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Reviews For: MFJ-974H Balance Line Tuner

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : MFJ-974H Balance Line Tuner
Reviews: 31MSRP: 190
Description:
The MFJ-974H is a fully balanced true balanced line antenna tuner. It gives you superb current balance throughout its very wide matching and frequency range.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.mfjenterprises.com/products.php?prodid=MFJ-974H
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00314.2
KC6LXR Rating: 2003-12-16
First impressions MFJ-974H Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.

I just received my MFJ-974H Friday from Universal Radio.As yet, I have not had a chance
to really use it enough for a full evaluation.
As detailed here in many other reviews of MFJ
tuners, there were a few problems related to sloppy assembly right out of the box. All three
knobs were loose on their shafts,making adjustment
of the tuner impossible.The problem here was
that the knobs were tight enough on the shafts that
two of them appeared to work.The third was definitely loose enough so that I noticed it easily.I immediately opened the tuner up and
tightened the knobs on their shafts. The tricky part here was to get the knobs far enough down
on their shafts so I could tighten the set screws
but not so far that they rubbed on the panel
and ruined the paint.Also,I had to make sure
that the markings on the knobs were aligned
with the marks on the panel so the knob position
was correct.
The plastic gears that turned the two sets
of capacitors were crooked on their shafts, but
they still worked ok, so I made no attempt
to get them aligned correctly. I suspect that
is may not be possible to get them so they are
straight, but I did not try.
The tuner seems to tune my 150 foot dipole
fed with 100 feet of 450 ohm ladder line ok
on all bands from 80 meters to 10 meters.It also
tuned up my dipole when I fed both sides as a long
wire on 160 meters.
I don't like the fact that there is no switch
to bypass the 974H or ground the antenna. It also
might be useful to be able to switch between antennas,both balenced and unbalenced, but all this would of course add to the cost.
When I work with this tuner some more, I will
try to write a more complete review, these are
only first impressions.