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Reviews For: MFJ-998 IntelliTuner

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : MFJ-998 IntelliTuner
Reviews: 112MSRP: 699.95
Description:
The MFJ-998 Full Legal Limit 1500 Watt Intellituner takes you to the final level in automatic antenna tuners. With a capability of 1500 watts SSB and CW, coupled with automatic tuning, your high-power station can now operate essentially hands-free even when frequency and band changes are made.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.mfjenterprises.com/products.php?prodid=MFJ-998
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
001123.8
K9YEQ Rating: 2012-04-30
New firmware is super! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Here's what I wrote to MFJ:

Message:

I wanted to give positive feedback about the firmware update to my MFJ-998 high power tuner. I could not find a place to do so. I am complaining because in all the grief you get, no where do I find a place to give you a high five for an excellent result. I can go to eHam, I will, but I want your employees to know how satisfied I am. I am very happy about the product despite past issues which, through our mutual persistance, were resolved. This sticky tune feature has created a very excellent tuner to fulfill my needs.

THANK YOU!!!

I use the tuner remotely with only power on and off. The sticky tune restarts with power on-off. The firmware has also reset issues which may have come from stray RF... I run 1.5 KW. The settings for .5 swr Gets the tuner generally at 1.2-3:1 on all bands on a loop and dipoles. From 160-10. ONce in awhile it is sluggish so I power off-on to reset the tuner.

Overall I am very pleased with it for the cost and this is why I rate it 5. If it cost more I would rate it 3 or 4.

Bill
K9YEQ

James Schings Rating: 2012-02-12
Excellent Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This is my 2nd review since I have now owned the unit for over a year. Use it with a Hexbeam (20/17/10), a HiGain HT-18, and a Skyloop 290ft.

Not a great fan of MFJ's usually quality (especially appearance cabinets. etc). (Same as this one. But this unit has been flawless. Works all the time on all the bands and all my antennas. The skyloop is sometimes difficult to tune with a manual one. In less than 2 or 3 secs it's tuned with the 998. Use it from 200 to 1200 Watts. Best MFJ unit I have ever owned.
K4WES Rating: 2012-02-02
Not as good as advertised Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had it for over a year now and I can tell you it does alright. It definitely isn't as good as a manual tuner and there is still some manual tuning using this automatic tuner. Kind of misses the whole point of being automatic. I was tempted to return it, but I have kept it, since I didn't want to pay the restocking fee and return shipping. I'll just have to get better antennas.

It works well with my beam, since the SWR on most bands is under 2:1. Hence no reason to really need a tuner with that good of an SWR, so what is the point of having an auto tuner? On 12m the tuner is very sensitive. I have a Force12 C4-XLS. With a manual tuner, it is no problem at all.

It works well with my Carolina Windom 160 Special on all bands, including 6m.

Also, on my 160m inverted dipole (260' long) with ladder line, it doesn't tune well at all on 160m and almost impossible to tune on 80m. With my manual tuner (VC-300D, only supports up to 300 watts), it works perfectly and is very easy to tune.

The whole point on getting an auto tuner is so I don't have to play around with the knobs/buttons. Which can take up to a minute to adjust. I do have a chart, but with changing weather conditions, it also changes the SWR on the antenna.

I wish the LDG AT-1000 Pro could be used at 1,500 watts and not 1,000. They missed the boat and my sale there.

Also, the other purpose of buying this tuner, was because I plan to get an amplifier in the near future. Currently I'm just using 100 watts.

73 de k4Wes
LA2RRA Rating: 2012-01-19
Works great ! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Perfect match for my Kenwood Ts-950SDX and Sb-200 amp with home made Carolina Windom.Matches from 160-10 m without any problems at all 1:5 max swr :-) Of corse have not powered up with max legal watts yet but i will try my Expert 1kw amp later but realy this amp is on my K3 and Steppir 2 el beam :)))
AI4QJ Rating: 2012-01-18
A Great Value But Be Prepared to Work with MFJ on Quality Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The first 998 the I received from HRO in December was missing jumper JP1 and the interface cable 5114Y was miswired. So I made my own jumper and contacted MFJ to send me a new cable and a jumper. They sent me a new cable and sent the miswired one back as we agreed. They did not include the jumper though. After less than a week, the tuner malfunctioned for some reason; it wouldn't tune anything and the input swr to the radio was very high after the tiuning cycle stopped. Then I contacted HRO who had me ship the unit back to them at my expense and they shipped another one out of the AZ site. This tuner does work well and even included the jumper. I connected the jumper and the 5114Y Yaesu interface cable after setting the ft-950 to external tuner. I was surprized that, unlike the internal tuner, the external tuner light only 1) stayed lit after it was tuned and 2) the tuner light goes out after changing the frequency just a little. So to make the tuner light stay on, you have to hold it for 2 seconds, let it tune and then it will stay on. I noticed that when doing this, the HRD PC interface software button ATU also stayed lit, or unlit, the same as on the ft-950. This is VERY useful for remote operation (I had to create a separate macro to initiate the HRD tuning cycle, AT001 I think). So now I can tune from HRD remotely and I know if the tune was successful (ATU button is lit). All in all, the tuner is very fast once you get enough frequencies in memory. If you do hit a high SWR where the transceiver folds back and does not supply enough power to the tuner, you can just hit the tune button on the 998 to put it in bypass mode. The you should be able to get enough current temporarily to initiate the tune (I use a G5RV); for example, going from 80m to 14m may have enough impedance to cause the radio output to fold back, where bypass disconnects the tuner and usually gives you enough power to start tuning (this is stated in the manual and it works). Remotely I cannot do a bypass command but for HRD I created an HRD macro for the radio that puts it in AM with a 25W carrier for 5 seconds and then back to USB or LSB. It works for me. Would I recommend this product? Of course! Just understand that, although the design and quality of the components are excellent, and the coils are widely spaced and very low loss (unlike perhaps some more expensive high power autotuners), the only problem is in the assembly. You need to be the type of person who removes covers and inspects or even reworks a few things inside and not get too frustrated about it. Eventually you will have a well working system and at that point you will have a very high value at a very low price. I would have given the 998 a 5 had it not been for the quality problems with my first unit. My true rating is 4.5. But don't worry, MFJ and (in my case HRO) will work with you if something goes wrong.
N3LK Rating: 2011-12-07
Bottom-line: It works! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have used the MFJ 998 for 18 months, and have been licensed for over 40 years so I have experience with both this equipment and competitors. Bottom-line: tuner works, and performs well, meets specifications . . . despite very poor documentation (especially on Transceiver to Tuner configurations and operations), and some quirks in design (i.e, circuit protection trigging “power setting warnings,” and rater noisy tuning on new frequencies).

In most cases the problems mentioned in past reviews – I have also experience some of them -- come more from lack of understanding of the MFJ 998’s design and operations, which can be both the fault of the operator (me too!) and poor documentation.

When I used mainstream Transceivers like the Yaesu FT-2000 or Kenwood 590S and the recommended cables, it works fine out of the box performing automatically across multiple antennas and bands. The rather noisy chattering of relays quickly diminishes once the tuner memorizes your behavior with antennas & frequencies (memorizes over 8 different antennas and 100’s of frequency combinations).

However, when I used older equipment (Collins), or non-traditional rigs like the FlexRadio 5000A the documentation is very sketchy as to setup and operations. With the Flex there is no “XCVR Cable” to link the equipment, but once I looked around the Internet I found lots of folks that dropped knowledge-crumbs to help make it work (use the SDR Tune setting (8-10W) to trigger Auto Tune). If you are using older equipment there may be workarounds . . . but maybe you should not worry too much about auto tuning antiques?

As for MFJ build quality, you mostly get what you pay for. MFJ 998 cost $100’s less than high-end competitors (Palstar, Tokyo HP), and it does the job. I would follow suggestions of other reviewers, taking a quick look at connections and missing screws (I did this, but it was OK).

As for Ratings, it deserves a 4 1/2, but I still like it so I gave it a 5!
K6ELE Rating: 2011-11-14
Works good with some quirks Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Purchased from HRO in September 2011. Now have about 40 hours of operating time on it. When I unpacked the 998 I decided to open the unit to check it. (From reviews of other MFJ products indicating loose items, etc.)

There was one PL 259 missing the locking nut, which I found rolling around in the bottom of the case. There was a fair amount of solder residue inside, consisting of small balls of solder, some rolling around and some on the surface of the PC board. I carefully vacuumed up the solder and replaced the cover.

I have had several quirks occur in its operation. The most common is the message "Huh, increase power". This happened several times when I tried to tune my Force 3CSS tribander to 17M and 24M. According to my MFJ 259 the Force is about 5.9 SWR on 17 and 24. After cycling the unit numerous times, it would tune 17 and 24.

While working a contest running about 600 watts I noticed several times that the display would blank out, which required me to turn the unit off and on to get display working again.

As others have stated the meter is useless for measuring power out as it does not have the peak hold. My AL 800 has peak hold, so I use it to monitor power out.

I run 1200 watts out on SSB from my AL800 with no problems other than those mentioned above.
Overall, the 998 does the job.
KB6HRT Rating: 2011-11-14
Not so Good Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Had a 993 tuner and wanted to run my SGC-500 amplifier through a an auto tuner changed out my MFJ- 993 a direct replacement for the MFJ-998, under low power 20 watts tried to tune the MFJ -998 in the same system that I just had been using the 993 tuner in, tuner meter flashed and went straight up and stayed there, there was a pop and an electrical smell, checked out tuner with an ohm meter, it was grounded and so was my SGC-500 amplifier which had never been turned on, sent the MFJ-998 tuner back to MFJ with a cover letter inside the box with it. I also sent the SGC-500 up to SGC for evaluation. Received an call from SGC a week later letting me know that there was damage to the safety circuit board and it had to be replaced! Two weeks later received the MFJ-998 tuner back with a new meter installed incorrectly in the face of the unit with out an explanation of what may have happen an if it had been checked out or not, my thought is if MFJ could not even replace the meter correctly bet they didn't check out the SMT circuitry. I put the MFJ- in storage and brought a LDG-1000 PRO to replace it when the SGC-500 was repaired This has been a very costly learning lesson that MFJ has tough me............KB6HRT
KM6JD Rating: 2011-08-17
It is simply amazing! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This full legal limit antenna tuner is a joy to use in the shack. I have it hooked up to my IC-7600 and Ameritron AL-80B amp. The tuning is smooth and quick. It has more features than any other auto-tuner out there. The menu driven display is easy to use and understand. I like the fact that I can actually see the capacitance and inductance values by simply going to another menu. I am able to tune my 60 foot shunt fed tower on both 30 and 40 meters with it. The design of the unit apparently uses an actual MFJ antenna analyzer to determine the freq., capacitance and inductance values and then uses a number of algorithms to get the best match possible. I hope it keeps up the good work. Definately worth the money if you like automatic tuning instead of fiddling around with turning two variable caps and roller inductors by hand using a conventional tuner.
N1BBR Rating: 2011-08-04
Didn't work for me Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've been using an SGC 100 watts unit for about 5 years with great success. Added an HL-1.5 amp to my station....time for a higher powered tuner.

I purchased a new 998 from my favorite dealer who always treats me good. Tune setting = 15 watts.
In all but two bands the unit did not know I was transmitting. I put on a brand new 2 foot length of RG213. The unit still did not know the rig was transmitting @ 15 watts. I played with it for about half a day trying to see if the problem was user error, but no joy. I called mfj, was on hold for a while. They asked me if they could call me back. I gave them my number. They never called. My dealer took it back no questions asked, no restock fee.