| N5OZQ |
Rating:  |
2002-11-13 | |
| Marginally Functional Junk |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| The meters are decent. Mine is adequately accurate for SWR measuement; I only look at power in relative terms, so that's okay. Construction is minimal in terms of quality and the feel of the switches borders on scary, even when new. The tuner is, as far as I'm concerned, useless over 100W unless the match is close to begin with (this puppy WILL saturate easily.) Mine is in use as a switch/meter slave to the Dentron Super Tuner I bought to semi-replace it. Too bad it's such a jump monetarily from this to a decent contemporary unit. |
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| K2XH |
Rating: |
2002-08-03 | |
| OK |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| If you get one of these tuners, it will work if you first go in and tighten screws and make sure its soldered ok. Then it will work on up to a 9 two 1 mismatch. |
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| W8KQE |
Rating: |
2002-06-15 | |
| MFJ = SHODDY, CHEAP construction. |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
Having previously owned an MFJ 'Versa Tuner' back in the late 1970's (worked very well, and was better built back then), I wanted to give MFJ the benefit of the doubt, despite many negative reviews on their recent tuners, so I purchased this product. What a mistake!
Where do I start?! The construction, cabinetry, and fit/finish is shoddy, flimsy, and cheap. One of the 239 jacks was loose, and the front inductor switch came loose after only 2 days of operating! The black cabinet paint was faded and chipping where the top and sides form a 90 degree angle (I am going to have to repaint it IF I decide to keep this tuner)! The 'antenna' and 'transmitter' knobs had different colored insulating washers (white and black), which is visibly ridiculous! The knobs were completely different and cheaper looking than the ones I saw in magazine picture ads and on the operating manual (perhaps MFJ decided to put these in since the nicer ones were not available??)! I don't know about anyone else, but aesthetics DO matter, especially in a new product! MFJ obviously doesn't give a s**t about this, or their customer.
Operationally, the tuner works O.K., but mine is not too broadbanded at all when tuning a simple rotatable triband trapped dipole. The SWR varies considerably even when moving 20 or 30 Kc's away within a CW or Phone portion of a band! Based on past reviews here, I am guessing that perhaps there is something wrong with the capacitors or plate spacing, or something else internally that is indicative of lousy construction. In addition, hand capacitance is an issue here, whereas in my older MFJ tuner it was not. Even with a proper ground, the SWR needle swings considerably due to hand capacitance when touching the knobs on the front. This is, to say the least, annoying.
MFJ really should be ashamed of themselves for selling substandard product. This company needs some serious top-to-bottom quality control and better product designers! |
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| AB0TJ |
Rating: |
2002-06-11 | |
| Good tuner |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| So far I have had no (serious) problems with this tuner. The only complaints I have are that the ground lug comes loose very easily and your hand will change the tuning when adjusting the antenna capacitor, but it's not hard to get used to compensating for that. |
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| ON4LG |
Rating: |
2002-05-27 | |
| Good! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| A really good one... Been using it for 4 years now without any troubles. |
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| N4MJG |
Rating: |
2002-04-06 | |
| MFJ 949E |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I love this tuner,it belong from my friend of mine.he don't needed no more and he is a cber,i told him give me 2 weeks to try it out.i'm thinking of buying it from my friend of mine,it does it job what i needed it to do.it works on 11 meters too ,i had other friend of mine check out the tuner,it was little out of wack.but he fixed it for me, it works like it sould have. i hope to pass the gen. maybe next month,let us hope i can pass it... Oh yeah he selling for $65.00
73's
KG4ORX
marion j.green,jr(jackie) |
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| WB4HLJ |
Rating: |
2002-03-29 | |
| Very Happy With It |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I have been using this baby with a Hustler 6BTV for about a month now. Before I bought it I could NOT get the Hustler to load up with low SWR on 15 or 20 meters. Nothing I did helped, including following every suggestion provided by the manufacturer. The MFJ has cured all that, and I am getting great results. The construction is clean and professional, and the tuning is pinpoint precises. My ONLY criticism is that, on 20 meters, there is a tendency for hand capacitance to vary the the antenna setting. However, I have leanred to compensate for that, so it is not really a problem.
This was well worth the money. |
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| WA7IRC |
Rating: |
2002-02-21 | |
| Satisfactory for the Money |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I have had my 949E for about 3-4 years. Last time I used it was with a Cushcraft R-7000 driven by an ICOM IC-751 barefoot. It was always able to tune a flat 1:1 on 40 thru 10 meters. Having read some of the negative reviews, I decided to open mine up and take a look. Found no obvious construction flaws like poor soldering, loose connections, loose fasteners, faulty switches, etc. Maybe I got a good one; for the money I paid (around $100 new), I can't complain. I'm about to hook it up again, so I'll be sure to closely monitor its performance and update this review if necessary. |
|
| K9OSC |
Rating: |
2002-02-04 | |
| Poor Quality Control |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I have owned my MFJ-949E for over six months. Fortunately, I don?t have to use it very often as I endeavor to use resonant antennas on all bands. However, for those lesser moments when I have to force feed an antenna to get on another band it has come in handy.
Like many before me I have had issues with this tuner. When I bought it I found out that it tuned in a very peculiar manner. The tuning was very broad and didn?t seem to provide any real consistency across a given band as far as the antenna and transmitter capacitors were concerned. I opened up the unit and found a real mess.
They used way too much solder when assembling this unit. I ended up removing half the solder used. In the process I found one cold solder joint in the inductor switch.
Five turns on the inductor were shorted together. Notwithstanding the extra solder used, they formed the tap wires incorrectly and just tried to ?weld? everything together. I spread out the turns and resoldered each connection.
I also found that EVERY nut and bolt was loose. Not from shipping, but from poor assembly. Everything did have a lock washer on it, the bolts just weren?t tightened. That included the binding posts from the balun used for open feeders and/or a long wire.
The inductor is so close to the top of the cabinet I feared that it was possible that if the top were depressed that it would inadvertently make contact thereby shorting it out. I cut a piece of writing paper cardboard to fit the general area and fastened it in place on the under side of the cover with some double sided tape.
Finally, I cleaned out resin that had splattered on the bottom of the cabinet. This really didn?t affect the operation of the unit, but I like my equipment clean inside and out.
Since repairing my newly purchased unit it has worked fine. The tuning is much improved and much smoother. The tuning charts showing the relative positions of the tuning capacitors are much more linear and at least makes some sense.
It is indeed unfortunate that MFJ persists with these kinds of quality control issues. To me it clearly shows disregard for the customer and their attitude with after purchase customers is pretty much ?in your face.? While I will continue to use my tuner, I will not add any MFJ product to my shack. I have found over the years that spending a few extra dollars yields much better equipment from other manufacturers and courteous customer service, if needed.
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|
| WB2DEX |
Rating:  |
2002-02-02 | |
| JUNK ! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I took a chance on this one, and boxed it back up for a refund. Tried testing it out on a vertical on 10m which gives a swr of 2:1. Followed the directions, and found with it connected could not get below a swr of 6:1. Also found this little gem in the instruction manual."Tuner may arc when used at 160m, lower the power".How about adding "if you smell smoke, throw a bucket of water on it". Some of their stuff is pretty decent for the price, but this was one sick puppy. |
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