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Reviews For: MFJ-401D

Category: Keyers & CW Keyboards

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Review Summary For : MFJ-401D
Reviews: 12MSRP: 49.95
Description:
Budget Electronic Keyer
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00123.5
JOHN_HOOVER_EX_WK7W Rating: 2001-11-23
Don't Buy it Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I just purchased this keyer, and I've noticed that when sending dashes, sometimes an extra "dit" is inserted. The reproducible scanario is that I will send a W character "dit dah dah" several times, and about every third W will sound like AA or "dit dah dit dah." The second "dit" is inserted by the keyer without any contact to the dit pole of the paddle. This happens reliably but somewhat arbitrarily. I tried different paddles and other 407D's and it happens always. I've been a high speed cw op for years and never had such an issue with other keyers. At extremely slow (5WPM range) speeds it doesn't happen. I firmly believe this keyer has an inherent design flaw in the packaging which is causing subtle noise/coupling problems. Got my money back.

W8KQE Rating: 2001-09-30
Lousy Keyer! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Using and adjusting this keyer was an exercise in frustration! I returned it after a few days of messing with it. Even after extensive internal adjustments (as described in the manual), sending seemed very tedious and unatural, given this keyer's propensity to add unwanted time delay to the sending process. I don't know if this is a design flaw, or some kind of unit defect. I have had NO problems with the built in electronic keyers on my IC-756 and IC-718, but this external keyer (which I bought to key my IC-725) failed to deliver in a big way! MFJ really needs to user test their products more comprehensively before selling them. DISSAPOINTED.