| KU3X |
Rating:      |
2009-10-30 | |
| Thumbs up for MFJ 929 |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
AD9P said it right when he said, "it sure beats the heck out of the LDG Z11 PRO !" I use shortened dipoles for both 75 and 160 meters. The Z11 PRO could not couple those bands from one end to the other. On 75 meters it was good for about 250 KHZ and struggled to match it at the 1.5 to 1 SWR level. On 160 meters, I think I got around 130 KHZ. I put the MFJ 929 in line and I could work the entire band with an SWR of less than 1.5 to 1. I then set the 929 to stop tuning at an SWR of 1.2 to 1 or less. I could couple both antennas at an SWR of 1.1 to 1 over the entire band on both bands. If you couple the Z11 PRO to a dummy load to fool the tuner into thinking it is trying to match a resonant antenna at 50 ohms 0J, the Z11 PRO actually makes the SWR go higher. It can not think and go into bypass. I did the same test with the MFJ 929 and it knew it did not need anything to make the match. The tuner went into bypass and the rig saw a 1:1 match. There may be times you don't remember where an antenna is resonant and hit the tune button on the rig. The Z11 failed this test. That's why I made the dummy load test.
I really like the LCD on the unit. It give you a lot of information.
The 929 has too many features to talk about here. The previous reviews tell it all.
I have not found one thing that I do not like about this unit.
Barry, KU3X |
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| KC6RHE |
Rating:      |
2009-07-30 | |
| Works great |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I am getting into more HF after passing my general and bought a IC-718 and the 929 tuner, I am happy with the results and plan to take it to my cabin to use with my Yaesu FT100D when there. for the price and compatibilty of both radio's its all good. It tuned up my Antron 99 to 20 meters and I was making contacts witin 5 minutes. |
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| W9OY |
Rating:      |
2009-07-03 | |
| I made mine remote |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I decided to build a stealth 45ft vertical hanging out of a tree. I ran a wire up to an eye-bolt I had placed up in the tree, ran out a few radials and connected the wires to a S0-239. Rather than tune the vertical through the coax back in the shack, I decided to tune the vertical at its base. I bought this tuner, and a .50 cal ammo box for 10 bux to use as a water proof container. The tuner fits nicely in the box. I punched a hole for threaded barrel coax feed through and ran a short 3 ft separate piece of coax out of the ammo box to the base of the vertical.
The 929 has built in power injection so you can run power to the tuner from inside the shack on the coax. You need a separate power injector box to do this which is easy to build or you can purchase from MFJ. This thing works great. On 40 the 45ft vertical even with just a couple of radials is only down about 2 to 3 dB from my 1/2 wave end fed vertical with 4000 ft of radials into Europe.
To tune I change bands and hit the tune button on my radio with about 10W The antenna clicks to resonance and I'm ready to go. If the tuner is tuning I can watch the tuning progress on my LP-100 power meter and when every thing is stable and the SWR is under 1.5:1, I know I am tuned. I do not have covenants but if I did, and I had a tree, I would stick up this antenna using this "tuner in a ammo box" in a heart beat. If I wanted to be real stealthy I could bury the ammo box wrapped in plastic and NO ONE would be the wiser |
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| K4MSG |
Rating:      |
2009-06-01 | |
| Great tuner, great price! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Very nice, easy-to-use, wide-range antenna tuner. I have not tried tuning it by manually setting L and C, I just let the tuner “do its thing” automatically and that works fine with my wire antennas. The default target VSWR of 1.5 keeps the radio happy (and it’s usually much lower than that) and the tuning time is quite short.
Since I’m using the MFJ-929 tuner with an IC-756PRO transceiver I also bought the Icom interface cable and it was well worth the extra money. The tuner gets its power directly from the transceiver and the transceiver defaults to using the MFJ-929 when powered up, which is exactly how I want it to operate.
I noticed one deviation from the manual description: The manual states that pressing (for 0.5-2 seconds) and releasing the TUNER button on the radio will cause the radio to key at 10 watts momentarily while the tuner tunes the antenna, and this is correct. However, the manual also states that this same kind of tuning function works on Yaesu radios by pressing and releasing the TUNE button on the MFJ-929, and I found that it works with the Icom radio the same way. It doesn’t seem to matter which button is used (TUNE on the tuner or TUNER on the rig) as they accomplish the same purpose of tuning at reduced power – which, by the way, is very convenient. MFJ states that the tuner should only be tuned at a power level of 20 watts or less so this single-button tuning functionality eliminates the need for fooling with the power setting on the radio before and after tuning the antenna. Press the button for about a second and release, the antenna is tuned at 10 watts, and voila, you’re ready to transmit.
The packaging is modest but attractive, the display is easy to read, the button & menu sequences are easy to learn (but I had lots of practice with that using my IC-706MkIIG, HI-HI!) and the tuner overall works great. I highly recommend this unit as a great way to “graduate” from a manual transmatch. |
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| W2NLS |
Rating:      |
2009-02-11 | |
| Great With Icom 746Pro |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have had this for a couple months and am a big fan now. I originally bought it because my G5RV could not be loaded on the lower part of 80M by the Icom 746 Pro's built-in tuner. So, I bought this unit with a cable for Icom transceivers.
The cable simply attached to the back of the Icom via a molex connector and then a modular-style plug on the back of the tuner. The cable supplies the tuner with power and allows two-way communication between the tuner and the transceiver using Icom's AH-4 tuner commands.
So, once connected, all you need to do is to push the TUNER button on the 746 Pro and it uses the MFJ tuner instead of its internal tuner. Oh, one thing the manual was not clear on -- first thing after you connect and power it up is to go to the tuner's setup menu and choose to change from the default of no radio interface to the Icom/Alinco choice. Until you do that the tuner powers on but doesn't know the rig is connected.
I originally set this up with an antenna switch to split its output between ant1 and ant2 of the Pro. My original idea was that I would just use the MFJ on 80M off ant1 and then switch to ant2, bypass the MFJ, and use the Icom's internal tuner which did load the beam on 20-10 and the G5RV on 80-40 except for the low half of 80. Well, that worked but it wasn't long before I just decided to use the MFJ tuner on every band and every frequency instead of the 746 Pro's.
The MFJ tuner is FAST, maybe two to three times as fast as the Icom on solving a new frequency. And, of course, the MFJ's rampant memories ensure that most often-used bands will almost immediately tune up. And, the MFJ's digital metering of both forward and reflected power as well as swr is just a great addition to the shack and to knowing how my rig is doing. The metering alone, really -- by itself -- would be worth the cost of the tuner!
You really can't go wrong, I think, buying this unit. I think it is one of the best ham accessories I have ever purchased. I may be getting an amp in the future and, if I do, I'll spend the additional money to get the higher-power intellitunernas well.
MFJ -- Compliments to the chefs! |
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| W4ONC |
Rating:      |
2008-03-05 | |
| Works Very Well |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| On my 'I Want List' I have listed an SWR Bridge. Now that I have the MFJ-929 Tuner there is no reason to purchase one. This tuner gives you the reflected power and forward power including your antenna's SWR. Since I have designed my own 4 leg inverted V with one feed point and a 4:1 Balun this tuner is very fast in tuning the antenna from 160meters to 10 meters. I give this tuner a definite 5. |
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| AB2TC |
Rating:      |
2007-12-17 | |
| Excellent tuner |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| This is my 3rd review of this tuner. I have decided to ignore its quirks (tuning failures) and give it a full 5 this time 'cuz it it really does everything that I want. It is now into its second CNY winter out there in its plastic dwelling and still going strong. I don't notice any problem with temperature or humidity fluctuations. |
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| K4SAW |
Rating:      |
2007-11-15 | |
| would recommend highly |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have had this tuner for about 2mo. and love it.
I use it with a G5RV and a Maldol HV8-U.It has opened up the band use of both antennas which is great.It's fast and and works great.I had the opportunity to compare it next to the LDG 200 pro
and is just as good.I love the freq. counter and the digital display to see the readings at a glance.It of course has the "clicking sound" but not as loud as the LDG and not a problem.I purchased the MFJ-929 for the price and features.I am very happy to have chose this auto-tuner would recommend it in a minute.If you are looking for a auto-tuner you can't go wrong with this one.73 de K4SAW. |
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| K1TN |
Rating:      |
2007-08-29 | |
| A neat, useful accessory |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
A great review of the MFJ-929 Intellituner has already been written by Phil Salas, AD5X, and is at www.ad5x.com. I'll try to add a little. This is my first autotuner.
About 10 years ago it looked like I would forever be consigned to apartment dwelling and operating on the fly and on the sly. So, I bought an MFJ-934 tuner, the "artificial ground" model with a balun. It served me well in operations from numerous locations, in five states, with countless pieces of wire for antennas.
My one, and only, ham radio interest is CW HF contesting. So, I need to put out some RF on 80, 40, and 20 Meters (and 10 and 15 in years of some sunspots). At the moment, I'm stuck in a second floor (top floor) condo, with a 40-Meter dipole, indoors, fed with about six feet of 450 ohm balanced line. About a month ago, I tried extending one leg of the dipole to 66 feet by throwing an extra 33 feet of wire off the balcony and into a tree.
I loaded this up on 80, using the Random Wire terminal on the 934, and it worked. But, in less than an hour's use, I cooked the internal balun. I diagnosed this by digging out a trusty MFJ W9INN balun (apparently no longer offered), hooked it up, and the 934 worked fine.
So, I decided that while I waited for a new internal balun for the 934, I'd get an autotuner, hence the MFJ-929.
The 929 is tiny! About 2/3 the size of the 934. I like the display and don't find that I miss an analog meter at all. I don't miss having an internal balun, either, since I have the external balun (whose core is probably three times the size of MFJ's little internal baluns).
The 929 tunes my 40-Meter dipole on every HF band from 40 through 10 Meters.
On 80 Meters, I tie the two ends of the feedline together and feed the resulting single wire to the 929's Random Wire terminal, and it tunes up fine. I can actually work people on 80.
Now, none of this is anything I couldn't do with the 934, or most manual tuners, for that matter. But I'm in a very restricted situation here, where everything is a compromise. Since one leg of my antenna is right over my head, and there's RF everywhere, I have battled problems like RF getting into my Ten-Tec Jupiter.
I played with the 934's artificial ground and different lengths of counterpoise wires, to no avail. The 929 has enabled me to relocate the tuner in the room, move wires around, and so on. I don't have to be able to reach it from the operating position. And, it easily adjusts to mysterious changes in antenna characteristics which require retuning and, since the antenna is indoors, I am at a loss to explain.
I really like that the 929 has inputs for two coax feeds, or one coax and one Random Wire feed. I use this feature to feed one antenna in two different ways. Very convenient.
This little product has opened up a lot of possibilities here. I am so smart to have bought it! -- Jim Cain, K1TN
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| KC5HMC |
Rating:      |
2007-05-21 | |
| Well built |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| I purchased the tuner 9 months ago and installed it into my truck to help tune my bugcatcher and it has worked perfectly. Much safer to use when driving than a manual tuner. So far it has held up to the rough ride in a F-250. |
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