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Reviews For: HAMPLUS MBD-8F antenna switch control unit

Category: Antenna Switching, Phasing, Controllers

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Review Summary For : HAMPLUS MBD-8F antenna switch control unit
Reviews: 1MSRP: $499.99
Description:
The MBD-8F is a smart antenna control switch providing automatic antenna selection with HAMPLUS antenna switch boxes.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.hamplus.com/mbd8f.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0015
WC3O Rating: 2020-03-08
Great Time Owned: more than 12 months.
We installed this system at Skyview Radio Society K3MJW/W3GH in November of 2017. We have had great success and are very happy with the products. The switching units are smart and communicate with our radios. From our radio data they also control our band-pass filters. There is also a band data output and RS-232 port. The switches can be controlled remotely through software. In a multi-op station there is full antenna interlock protection and hot switching protection. We purchased the components from DX Engineering. When we first bought the system there was a problem that landed up being mislabeled fuses that were installed. The customer service from both HAMPLUS and DX Engineering was over the top. Since the initial problem in 2017 we have had NO problems with heavy use ever since. Also see my review of the switch box, AS-84F. The units use common cabling. You can purchase the official control cabling, but they are just straight-thru DB25 data cables. The BUSY lock-out and CI-V cables are simple 3.5mm stereo cables. One of the other big selling points for me was that you can add labels to the back-lit switches. I made a WORD document with the antenna descriptions and took it to a local office supply store and had them made into transparencies. I cut them up and installed them inside the switch caps and it looks professional. Since many of the control connections in the rear are the same type of connector we applied color-coded dots to reduce the likelihood of accidentally plugging in the wrong connectors to the wrong ports. Each control unit remembers what antenna the radio was on the last time it was on that band. So the antenna controller automatically switched antennas when you change bands on the radio. (No need to touch the switch when changing bands) There is a provision to switch antennas from transmit to receive. For instance you can use your tri-band beam to listen on 160 meters for better S/N ratio. There are also other functions I'm not covering here.

Also, look at Green Heron Engineering for wireless ways to control the system. Ours is hard-wired

A couple of things I am not crazy about:
I don't like the fact that despite there being a barrel connector on the back of the unit for power, the unit is actually powered by switched power out from the radio. I would prefer the switch power from the radio just be used to signal the unit to turn on. This could easily be fixed with a relay. However, we have never had a problem since 2017 so... No big deal

The switching for the band-pass filters is switched from the positive side, not pulling a relay low from the filter. HAMPLUS sells an interface that allows you to control common band-pass filter systems.

Bottom line is that this is a great antennas switching system. Highly recommended. I would definitely buy again.