| NE0P |
Rating:      |
2004-12-06 | |
| Works on 6 meter too |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
Mine will also load antenna on 6 meters, although the MFJ ads don't list this feature, and the power meter might be a little off. Still, a way to use it on another band, as my Mini Products Mini Quad needs a little help on 6. The MFJ 941D or 941E will also work on 6, although the ads don't state it for these tuners either.
|
|
| HK3IHK |
Rating:      |
2004-12-06 | |
| Great , 10 years working... |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| Ten years with my 949E. Have used mine for matching a 80 long wire, 40 meter dipole, which I match for all bands 10-160M. Always worked great and very reliable with TS-430S, TS-140S and TS-50. Also worked great for matching the 20 and 10 meter aluminium dipoles. Happy dxing. |
|
| N1BEC |
Rating:    |
2004-10-03 | |
| Not a great tuner, but it has its uses. |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I bought the 949-E a little over three months ago specifically to use "on the go", either mobile or out in the field away from the vehicle.
Going into this, I knew the MFJ certainly wasn't a Johnson, but I wanted a tuner that was fairly versatile, would be used with no more than 100 watts input, and small enough to fit into a mobile situation.
I elected to buy the 949-E new (of course, two weeks later I was offered one at half of new, but none were available at the time of purchase).
Testing it at home with a TS-50s going into a slightly shortened 80M dipole with about 25' of homemade 4" spacing ladder line, I was able to load up on all the basic bands 160-10M with the exception of 40M (expected, as this gives you about a 5000 Ohm load).
Operation was iffy: Repeatability was virtually non-existent. It seemed like every time I returned to a band and went to my pre-set chart, I would have to hunt and radically retune.
This seemed to be worse on lower bands than higher in frequency.
I finally popped the covers: Workmanship wasn't the best, but it was passable. A few solder blobs were pried off the rosin on the circuit board before they came loose and rolled around.
The unit was finally tried mobile. Setup was a Chevy van, and the '949-E was mounted on a 6" wide copper strip on a 1 x 12 about 2' long.
The TS-50S was leftmost on the board, external speaker in the middle, then the '949-E on the far right side.
The antenna was a long wire snaked though the passenger side window. From there, it went up onto the roof and was suspended about 2' above and along the length of the roof. This became known infamously as the "clothesline" (this was probably due to envy. There are only two groups of Hams: Those that work HF mobile, and those that wish they could. Disparaging comments from members of group 2). Total length is about 15'.
The copper strip was attached to ground off both ends of the board with soldered on braids salvaged from old RG-213 coax.
Results were fairly good from 5 MHz and up, with regular operation on 20M & 17M.
The "hand capacitance" effect was quite pronounced. Once the pattern was seen, it was quite easy to dip the last control to minimum reflected power, back it off a bit counter clockwise, and it would generally be right on the money.
Further fixed station use of the '949-E had problems: The inductor switch had worked its way loose.
Operation subsequently was "iffy" on all bands, the problem isolated to a poor jumper used with open wire feeders. Out with spade terminals, in with real, American made banana plugs.
The last obstacle was a load test with 100 watts on 160M: This should have put maximum stress on the tuner. With 100 watts, it arced over nicely. A quick check showed dust in the loading cap facilitated an arc.
Blowing this out resulted in a spectacular light show! Now there were blue flashes coming from over a half dozen places between the cap rotor and stator!
The tuner was pushed as far as it could go. I resigned myself to settle for only 50 watts out on 160M.
All other bands were able to load up to the full 100 watts without "arcen und sparken".
I couldn't imagine attempting to put a full 300 watts into this POS, not even into a real 50 Ohm load!
I was, however, impressed that the unit did indeed tune up on all the WARC bands, plus the new 5 MHz ones, and at least one Homeland Security frequency that I have occasion to use.
As I didn't expect much from this unit, I wasn't dissapointed by its inability to handle much power.
It fit nicely into a mobile environment.
All in all, it is a good tuner (but only just), as long as you know its limitations. |
|
| KB4LP |
Rating:     |
2004-09-14 | |
| Good Tuner |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I have had the 949E for about a month. During the first use, I noticed a scraping noise as the Antenna adjustment was made. Opened up the box and found that the stator of the capacitor was rubbing against one of the wires going from the inductor switch to the inductor. Moved the wire and the tuner worked perfectly. I inspected all solder joints that I could see and they were fine. I do notice some interaction when a hand is placed upon the knobs or the case. This effects the adjustment somewhat, but it is minor. It tunes everything my antenna can throw at it. I would recommend this tuner, but you may have to remove the cover and fix some things. For the money, I consider it a good buy. The 4 rating is because I had to "fix" the unit before use. |
|
| W4EPA |
Rating:     |
2004-09-02 | |
| Used for years. great!! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| Have used mine for matching a 160 dipole which I match for all bands using 450 ohm ladder line. Always worked great and very reliable. Recently replaced with a Palstar AT-1500. Also worked great for matching the 160 and 80 meter dipoles on all bands up to 28mhz. My dipoles are on a farm with unlimited space but lots of lightning so no tower. Happy dxing. Jim W4EPA Social Circle, GA |
|
| DK3UZ |
Rating:   |
2004-09-02 | |
| unprintable |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Out of the box this matchbox wouldn't match anything, not even a 50Ohm dummy load! The culprits were solder beads sticking to the inductor switch. Quality control an unknown procedure in Starkville? While looking at the innards I couldn't fail to discover that a wire going to one of the rear UHF connectors is routed alongside the hot end of the inductor. The built-in cross-needle VSWR meter reads low by about 20% on both 12 and 10mtrs. A balun at the output end of a matchbox, where it will face reactances of all sorts, is a joke. No need to mention that MFJ ignored my complaints.
I have this (junk)box now for almost 8 years, the last 6 of which it spent as a kind of glorified antenna switch. |
|
| K2PJT |
Rating:     |
2004-06-05 | |
| Worth the price |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have used this item for 2 years to match up dipoles, extended double zepps, off center fed full waves, and some wierd things that are not in the books. Operation has been qrp on 80-20 meters. It has given good service except for the need to replace diodes twice and a slight inconsistancy between its indicated power output and that shown on my other MFJ tuner and a quality outboard wattmeter.
----------------------
Earlier 4-star review posted by K2PJT on 2002-05-05
I have been using this unit sucessfully with my QRP transceiver for nearly a year loading dipoles, EDZ's, harmonic wires, and wires with no known names. I have had some problems with other MFJ products but not with the 949E |
|
| KC9FOA |
Rating:     |
2004-04-04 | |
| Works Well |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Ordered a used one for $80 and when it arrived it would not tune my dipole to my IC-718 and showed no forward power on the cross needles. I called MFJ and after a very short hold the technician heard my tale of woe and asked if I was able to change a diode, when I said yes he suggested that I change them, I did. The tuner now works fine and the repair cost me $2 plus 15 minutes of time. All the horror stories I heard about MFJ tech support did not apply in my case. And I am happy with the tuner. I would suggest they put a little more effort in the box. |
|
| WB2FYY |
Rating:    |
2004-01-02 | |
| Works-- but do the shake test. |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I bought this unit new and for the past few months, used it successfully to tune a variety of antennas.
The unit always rattled when tilted, but I never bothered to open the cabinet to see what was up, until today-- where (in addition to slivers of ceramic, a stripped wire and a lock washer)-- I found that the 50 ohm ceramic dummy load resistor had never been fastened to the chassis.
I don't think an expensive tuner like the 949E should require the end-user to complete the assembly.
The construction on rest of the unit seemed okay. |
|
| VK1OD |
Rating:   |
2003-10-26 | |
| Ok, but... |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
The '949E is a good combination of functionality, but (as often the case with MFJ) the implementation is shabby. The following are specific criticisms:
- The PEP meter does NOT read PEP on voice (as for example the one in the MFJ969 does well). This problem can be fixed by adding $0.20 worth of components for an active meter amplifier to the PCB (they know how to do it, the holes are there, they just saved on the components) - copy the '969 circuit.
- The shafts of both variable capacitors are not grounded, and are at RF potential. This creates a real RF burn risk from the grubscrews in the knobs or from the metal skirt, which although isolated is quite well capacitively coupled to the shaft.
Looking at the circuit diagram of the new '974, I see they have repeated the "PEP" fraud. |
|