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Reviews For: MFJ-2206

Category: Antennas: HF Portable (not mobile)

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Review Summary For : MFJ-2206
Reviews: 2MSRP: 44.95
Description:
Six meter mini-dipole based on two mobile whips.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.mfjenterprises.com/Product.php?productid=MFJ-2206
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0023.5
NA5XX Rating: 2015-05-24
Update Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
After reading the review by KE5XV, I did the antenna cutting as he recommended. My elements stick out about 11inchs. I wish I had cut the rods a bit longer than the 12 inches KE5XV used. At least the antenna resonates now. Using an antenna analyzer, I had an SWR of 1.26 at 50.125 mHz. The air core balun near the antenna is necessary. Without it I could not tune less than 3.0. MFJ instructions are very lacking on how to tune this antenna but with work it can be done after cutting the elements. I am still not happy with how easily the hardware showed signs of rust. You might be happier in the long run to make your own 6 meter dipole from wire or small diameter copper pipe.
KE5XV Rating: 2014-07-01
Nice product. Some fiddling Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
MFJ-2206 Review

I've had the MFJ-2206 6 meter dipole for about a week, and only had it installed for a few days.

First, a few words about the construction. The antenna consists of two 6 meter whip antennas and a mounting plate for converting these two whips into a dipole. The center fitting had a nice SO-239 connector on it and was configured, of course, so that the center conductor of the coax feeds one leg of the dipole and the coax shield feeds the other leg.

I had to tighten the bolts on the center fixture, but this was not a problem. I assembled the dipole -- no instructions specifically applied to the dipole configuration, but it's very simple to figure out.

Each whip consists of two elements -- a rod of fixed length with a wire wrapped along the length of the rod and a metal whip that attached to the fixed-length-rod. One problem is the way the adjustable whip attaches to the fixed-length-rod. There's a threaded connection between the two halves of each leg of the dipole. The connector piece attaches to the fixed-length-rod with no problem; a couple of wrenches were needed to get this snug. The whip rod inserts in the end of the coupling and is secured by a set screw in the side of the coupling. An allen wrench is provided to tighten the set screw.

In my case, the allen wrench was not snug in the head of the set screw and did a poor job of tightening it to the rod. A replacement of the set screw would have probably solved that problem. As it was, since this was going in my attic and it's easy to access, I tightened it as well as I could (using an allen wrench from my toolbox) and proceeded to tune the antenna.

It turns out, that in my experience, the adjustable whip was far to long to get to resonance. With 4" of the whip inserted in each side of the fixed rod the antenna was resonate at 37 MHz. Far too low. When I inserted the whip rods all the way into the fixed rods the antenna was resonant at about 42 MHz. So, I tried taking the whip rods completely out of the fixed rods. When I did this, the antenna was resonant at about 62 MHz.

To get to the punch line... I cut each adjustable rod to 12" long and inserted each rod into the fixed rod so that about 7" of the whip was visible beyond the end of the fixed rod. After a bit of fiddling, this turned out to be about right, and the SWR at 50.125 was quite good (under 1.5:1).

The photo of the antenna on the MFJ web site shows a loop of coax near the antenna but the instructions say nothing about this. My assumption is that this loop functions as a balun and so I wrapped up about 6 turns of the coax into a 6" diameter circle and used plastic ties to secure the loop.

I've had the antenna up for a few days but haven't been listening to 6 meters continuously. It has been pretty quiet. I have every reason to believe that it is working but haven't made a contact on it yet.