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Reviews For: MFJ-1982HP EFHW

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : MFJ-1982HP EFHW
Reviews: 2MSRP: $109.95
Description:
END FED, 1/2 WAVE, 80-10M, 800W, WIRE ANTENNA
Product is in production
More Info: https://www.mfjenterprises.com/Product.php?productid=MFJ-1982HP
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0023
N0VTY Rating: 2023-12-08
Not up to the task Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have run this antenna in multiple configurations and could not get it to tune as advertised. 80 meters would not work without a tuner Even as a vertical. I could get a good match on 40 1:1 and 20 was decent or perfect with my tuner. Inverted v sloper, flat top and in different places with other peoples gear, same results. I bypass the unun and get fast quick matches with my LDG tuner or internal tuner of my ft-991a 160m to 6m. go figure. I will try my own 49:1 unun on it and see what happens. It is just an expensive piece of 133 ft wire at this point. May have to put my unun in there case to make it work right. I by passed the MFJ unun with my 49:1 unun and BOOM 1.5 to 1 at 3.568 MHZ. I will replace the MFJ unun with mine. There's has never worked right from day 1!
When I removed the MFJ unun it was not a 49:1. not with 12 secondary windings. The primary was 2 turns of single white insulated wire right above the coax connector. Another wire(the secondary) came across the core from where the secondary winding was. The capacitors were 220 pf at 500 volts each, way under rated, and of course they are zapped. Reused the cores and rewound with bifilar wound primary 8th turn across the core to the other side of the core for the secondary. Used 14 awg wire. And poof, without retuning it is in the middle of each band starting with 80m at a 1.2 swr dead center. Even 10m is in the middle of the band with a 1.5 swr. Never should have bought there antenna.
K0DXV Rating: 2020-03-25
Simple to erect and effective in use Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
There are 3 versions of this antenna This review is for the high-powered version. It is rated for 800 watts which makes it a good match for the intermediate range amplifiers such as the Ameritron AL-811, AL-811H, ALS-600, and the Elecraft KPA-500 as well as other amplfiers that produce 800 watts or less.

I erected the MFJ-1982HP with the feed end in a tree at about 35 feet. The radiator wired extended out flat for about two thirds of it's length. The last third came downward at a 45 degree angle with the end tied off about 20 feet above the ground. This is probably a typical installation.

To meet my expectations, the MFJ-1982HP would need to be tunable by the internal tuner of my Icom IC-7300. The capabilities of the 7300's internal tuner is very likely typical of most modern transceivers.

I tested the antenna on all bands from 80 through 10 meters. I tested it from the low end to the top end with several stops across each band. After completing this process I was impressed to note that the 7300 had no trouble obtaining a good match on every frequency I tested. (I did not test on 60 meters).

The bottom line is that the MFJ-1982HP did exactly what the advertised specifications said. However, I did not see the kind of SWR shown in MFJ's advertisement. This may be the result of my particular installation. This did not concern me. My expectations were that it would tune acceptably on all bands and this was clearly the case.

Moving on to performance I observed very strong signals on those bands with activity (75, 40, 20, 30, and 17). I made numerous contacts on digital modes and SSB with good to excellent signal reports. I ran 600 watts on SSB with no observed degradation of performance.

In view of the low cost and simplicity of the MFJ-1982HP along with the fact that it covers so many bands that are easily tuned by my radio's internal tuner, I would rate this product as an excellent value. How well it performs for each installation will probably vary. But for me it works very well.