| VK4DD |
Rating:  |
2003-07-19 | |
| what? |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| It did nothing- Except make my SWR go high on some bands. For noise elimination, I can't believe I believed what I read on this thing- Too expensive to ship back- I just threw it on the barbie- I did everything the manual said, got no support from email requests for assistance- |
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| K4SE |
Rating: |
2003-03-24 | |
| Dismal Quality and factory "service"!! |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| Bought a new 1025 (similar to 1026 w/o aux. antenna preamp) October 2002. Unit failed in November and was returned to factory for service. MFJ LOST it and sent me a replacement only after I inquired in January 2003. Replacement unit failed February 2003. I returned it to MFJ "Attention Martin F. Jue, CEO" requesting refund. Was refused. They sent back "repaired unit". It lasted three days before it, too, failed!! In all cases, the 1025 failed when initially turned on after working OK the previous time used. NO MORE MFJ, HyGain, Vectronics, Mirage or Ameritron junk for this ham shack in the future! Have been a ham 42 years and haven't seen equipment this terrible this since the dreaded Eico 753!! |
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| KB0SJX |
Rating:  |
2003-02-10 | |
| FRIED |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| After installing a Butternut HF2V for the noise antenna, I thought I was set. I was getting some decent results. Noise on 80m was down and I was living well- Nothing about my prior review changes here. But yesterday, I noticed my SWR going bonkers when I ventured to other bands. Troubleshooting, it went away only after I took the 1026 out of the antenna line. I hooked it back up, then transmitted on 20M.......smoke came out and I smelled that fried "MFJ" smell- Forget it......back it went- If you don't have space to put up a second like antenna for your noise antenna, and/or run QRO, and/or don't want to figure out your PTT line off your rig's ACC plug for the unit's T/R relay, you might want to look into a receive loop antenna vs this thing- I'm sure some units out there work great, but mine is back to the shop with no return address back to me- It has next to nothing in design for RF bullet proofing- It's like owning a race car with out brake fluid- A more reliable simple relay shutting off the noise antenna port when transmitting would seem appropriate- The one it came with obviously is not it- A simple fix but we are talking about MFJ here- nothing new- |
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| N9FG |
Rating: |
2003-02-08 | |
| It works!!!!! |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
This unit has allowed me to consistently work DX down on 160 and 80CW when I thought that it would never be possible. I have a bad powerline noise problem, which is an S8 on an average day. When it is windy or rainy the noise peaks at S10 and becomes variable and erratic. my 1025 and 1026 typically drops the noise down to S1 or S2 and allows weaker signals below the noise level to consistently be heard. [I was amazed at how effective it was the first time I used the 1026!] In addition, the ANC-4 and Clearspeech units I've tried were not as successful at removing my noise and improving reception.
I use a 6 meter 5/8 wave vertical at 40 feet for a 'noise' antenna. I've found the whip antenna included with the 1026 was useless on my type of noise since it is not local or 'in my backyard'. (I also have a MFJ-1025 which doesn't have the whip and both work the same for my situation.) My Mosely Pro-96, 80 Meter 1/4 wave vertical and 160 Meter loop are used for the main antennas. I echo what others have said on the noise antenna--it has to pick-up sufficient noise to be effective. [If you find that the 1026 won't remove your noise, you probaly don't have an adequate noise antenna.]
Practice will be required to get the tuning aspects down... it is fairly critical at times. I've also found that a small amount of received signal is typically lost as the noise level is reduced -- but the net effect was overall improved receiver performance.
The unit has an 'RF sensing' T/R swich to protect the circuitry during transmit. I don't use this feature and key my units directly from the linear amp contacts in my rigs. I've heard that others have had problems with the RF sensing and didn't want to chance frying any circuitry...
My local power companies continue to point fingers at each other as the source of my noise problem. My 1026 (and 1025) have allowed me to operate my stations while they work through their problem. |
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| N7QF |
Rating: |
2003-02-07 | |
| A must have. |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have had my unit for a couple years now and use it whenever I have a line noise problem. It really works wonderfully. Some can't get them to work, but this is due to their poor 'sensor antenna'. One must first solve this problem via experimenting, and then leave it. I find that the more (stronger) the noise, the better it works.
I can get the 'as advertised' noise decrease or attenuation almost always. It has often made the difference to me as to whether or not I can operate my station, during bad noise. One must be careful however, not to let too much RF into the sensor antenna or it can burn out the front-end transistor. |
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| W7UIV |
Rating: |
2003-02-07 | |
| Good learning tool |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
This is an idea I played around with back in the 50s. To get the best effect of local noise cancellation, without cancelling signals at the same time, try using a noise sensing antenna that picks up the local noise but doesn't work very well as a receiving antenna. For experimentation I've used a piece of wire just laid in along the top of our six foot high (wood) fence, and also one of those old Webster mobile band spanners (they are great for picking up lots of noise and no signals!!! hi hi) I have a local band of noise right in the middle of 40 CW and have been able to knock it right out.
One of the things about the ads that needs to be made plainer is that you can't perform all the things it will do with only one kind of antenna setup. You have to decide what you want it for and then install the extra sensing antenna necessary for that particular job. For cancelling pesky local noise you only need something that responds well to picking up that noise. To phase antennas for signal boost or null, then a second good antenna. It's a very intersting concept and does work. Be prepared to think, experiment and learn. I love the thing and have some other ideas on the back burner, but maybe will have to be at the I.F. level and involve two receivers. One for noise detection slightly off the main frequency so as not to cancel signals of interest.
Wouldn't be without it. |
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| KA1IS |
Rating: |
2001-11-26 | |
| Effective on power line noise |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| This box will eliminate external power-line noise, but requires some effort to install and make it work. As mentioned in K8AC review, you will need to use an auxiliary antenna to provide noise strength greater than or equal to your station antenna. A random wire or whip with the same polarization as your main antenna should do the trick. If the noise comes from several directions, you would be better off calling a real estate agent or joining a bowling leauge, than fooling around with phase cancellation. If your rig doesn't have provision for a separate receive antenna, you'll need to connect a control line for the anenna relay (like you do for a linear amplifier). When you actually use the device, the trick is to match the levels of the main and auxiliary signals, otherwise the phasing control won't do anything. The settings are usually good for about 40 khz bandwidth & then you need to tweek the phasing. Of course, you will probably cancel some signals as well as noise, but in my case, the noise reduction is worth it. I don't know why someone hasn't come up with a DSP application to simplify the process. Its truly amazing when it works, but a real pain to get it right. I have encountered no reliability problems and the physical construction of the device is solid. |
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| KE1L |
Rating: |
2001-06-22 | |
| A miracle worker... |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
My shack has a horrible noise problem on 80m - S9+ noise. It's rare to be able to copy a signal at all.
Enter the MFJ. It took quite a bit of fiddling with the knobs to find the right settings (a one-time effort for any given band; like an antenna tuner, the settings are repeatable), but what a difference once it's dialed in! The noise level drops from S9 to S1, and signals are suddenly there to be heard. There may be some attenuation of the incoming signals, but it's not an issue, since the band noise floor is still audible. I haven't measured the improvement in signal to noise ratio, but it's certainly more than 20db.
It's also effective on 40m - the results aren't as dramatic, since my noise problem isn't as bad there, but it does work. I haven't gotten it to do anything useful on 20m and up, but I don't have much noise there.
I did have one problem with it. Shortly after I made my first attempt at transmitting through it (at 5W using my K2), it went dead. I opened it up, and discovered that one of the tiny surface-mount inductors near the power jack was dead - it was actually visibly fried. MFJ service promptly sent a replacement. Since then, I have heeded their warning about using a T-R switching line, rather than trying to let the 1026 do RF-based switching; my plan is to set up a separate receive antenna, so I can get back the nice full QSK of my rig.
Also, I have had no success whatsoever with the built-in whip antenna. I hooked up a short wire antenna to the jack on the back of the MFJ instead. |
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| K3MOV |
Rating: |
2000-11-17 | |
| Good results, but try different configurations |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Whenever my 31" TV would go on, my activity on 20M and 17M would cease due to noise radiated at an S6 level. After wrapping all of the electrical cords and coax cables on the TV with chokes without success, I purchased an MFJ 1026 and was eventually able to decrease the noise to an acceptable level with my ICOM 756.
I use an attic antenna to pick up the TV noise for the auxillary lead in. In accordance with the instructions, I removed the whip antenna. To make a very long story short, when I followed the instruction manual to a "T", I found that the unit had little or no effect on the noise. At that point, I reinstalled the whip while leaving the attic antenna attached. Also,I hit the Inverse button and started turning knobs with no real method to my madness. I noticed that the noise began to disappear when I had both gain controls about 90% closed. I maneuvered the phase control to minimize the noise. Eventually, the noise was reduced to about an S1-2. With the DSP in the 756, I was back in business.
The situation still was not ideal because I lost some signal strength on the signal I was trying to copy. I just traded my 756 in on a 775. When teamed up with the 775, the MFJ 1026 works like a charm. I do not experience the severe loss of signal strength that I did with the 756. When I first hooked the 1026 to the 775, I got the manual out and did it "by the book". Eventually, I ended up tuning up the 1026 the same way I had with the 756 and it works great.
If you have bad noise from a source such as a TV, computer, etc, I would recommend you give this product a chance. Just be prepared to experiment a lot with the set up as I believe it simply varies a lot depending on your antennas and the nature of the noise. |
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| N4XX |
Rating: |
2000-11-17 | |
| No problems! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have used the MFJ noise canceller for three years, primarily on 160m. I use a low trap dipole (160-10m) for the noise sense antenna, and an inverted L as the transmit antenna. Some years ago, during the El Nino storm season, I was able to null storm noise in the Gulf of Mexico by 40 dB or more, allowing me to work 160m stations in Europe that only the operators with Beverages could hear. As long as the noise source is far enough away to appear as a "point souce" from your location, the noise canceller will work like a charm. If the noise source is distributed (e.g., line noise that is radiating around the neighborhood from the power lines), it can't help you.
Like anything else, if you know what the equipment can and can't do, you won't be disappointed!
Ted
N4XX |
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