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Reviews For: MFJ-949E

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : MFJ-949E
Reviews: 132MSRP: 149.95
Description:
300 watt 1.8-30MHz antenna tuner
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.mfjenterprises.com/products.php?prodid=MFJ-949E
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
001323.8
W4CDF Rating: 2006-03-16
Works For Me Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Tunes my 2 G5RV antennas to 1.2 on any band.
What else can you ask for.
KM5TC Rating: 2006-03-09
Very Good Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have owned a MFJ 945C, 969, and now the
949E. All of these tuners have worked well
for me(wished I'd kept the 969)
Set the tuner for 7.230 and have 1:1:1 down to
7.190(even lower) and up to 7.280 it goes
to 1:3:1. The point being, one setting covers
all the 40 mtr band I use. This is into my
KW 120s, into a dipole up about 18ft.

Since I'm a casual user of my equpiment this
tuner works well for me. 73's KM5TC
G3OZN Rating: 2005-12-28
Value for money Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Had one over 8 years, it has never let me down, ok I have never put more than 100 watts through it.
Replaced it with a Palstar AT1500CV only because I purchased a linear amplifier.
Certainly a roller coaster tuner (and the AT1500CV is superb)is a pleasure to use, BUT costs more; MFJ seems to get a bad press, but for the not so well off hams and the thrifty! they make a decent product at a reasonable price.

----------------------
Earlier 4-star review posted by G3OZN on 2004-05-29

I use it at home with a random LW and also mobile with the Hustler range of coils.
I find it does the job,it may look like a "kit" product but does not come at the Japanese extortionate prices of their products with shiny turned out looks, it works as well as the Japanese products.
Would purchase MFJ gear again.
KD4FUN Rating: 2005-12-14
Works for me! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Bought this tuner off of Ebay and have used it for approximately six months. My HF rig (Kenwood TS-450S) internal tuner will not operate at 4 Mhz which is what we use for Navy-Marine Corps M.A.R.S. As soon as I got the tuner in my hands I removed the cover to look for loose or missing parts. Everything was tight and soldered properly. I am able to tune 160 - 10 meters without difficulty. The antenna is a 130 foot dipole fed with 300 ohm ladder line.
KA2JIZ Rating: 2005-09-28
Very good first impression Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
As I have only had the 949E a few days I can't give more than a first impression review and that is closer to 5 than 4. Sucessfully loaded my indoor short zepp, which is no mean accomplishment. The cross-hair meter does give a higher power reading than the SGC digital read-out but a 10% difference is the norm for low-end meters. The SWR is accurate. Also, the unit itself is a nice-looking box and seems solid in construction. So far, so good, as they say.
KG4NCK Rating: 2005-07-17
Finicky Little Bugger Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Had my MFJ 949-E tuner for over 4 years now. It still works, meter and all, which suprises me. It is a finicky tuner though, the controls are very touchy, and it does suffer from a bit of "hand capacitance". But overall it gets the job done, if not with the greatest efficiency.

I should have saved my money a little longer and purchased a good quality roller-inductor tuner, like the Ten-Tec model 238B.
KG6POG Rating: 2005-02-21
No problems so far Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I've only had my 949-E for a few months, but it's worked fine so far. I bought it along with a Kenwood TS 480HX (200 watts) and my charted settings have never changed unless I made some changes to the antennas.

I've also had great success stretching mono-band dipoles to cover at least two bands with good results. I guess it depends on the dipole, and maybe I got lucky with my 949, but I have no complaints on it's ability to tune 200 watts on any of my antennas.

The features I really like are the two coax inputs and the wire input.

One thing I don't like about it is the Power meter, it's a joke. This why I only gave it a 4 out of 5. If the Power meter was even close, I would have given it a 5 without hesitation. But the radios power meter is more accurate.

Over all for the money it's a great buy. It has some very good features and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this antenna tuner to anyone.
W5NIG Rating: 2005-01-18
Decent bang for the buck. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had this one for a while now. The meter isn't functioning any more (static I think) but it works fine.

For the price it's ok. The largest load I've put on it is loading up my Mosley 40m rotatable dipole, which is only about 43' long, and loading it up on 160m to visit.
KC0SOG Rating: 2005-01-10
Decent tuner Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I have this one hooked to a 66 foot dipole fed with 300ohm twinlead. It tunes all bands from 80 thru 10 meters. I had to open the case and bend the inductance coil around a bit to fix a short on one of the solder joints. As far as cheap manual tuners go, this one is OK. The dummy load is a nice addition.

Doug - KC0SOG
OZ8AGB Rating: 2005-01-04
Still no Quality department at MFJ Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
When I received the MFJ-949E there were no sounds of "loose objects" inside. But when turning the Antenna cap something was wrong. I opened it and found that the cap was scaping against one of the inductor switch wires!!!! Well, that was easily fixed and the tuner actually works ok.

I wonder when MFJ will start to TEST their products before they ship them.........