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Reviews For: mAT-1500Pro

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : mAT-1500Pro
Reviews: 4MSRP: 700
Description:
mAT-1500Pro tuner, compatible with Icom, Kenwood, Yeasu and most other transceivers. Matches 10:1 back to about 1.5:1 but mostly better. It doesn't send PTT to the amplifier during the tuning cycle, this is very important for amplifiers. E.g. the Acom1200S works excellent with this tuner, where it doesn't with other auto-tuners. Great product, never seen and Auto-tuner this good.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.mat-tuner.com/mAT-1500Pro.php
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
32.743.3
2E0EUG Rating: 2024-12-04
Bad Tuner bad support Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
This tuner is terrible, it has problems on 40 meters and other bands despite the internal 7610 tuner working on all bands no problem, it tunes then it doesnt tune, its pure overpriced trash, I opened it up and removed the internals and the input SO 239 fell off the board, it wasnt even soldered correctly! The support is garbage, I emailed the designer on the support website, bg3mzu, he replied once, pretending he didnt understand the problem, I sent him a video and he ignored me, utterly disgusting.
DK1MI Rating: 2024-12-03
Non-existing service, bad design Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
After I received the tuner, I connected it to my Yaesu FT-710 via the separately available cable and tested it. The first tests were very sobering. The internal tuner of the Yaesu is able to find a good match on every band, the mAT mostly only found matches like 2.5. After some testing I decided to send the tuner back, but I still wanted to test it with the amp. I made a mistake and accidentally tuned it briefly at full power (350W). The tuner still worked afterwards, but the matches were even worse. So I opened the device, removed the sensor board and realised that at least one resistor was damaged.

So I had two options: Repair the sensor board or buy a new one. mAT has contact information on their website which I used to ask for a circuit diagram. I also tried to enquire whether they would sell me a sensor board separately. Unfortunately, I never received an answer. The local dealer was also unable to help me with this.

My critical points, which make me advise against a purchase:

* max 15W power when tuning is far too little for a 1500W ATU. The fact that the device broke is definitely my fault
* The tuner finds almost only bad matches, cannot be persuaded to retune
* The service is not bad, it's just not there


UPDATE: I've repaired it and it works nicely now. You can find my story here: https://dk1mi.radio/mat-1500pro/

I will still not give it 5 stars because of the lack of customer service and the max. tune power of 15W
VY0AW Rating: 2024-09-24
So far, so good! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I bought my MAT-1500pro on eBay from the Chinese manufacturer because I couldn't find one on the Canadian retail market. Normally I'm a little bit leery of spending more than $100 for an eBay purchase (though I've never been burned, touch wood) but the tuner arrived sooner than expected and in perfect shape.
First impressions: It's surprisingly heavy and seems well built. The relay switching is a little bit noisy, but it tunes so fast that the noise isn't a problem. The LED's on the front panel are big and bright (in my opinion a little TOO bright). Hook up to my Kenwood TS-890 was straight forward and, using the third-party cable (from Vibroplex), the operation is totally automatic - just press the "AT" button on the 890 and one or two seconds later the system is tuned.
I've always had a problem with calling these devices "antenna tuners" since they don't really tune the antenna but just remove/reduce the reactive component from the feedline/antenna combination. This tuner certainly does the job.
Update: I've had this tuner for almost six months now and it has worked flawlessly. Tuning is very fast and hook-up and operation couldn't be simpler. I now use it with my Mercury 3S amplifier at up to 1,200 watts output. No problems.
ON5HB Rating: 2024-03-18
The best auto-tuner on the market! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
This is by far the best auto-tuner on the market.

It matches 10:1 back to about 1.5:1 often better.

It does it fully automatic, just hit the TUNE button if your transceiver has this.

Important, it doesn't give PTT to the amplifier during tuning, so no problems with e.g. Acom Solid-state or SPE Expert amplifier.

Where most other tuners can tune, but you must set the amplifier in Standby by hand, not so with this tuner.

It tunes real fast. Yes the leds do not mention Kenwood, but Kenwood tunes same as Icom, so when using a Kenwood TRX it will show Icom.

It is fully automatic, and then I mean really fully-automatic, you 'scan' a band once, it remembers and knows where to go based on CAT info.

Same for antenna selection, when you set an antenna for a band, it remembers and switches automatically.

I have been running this tuner with the SPE Expert 1.5K-FA at full 1500W, no problem.
Currently with the Acom1200S at 1200W, no problems either.

And yes, this tuner matches almost everything you connect at it, even when my antenna was broken, G5RV (one leg was disconnected) it managed to tune it and make my amplifier happy. Yes my signal was still strong on the bands, as the G5RV started to work end-fed, like an Inverted-L :-)

If you look for an auto-tuner, this is the one to get.

I tested: MFJ-998 / Acom 06AT / Palstar AT2K / LDG 1000Pro2.

Some are a bit better at tuning, some are automatic....yet none of them comes close to the mAT-1500Pro.

Ps. Acom will tell you auto-tuners do not work with their Solid-state amplifiers, this one does works fine....only one.