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Reviews For: AUTEK RESEARCH VA1-RF1-RF5 RF ANALYST

Category: Antenna Analyzers

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Review Summary For : AUTEK RESEARCH VA1-RF1-RF5 RF ANALYST
Reviews: 109MSRP: 129.95
Description:
The pocket-sized RF1 is designed to check and adjust antennas,
Product is not in production
More Info: https://web.archive.org/web/20130523062036/http://autekresearch.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
001093.2
K0UC Rating: 2019-04-18
Works pretty well Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Bought mine used for like $35.
More than got my money's worth.
Allowed me to tune a 10m loop I made fairly easily.
The one I have seems to be solid. No display or other issues.
Tuning can be touchy, but it certainly does the job and the fine tune control does help.
I like it!
W5WAA Rating: 2018-04-13
5 years later Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Did a review on this unit in 2013. It had always worked fine, then pulled it out for an annual antenna check and it was working erratically. Check the battery and it was down a little so I changed it. Didn't help at all. So after reading about all the bad experiences some people have had Been having this unit for over a decade, time for my "after winter check on the antenna". The unit was acting unstable, so I changed the battery. That didn't help at all. So I decided to open the unit and take a look at the inside. I was shocked to find numerous components that had no solder on them at all, don't see how it managed to work for 11 years! Anyway, after 15 minutes of soldering, the unit worked better than it ever. I can see why they went out of business if all the units went out with about 20% or so of the solder joints unsoldered. It has always served me well, but it works even better now solving a minor problem I had over the years of every once in a while the unit would get real "touchy".
WB0KWJ Rating: 2015-05-18
Poor implementation Time Owned: more than 12 months.
By itself, the hard-to-read display is a sign of trouble. Seeing it requires just the right tilt of the display against the light.

The unit, bought at a hamfest and clearly not much used, worked for a week or two of backyard measurements. Later, multiple 50-ohm dummy loads produced a 1.8-to-1 SWR and all manner of clearly erroneous readings on the other measures. Flexing the case would change the readings, but never quite correct them. An hour of resoldering seems to have fixed the functionality problems--although the display remained characteristically hard to read.

Full adjustment and calibration requires unsoldering a board. Given that this is a field unit, that would likely see more physical abuse and temperature fluctuations than a bench tool, the inability to recalibrate the unit without full disassembly is a serious design flaw.

As people say, there are some switch and connector pins that do not need to be soldered because they serve no electrical function. But, mine had some necessary pins and leads that were not soldered. Soldering all the pins on components is actually good practice, and improves mechanical stability. The unit I got looks like a very hurried job.

It appears that a lot of design compromises were made to cram a potentially very useful tool into a just-too-small box.
W7KEC Rating: 2015-03-21
Poor Construction QA Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Just picked up a RF-1 at a hamfest for $60. The unit looked brand new. Took it home and fired it up with a precision 50 ohm resistor. The SWR was 1.8 and the resistance showed 58 ohms. I opened up the unit and found lots of solder flux residue on the board. I cleaned that up best I could with some flux remover. On the LCD circuit board, there were 14 solder pads with the lead of the part sticking through the hole but was not soldered. I soldered all 14 connections. Put the unit back together and checked the calibration resistor again - SWR was 1.0 and resistance was 52 ohms. No wonder the company went out of business - they must have told their assemblers to cut back on the use of solder :-).
W8KX Rating: 2014-10-01
Very accurate Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Although a piece of consumer goods, this unit has proven to be exceptionally useful and accurate. Antenna reactance and capacitance measurements would put some professional equipment to shame.
AK0B Rating: 2014-07-27
Excellent I have the RF-1 Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had it for at least 15 years.

Excellent unit, great for field day and portable operation.

Stan AK0B
N7AG Rating: 2014-07-27
this one ok for 12 yrs Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Luck of the draw, some are fb, sum crap. Guess I got lucky.
KE6US Rating: 2014-07-27
VA-1 served me well for almost a decade Time Owned: more than 12 months.
My VA-1 worked fine from the day I got it 8 or 9 years ago. I used it for antenna work and bench work. My ONLY complaint was the 9 volt battery. I hate those things. Expensive and usually dead when you pick up the equipment to use it.

It was replaced by a RigExpert AA-54, technology that wasn't commonly available when I got the VA-1 and a lot more money. I recently sold the VA-1, but it served me well for quite awhile. I understand that Autek is out of business now, but a VA-1 on the used market would still be a useful tool.
W3JJM Rating: 2014-07-20
Good piece of gear. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had mine for 6 years. No problems, works great and I like the size and ergonomics. Manual is well sorted out and I learned quite a bit from reading it.
Great value and would give it a 6 if I could. Would not hesitate to buy from Autek again.

W3JJM
K9HZ Rating: 2014-02-24
Oh GOD Not Again! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've got four of these things in various state of repair... when they work, they work great, and otherwise are junk. Does anyone out there have a schematic for the thing so I can fix the ones that are broke now that they don't sell the RF-1 any more? I got two of these at flea markets and suspect the guys dumped power into them.