This item is for the worst equipment you've ever owned, whether
it be morse code tapes that sucked, linear amps that don't work,
HT's that broke on you the first day outta the box, etc..

13 responses total.

ok..I bought a 3 element MFJ 2-mtr beam about a year ago.
This antenna (if you could call it that), is total crap.

I could never manage to get the SWR lower than 1:1.4

Inside the frame it has a tiny adjustable capacitor for fine 
tuning, every time i'd slightly adjust it, it would cause the
SWR to jump around between 1:3 and 1:1.5 (or so)

it had screw-in type elements for adjustments, I managed to
break the socket it screws into....twice!!
 
I was using it with my 120W amp at night once, and noticed it
was sparking across the gap between the two radiator elements.


just today I went to Ham radio outlet in New Castle, DE (no sales
tax..whoohoo!!), and bought another beam.

Its a cushcraft 4 element yagi (124WB). this thing rocks, easy to
setup, extremely low SWR (the reflected needle didn't even twitch).
 
anywho the only thing from MFJ that has worked decently for me, is 
a 5/8 wave 2-mtr ground plane. from now on, I'll pay a little more 
to get quality gear.

I have that MFJ 2-m Yagi, which I find to be very good, with quite low
SWR across the band (haven't measured it for a while, but certainly
not exceeding 1:1.5. I have used it a number of time for both more
range on duplex, and for portable packet. On the other hand, the MFJ
2-m 5/8 ground plane is a piece of junk, although its SWR is good.
The mechanical support for the radiator is rather insecure and fragile,
the coupling is not protected from the elements, and the ground plane
rods are insecurely mounted. I use it only for fixed portable stations -
I wouldn't expect it to last very long on a base tower.

You get what you pay for.  MFJ isn't the best but they do have good prices
and a large selection.  I prefer to buy good stuff used for less than MFJ
prices.  I had a Cushcraft Ringo Ranger II up in the air for years and never
had a lick of trouble with it.  You can do much better that Cushcraft,
however.  (DB Products, Cell Wave come to mind ;-)

hmmm....

Anyone notice for the past half decade, the trend for manfactures is
to make itsy-bitsy cutsy-wootsy teenie-weenie radios??

Probably the worst offender of the bunch is Alinco with their 300mw
credit card size tranciever.

http://www.alinco.com/jpg/djc5t.jpg

A guy I work with said his brother got one but realized how impractical
it was, after not being able to get into some of the nearby repeaters.

I think a lot of people who get those 300 mW radios intend to use them as a
sort of "remote mic" for their dualband mobile.  A range of a few hundred
yards is ideal for that sort of thing.

Don't get caught in that "more power is better" pit!  My three quarter-brick
size Icom 2AT only puts out 250 mW on a good day.  Low power is something like
150 mW.  Yet I was able to hit the Chelsea repeater (146.920), full quieting,
from Portage Lake out by Grass Lake a few years ago.  It wasn't a fluke; it
was my 5/8-wave telescopic antenna!  Those little radios come with tiny
antennas.  Put a 5/8-wave antenna on one of those little things and it will
do the same thing.  It'll just look ridicules ;-)  I picked up a little Alinco
DJ-S11 from a "garage sale" and keep it in my briefcase to listen in on
Skywarn nets at work, etc.  It makes me real popular at work when bad weather
hits ;-) and it's an attractive, small, package.  However, I can't hit diddly.

An MFJ antenna tuner is the worst piece of gear I currently own. I'm no 
antenna genius, but I never got that thing to work right.

The HARC had an MFJ tuner when I was a member.  It worked but was kind of
flakey, even when new...it was a surprisingly fragile piece of equipment. 
For example, there was no real stop on the roller inductor, so you could
damage it if you hit the end of its travel too quickly.  It was better than
the Dentron Super Super Tuner it replaced, but only marginally.

FWIW, I've found MFJ equipment to be basically cheap junk. Some of it works
passingly well, but it's not what I would consider well-made of high quality.

What do you recommend?

Depends on the task. I've got an all-elecraft kit for HF/50, and
my KAT500 does really well on my two antennas for everything from
topband down to 10.  well, the doublet doesn't tune up all that
well on 160, but it's great on 80 down and the GR5V is fine for
top.

For wire antennas, baluns, etc, one can just make them oneself.
For a dummy load, I've got a Palstar DL1500, which replaced some
random MFJ thing.  For meters, I use what's on the rig, but when I
put the old TS-830S on the air, I use either a Daiwa or Palstar
meter. I've got Astron power supplies.  For antenna analyzers, I've
got a SARK 110, a RigExpert AA-600 and an AIM 4170.  I'm using West
Mountain Radio and Hamsource power distribution panels for everything.
For VHF/UHF I use an HT or an FT817 on station power.  I use Amp
UHF, N or BNC connectors and LMR240 inside the shack, and RG-8X or
ladder line outside.  For giggles, I've used some RG59 for bespoke
antennas.  I found a great little mom n' pop, female-vet owned cable
company called MPD Digital that I get custom-made cables from if I
don't do it myself in-house.  I've got Heil mics for phone.

This isn't to brag about my station and gear so much as to mention
the things that I've replaced MFJ stuff with.  I've found it much
less aggravating to go with higher quality components that work and
last as opposed to MFJ's junk.

As consumer-grade quality goes, MFJ has gotten better in the last decade or 
so. Not the best, but good enough. I might need to tune an antenna one or 
twice a year when I swap out the 2M on my Jeep for a CB. For that I find a 
cheap MFJ SWR meter to be perfectly fine.

Though, I probably wouldn't use an automatic antenna tuner from MFJ.

This is good stuff.  You should blog it.

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