned off the unit and started troubleshooting. Turned out the 12vdc wall wart had failed and the output was 19vdc. Obviously overvolting something and letting the smoke out of some component. Sent it back to MFJ. Since I had done nothing wrong and their wall wart failed causing the unit to smoke the right thing to do would have been to give me a new unit. Nope. It will be repaired, probably at my expense. Been sitting there 6 weeks and still waiting for its return. MFJ has its place but if you can step up a notch or two in price points you'll get a higher quality component. If you want me to go on a rant then lets talk about the LDG 1000 Pro II automatic antenna tuner. That POS hasn't worked 100% since it came out of the box and is now nothing more than a paperweight. About 9 months in service and it craters, out of the shack it needs to go. Will be repaired and sold off on online auction or hamfest. Besides automatic tuners need external power to operate and when the mains go down you don't need another power drain. |
| The two MFJ tuners I've bought are great, but that's probably because of their simple design. I think every ham should own one of these: MFJ 16010 |
|
I bought an MFJ balun. Cheap, but it worked. I bought a different balun--total crap. I rebuilt the thing practically from scratch. I bought a 993B tuner. Being forewarned, I took the lid of, literally dumped out some solder balls and lead clippings, then fired it up. It works quite well and I'm very satisfied with it except that the second antenna port doesn't work. Probably a bad solder joint. I haven't fixed it since I only run one antenna right now, but one day I will.
The problem with MFJ is that they have some cool designs, it's just all shoddily built. They have stuff nobody else has. Where else are you going to get a legal limit remote tuner for your vertical, for instance, especially at that price? If you are willing to go over it with a fine tooth comb before putting it into service it'll perform great. |
| My MFJ tuner had solder boogers rolling around inside too. Not a huge deal, just dumped 'em out. Henceforth it has worked without any problem. Likewise some 1270B TNCs from way back when. Never a problem. They sell tons of product and in all of that there will be some issues. So will it be in a container load of $10,000 high end transceivers. |
|
Quoted:
Have a couple of their air cooled dummy loads and both work just fine with no issues. I have one of these, too. So far, so good. Still, I've always heard bad things about MFJ quality control. It's too bad, because they make a lot of unique products that could be very handy to have around the shack. |
|
Quoted:
MFJ should just kit their stuff and let us solder them up. This! I've had both good and bad experiences with their products. My Ameritron key buffer for keying my Heath SB-200 has been wonderful. I also have one of their noise reducers MFJ-1026 I picked up for $10 that was bad. It had so many bad solder joints, I have just started over unsoldering everything and going at it from scratch. I also followed W8JI's instructions and have removed a lot of the MFJ bullshit that they added to his design. I have also heard that their amps have had a lot of bad solder joints too. I am really glad you had the pleasure of meeting Martin F Jue. I met him at Dayton and it was a memorable experience to say the least. There had to have been a million JA hams there all excited to meet him and get their picture with him. He seemed like a good guy, but some of his engineering and manufacturing practices are questionable at best. |