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Reviews For: MFJ-7000 PORT/MOBILE GRAB-&-GO EMCOMM

Category: Ham Shack Accessories

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Review Summary For : MFJ-7000 PORT/MOBILE GRAB-&-GO EMCOMM
Reviews: 3MSRP: 399.99
Description:
The MFJ-7000 is an Emergency Communications (EmComm) box that turns your ICOM IC-7000 into an instant and foolproof emergency communications center. It covers all HF, VHF and UHF amateur radio frequencies available on the IC-7000.

It is literally a complete grab-and-go communications center that can provide a full 100 Watts SSB/CW signal simply by plugging into any available vehicle cigarette lighter socket or light-duty 10 to 15 Amp 12 VDC power supply.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.mfjenterprises.com/Product.php?productid=MFJ-7000
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0030
NA4IT Rating: 2014-10-23
Bad out of the box Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Two were bought with a grant for EMCOMM work. B A D idea. Clickety clack, but no tuning, even into a dummy load.

Forget the cute box and buy an LDG tuner...
K8RBW Rating: 2013-01-10
Very Disappointing Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
My experience as described to Phil, N8VB:

Hi Phil,

I ordered an MFJ-7000 after reading your review on eham. I guess I just had never had the terrible experiences of others and that my luck with MFJ would continue. Wrong! My experience makes yours look like a walk in the park. What a mess! When I first took it out of the box, I saw that it was severely scratched on one side, but I thought it would eventually get scratched and shrugged my shoulders. I should have stopped there. In any case, I removed their version of "thumb screws" that held on the front cover only to hear things rattling inside the tuner. It turned out that the nuts that were attached to the unit to hold the side thumb screws had fallen off when I removed the screws and were rolling around inside the tuner. Then I had to dismantle the entire bloody thing to remove the tuner and retrieve the nuts. With the tuner removed, I then noted, as you did, that the internal power switch that activated the tuner had not been turned on, thereby rendering the tuner inoperative. Not to be deterred, I went to the store and bought some "professional" Loctite glue to see if I can reattach the nuts to the case. I just returned and looked at the soldering job and told myself that I must be insane for trying to rehabilitate (wrong word, because it never worked in the first place) the thing, rather than contact MFJ and demand that they pay to have it shipped back and send me a properly working unit. I now sit looking at the unit dismantled and feeling total disgust that it has the label "Made in the USA." What a disgrace. At the present time, I feel like boxing up the parts and sending them back to MFJ. All I can say is misery loves company. This is how I am spending my vacation as a retiree in Florida. As a retired college professor, I hope the person assembling the unit was not a student at their local university.

73,
de Dick, K8RBW
N8VB Rating: 2012-12-14
Defective out of the box. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I purchased the MFJ-7000 to use with my IC-7000 for portable operation. I purchased the MFJ-7000 from Gigaparts.

The MFJ-7000 arrived non-functional right out of the box. When turned on, the power LED did not illuminate. The manual does not include any schematic or troubleshooting information. I noticed there was a "hatch" on the underside of the unit and there were two automotive type plug-in fuses under this hatch. One of the fuses, a 15 amp fuse, was blown. I replaced the fuse and the power LED on the MFJ-7000 then came on. I switched on the IC-7000 and immediately determined that the automatic antenna tuner in the MFJ-7000 was not working. I removed the antenna tuner/power supply unit from the MFJ-7000 and noticed that the tuner was the same PCB as used in the MFJ-925 automatic tuner. There is a power button on the PCB that is normally used on the front panel of the MFJ-925. It was hidden and inaccessible inside the MFJ-7000. I pressed this power button and the tuner started working. So there were two problems with this unit right out of the box:

1. Blown 15 A fuse
2. Hidden antenna tuner power switch was turned off.

This could not have been successful tested at the factory, and if it was tested at all, they did not notice the fuse was blown and the switch was not turned on rendering the auto tuner non-functional. This would not have such a big deal EXCEPT that the manual contains no information about the fuses or the power switch. I should have just sent it back.

Once these two issues were resolved, the unit seems to work OK so far. The workmanship and assembly is horrible, typical of a lot of MFJ equipment.