| N5IIA |
Rating:   |
2022-09-23 | |
| MFJ owes me money for doing their QC work |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Just bought this from HRO on Monday. Hooked it up Thursday to my window line fed 160mtr dipole. Initially, tuning was fine at 10 watts. Turned on the amplifier, and put about 200 watts into the tuner. The swr was initially flat, but slowly began to steadily climb. It was acting as if the torroids in the balun were heating up. I turned off the transmitter. I tried again. Same thing, except this time the power output meter on the tuner pegged, and I heard the famous MFJ arc inside. Forward power meter was now non functioning, and the tuner was unable to match anything properly at 10 watts. I opened it up, (which is what I should have done before ever using it) and found the grey cable which leads from the rf sensing board to the meter circuit board was laying up against the transmitter variable capacitor. RF had burned through the cable covering, melting and shorting the meter and power wires. It also was the reason the variable capacitor wasn't working correctly. Whomever built this thing hadn't routed the cable properly underneath the variable capacitor. Probably realized it was wrong, but didn't think it would matter, and called it good. Well, believe me, it mattered. Thank God I discovered this using 200 watts, not 1kw! I wound up disassembling much of the tuner, repairing the burned wires, routing the cable as it should have been, replacing a destroyed smd resistor in the RF sensing circuit, and oh yeah, properly aligning the plastic gears for the roller inductor. My unit had a red dot inside showing "PS 3-22" for the production run. If you are a plug and play, appliance operator, you should probably steer clear of this tuner. I tell new hams, "MFJ provides the opportunity to learn how to repair their products at no extra charge." |
|
| KF5CCN |
Rating:  |
2022-04-29 | |
| No more. |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Customary loose nut rolling around that did not go anywhere. SWR would drift up above 400 Watts.
Shipped it back the next day.
Ordered a Palstar AT2K with both 1:1 and 4:1 current baluns and very happy.
No more MFJ anything... ever. |
|
| MM0DVZ |
Rating:  |
2021-03-16 | |
| Never again |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Bought this MFJ 989D new. Opened it up to install the battery and wow, never seen anything so poorly built in years. No shielding for the meter board which is right underneath the transmitter capacitor. Plastic gears that don't even mesh correctly and the capacitors grinding as you turn them, (touching,bent with no spacing). Found an Allen screw rolling around which I later found out comes from the antenna selector switch shaft (it fell out when turning it up after putting the casings on). Could hardly turn the inductor control which is plastic and was likely to break. The inductor was completely out of adjustment and unable to rotate and jumped out of mesh the first time I tried to move it. Terrible build quality and obviously no quality control plus the casings are all scratched like a second hand unit. Total and utter junk. |
|
| K8DXX |
Rating:      |
2020-10-11 | |
| Still Great After 3+ Years |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
After 2 moves and 3.5 years, it is still is working good. Easily handles my ALS-1300 (1200 watt PEP) amplifier.
Roller inductor still smooth and highly repeatable. In fact, all settings (Transmitter, Inductor, Antenna) are highly repeatable. Make a table, record the settings, repeat with confidence. Switches still tight. Now that we live in Florida (well, guess I did this in Michigan, too) I always disconnect antennas after every use... and the SO-239 connectors are still very tight. The light, peak reading meter and dummy load still work fine. No complaints. Wish I could say the same thing about the MFJ 998 auto tuner I bought and returned!
-----------ORIAINAL REVIEW---------
After reading some of the reviews on eHam, I had some concerns about buying this product. I almost wonder if most satisfied owners aren't the writing/reviewing kind? Well anyway...
I got a great price on this from Gigaparts at Hamvention. It arrived today (Wednesday 5/24) in the MFJ factory box. Packing on the part of MFJ was more than adequate with what looked like hand made Styrofoam inserts and loads of packing material. I disassembled the unit for a quick inspection and to install the recommended 9 volt battery (no need, really). Construction looked first rate. The roller inductor and turns counter operate smoothly. I'd give the fit and finish about a 4.95 as it took a little effort to get all the screws back in. There was also one tiny paint missing spot near one of the screws. Otherwise, the unit looks nice sitting on my upper equipment rack. The SO-239 connectors and binding posts seemed first rate. The coaxial connectors were very tight, just like you'd want new ones to be. I think this says that MFJ did not use cheap ones here!
As a tuner, I successfully matched a 2.5:1 at 3.770 on my OCF dipole (no big deal). All controls worked smoothly. Using an MFJ 259C as a tuning aid really works slick.
The watt meter might be a tad generous but basically agrees with the RF Applications VFD I just sold. The peak-reading meter does a better job of catching expected voice peaks than did the VFD (older version with 8 bit processor probably not fast enough). The meter is large, bright and easy to read (powered it with a $6 Chinese 12V 2 amp wall wart). It shows the expected 600 watts out of my ALS 600 (to be augmented by an ALS-1300 tomorrow, oh boy). The dummy load handles 100 watt audio tests without bothering on-air operators. Nice feature to have and look Mom, no transformer oil!
As a ham since 1964, I would recommend this tuner to anyone except perhaps for a RTTY or digital contester running 1500 watts, full duty cycle. Construction is medium to heavy duty; good enough for casual SSB rag chewing and DXing at 1200 watts. Connectors and controls are solid. Matching appears so easy and repeatable, I could not justify twice the price for an automated tuner like the MFJ 998. |
|
| AC6BW |
Rating:      |
2020-08-30 | |
| Great Tuner |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I recently bought a near legal limit amplifier, so it was time to move up to a legal limit tuner. I am using the 989D with 2 antennas. The first is a vertical dipole that has hi-Q end loading elements. This antenna has very narrow bandwidth, and requires substantial matching when operating outside of the 2:1 SWR bandwidth. I normally run about 500 W through this antenna. The 2nd antenna is a hex beam, that I run 1300 W at times, and requires some touching up of the SWR on a couple of the bands.
This tuner does a fine job tuning either antenna. This was my first experience with a roller inductor tuner. My first impression is, what a difference it makes! I can find a perfect match for even the most reactive loads on my vertical dipole, where my previous tapped inductor tuner was not able to. The Tx and Antenna capacitors turn very smoothly. Once the proper inductor setting is found, there is a wide range of settings for the capacitors. The 300 W dummy load is a nice feature that I find very useful.
I opened the unit up, to install the 9V battery. I inspected all of the solder joints, as well as the the roller inductor mechanics, and everything looked great.
As with any piece of equipment, it is important to RTFM. One important point is to always tune for minimum inductance (highest number) and highest capacitance (lowest number). This minimizes the reactance of the T-Network, and reduces the losses. So far, this has been a great unit, and I hope to get many years out of it. |
|
| AB9PM |
Rating:   |
2020-05-11 | |
| Well, nice looking but... |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I have used on the tuner primarily on the 50 ohm coax connections for the last year and a half. I changed over to a window line balance line doublet random wire antenna. It tunes many bands for amateur radio but it didn't tune 30 meters. But changing to balance line and running the amp once I pass 550 watts the needle on the meter goes full reflection. The meter reading for swr on the radio and amp are good, but not the tuner. Very disappointing. It is really a shame when you spend this amount of money on a tuner it would not function properly, it functions like a Mighty Fine Junk product. I guess the owner should learn to drive his car with 3 wheels and one missing once to understand his problem with his company. |
|
| WA6PBJ |
Rating:      |
2019-08-19 | |
| This is a good buy! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I don't know about the moans and complaints but this unit is a good buy. I suspect the 'bad apples' are literally bad runs in the factory and SHOULD have been caught. But they were shipped! This happens folks! I am sorry though for those who got one of these bad units. It happens with any thing., There is always some that get past QC (if there is even a QC). Many factories run PILOTS once and then build many of these units, never to do a QC even on a sample basis!!! Not happy for sure. |
|
| KA3PCX |
Rating:    |
2019-02-27 | |
| This tuner may be ok for some hams, not others! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have owned this tuner for about 7 years and bought it used.
After using it for several years the light stopped working.
I use a Al-811H with the tuner. There have been some complaints about the meter functioning of this tuner.
Well if applying low power it works just fine, but when you apply high power the swr meter doesn't work right,If you use a radio with a swr meter it shows it is working properly. So take it for what it is worth.
Pros: low price compared to the competition.
Cons,: How long will it work and some hams have reported quality control issues!
Going to buy a higher priced tuner because of the amp I am using, Ray KA3PCX, I hope this review is helpful! |
|
| WA3RSL |
Rating:      |
2018-12-09 | |
| Never a problem |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Never a problem with the 989D. Used with various antennas including an 800 foot long wire.
The built in dummy load is nice too.
----------------------
Earlier 5-star review posted by WA3RSL on 2013-02-10
When I first received nt MFJ-989D, I opened it up and did an inspection and found all solder joints excellent and no loose or missing parts. I live in an apt with antenna restrictions. I load up my gutter by running a single 22 gauge wire out a hole in the side of house to the gutter downspount and connected there with an alligator clip. Can load any band and have no problems at all. I have several ground radials run inside my apt. I have an Elecraft KX3 that drives my Dentron MLA-2500 to 300 watts out, so that's the max power I'v ever run through the tuner. I like having the dummy load, it's useful as are the meter and coax switches. 73 all! |
|
| KJ4WIS |
Rating:      |
2018-11-19 | |
| Great Tuner |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I ordered this tuner a few days ago from HRO and it was delivered the next day. Pulling it out of the box I was impressed by the fit and finish. This is definitely a good looking tuner. Checked her out and all knobs and fittings were good. Hooked her up and all antennas were very easy to tune. I don't know why it has as many negative reviews but the one I received is great. Talking to HRO about the reviews (Atlanta) the customer rep I talked to said that in 9 years, he has not had a return on the 989 tuner. He felt that the negative reviews were overstated due to some of the reviews on MFJ in general from years past. Anyway, for me, this is a great tuner! |
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