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Reviews For: Dentron MT-3000

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : Dentron MT-3000
Reviews: 34MSRP: 279.95
Description:
Dentron MT-3000
Product is not in production
More Info: https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/dentron-mt3000-a-butto
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00344.7
VE7REN Rating: 2022-03-05
truly a beast!get one! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
update 2022-still going strong. ihey never die. overall very happy.ide buy again.

2016-I bought a very nice 3000 4 yrs ago in september. read and done much research on the web . in the used market/ dollars compared to 7-1000 dollars for a modern tuner ,I jumped on it. the build is HEAVY compared to many,including my palstar at2k. its not even as heavy and the covers and guage of metal isn't as large.the mt3000 tunes everything I have here. 4 antenna. 3 wires and one verticle,connected to 3 radios into this one tuner. it works flawlessy. the meters are not PEP,and the size and accuracy are suspecting,but they do give me an idea as where im going during the tuning process,and I use a external yaesu ys meter inline to solidify my tuning.. overall, if you EVER find one used and in good shape or a steal of a deal. get one. they perform flawlessly
W8NVC Rating: 2020-01-05
Dentron #1 Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I owned 3 Dentron tuners, the super tuner plus, the Dentron At 1-k and the mT 3000A.
When i got a legal limit amp, I needed a big tuner.
I didn't want to break the bank with the Palstar.
So I found a good MT 3000. I was right. just like
the other Dentron Tuners I owned, just the Best.
No issues. You cant go wrong with a Dentron.
Made to last a lifetime. built like a tank.
If your not lazy and you can tune an antenna manually,
why waste your money on a newer problematic tuner?
This one will last you a lifetime. DENTRON.
K4KXX Rating: 2015-08-09
AS impressed as I can be Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
As a new ham, ticked as a Gen. since Feb 2015 I rely on eHam for a lot of information. I wanted to get a tuner that I wouldn't have to worry about when I could finally afford an amplifier. After reading all the reviews about the MT-3000 I was lucky enough to find one for about $200.00. When I t arrived I opened the box and thought I had gotten a brand new on!! It was a thing of beauty and now sits proudly atop my IC-746 ProII. Thanks to all the folks that do these reviews, they are an amazing help to us newbies..
K0OD Rating: 2014-10-29
Terrific tuner but metering is defective Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Dentron's MT-3000A tuner has the honor of being the oldest piece of equipment on my operating desk. Acquired new for $350 around 1979, it served well for high power DXing and contesting on all HF bands. Nowadays I mostly use it to match to my 43' vertical for rag chewing. Performance degrades on 80 CW and especially on 160 where the occasional smell of melting Plexiglas warns that some watts are being lost to heat. Diehard 160 QRO ops should probably choose a heftier and much costlier tuner. Other hams will love the rugged and attractive MT-3000A.

My unit does suffer from a common and puzzling malady. The separate forward and reflected power meters have displayed erratic readings since Day One. K5LAD, WY3A and others blame this problem on improper bridge resistors R1 and R2. They argue that their resistance should be identical and probably around 50 ohms. Despite the MT-3000A manual listing values of 10 ohms and 43 ohms, my unit had resistors of 10 ohms and 47 ohms. The nearly identical Dentron W2 wattmeter also calls for resistors of 10 and 43 ohms. Is it possible that such an error went undetected until recently? I'm curious whether Dentron changed the bridge circuit during the tuner's years of production.

A rainy weekend provided time to tear into my tuner. First off I discovered that the internal dummy load was non-functional because the soldered-in fuse was blown. The wattmeter board with its questionable bridge resistors on the backside can be accessed by removing two screws and unsoldering a couple of wires. I decided to replace R1 and R2 with matched 50 ohms resistors. I examined the two cylindrical 1-8 pF trimmer caps C1 and C2 which are screwdriver adjustable through holes in the back panel. Those trimmers and three nearby pots are used for meter calibration. On my tuner C1 and C2 were difficult to turn with a jeweler's screwdriver which kept slipping from the slot. Dentron's skimpy manual says nothing about those adjustments.

Thanks to Bill Patton WY3A for composing calibration instructions: http://www.qsl.net/wy3a/Dentron_Mt-3000A.htm

The MT-3000A power meter, originally rated at +- 10% full scale accuracy, was never lab-quality. The meters are tiny by modern standards. Time and heat have surely taken a toll on components. But at least the power readings are now tolerably accurate and they rise and fall as expected when the matching controls are tuned. If you have ideas on further improving the metering accuracy please contact me at k0od@arrl.net
WD5DJX Rating: 2013-08-28
Built like a Tank! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This tuner is one of the best tuners I have ever had the please of owning. I liked it so much, I bought 2 of them and use them every day. I have other tuners including a Palstar, but this thing will tune a barbwire fence if that is all you have for an antenna. The only thing that comes close is a Palstar or a Heathkit 2060. If you can find one and need a tuner, buy it! You will never regret it! WD5DJX - The Bull said that. BTW, mine are the MT-3000A model.
KC9WI Rating: 2013-08-26
Someone has to pass away to get one. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The only way I could get one was from the estate of a silent key. No one in their right mind would sell theirs.
This thing can lay the reflected power meter flat on just about any part of the HF band. I run 200' of 450 ohm window line to an all band doublet @ 50'. All I had to do is tweak the window line length and the Dentron does the rest. Meter power buttons almost always pop off, but I just glued mine back on. I don't use the twin meters to tune it anyway, I have a big Swan WM-2000 at eye level.
If you have one, open it up. Man .. it's a work or art, clean lines, great solder joints.
The only way you'll get mine is over my dead body.
K5YZS Rating: 2013-03-16
Good on 40 Meters, But...... Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought my MT-3000A in 1980 and used it with Drake TR7 and Heath HA-14 (Kompact Kilowatt) on 80 meters thru 15 meters. So far so good. Then in 1985 I got interested in 160 m band after the noisy LORAN was shut down. I worked 160 meters with TR-7 barefoot as the HA-14 only went down to 80 m band. During years of use, the small flag push-button switch indicator flags quit working. In 1990 I added an Alpha amplifier to the mix and upgraded my antenna to work band end to band end on 160 meters with ladder line feeding the antenna, and the MT-3000A to make 160 meter QSY possible. In working at legal limit on the 160 meter band I used switch position "R" (most of the coil) and at times did arc the caoacitors. I got hold of the TL, and TLW modeling program by Dean Straw nd that inducated the C1 and C2 capacitors were to low in pF values (at 240 pF) to be efficient on 160 meter band. I removed top of case and did some high power transmitting and the the steel mounting plate at the ground end of the coil got too hot to touch (too much circulating current with the too small of pF capacitor values). Read the test article in QST history when natchers have too small of pF values. Very 1nefficient at around 0.8 dB metwork loss. What to do? Running the software indicated that doubling the pF;s for C1 and C2 would make the MT-3000A more efficient on 160 meters. OK !!! Read the latest
MFJ ads, where their high power matchers have now gone to 500 pF and 1000 pF on the output side
on the MFJ-9982. Wow. Its only taken manufactures over 30 years to wake up. Read Fredrick Terman's book chapters on network design and network dissipation. A 0.8 dB loss due to heating in a mis-designed network can heat up a network by almost 120 watts (enough to melt solder connections) when running 100% duty cycle 1500 watts. I added switches to select extra padding capacitors for 80 m and 160 m operating and my coil tap dropped from "R" to "L" tap and that is more efficient as was predicted by the model calculations. Proof ?
My steel mounting bracket no longer over heats on 80 m and 160 m. This unit uses heavy duty parts as noted by others, BUT it is not network efficient on 80 m and 160 m bands without modifications. Get the software OM's and learn like I did. 73 Jim, retired engineer, k5yzs
N7CPU Rating: 2012-06-27
Threw all my MFJs in the junkbox Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
What can I say that hasn't. I bought one off ebay that was corroded, rusted, dirty, etc...after about 20 hours of restoration (including photoshopping a new face) this has to be one of the best tuners ever built. Switches will handle more than 3kw pep without a problem, inductor is well spaced away from the caps and cabinet. The only weak link is as others have said that the balun leave some to be deisred. It does work and is within 15% of balanced, but I seriously doubt it would last long at 2kw let alone the 3 it is rated for. It will warm up with 300 watt carrier into a 300ohm load in a short time. Overall, it will match the proverbial coathanger and bedspring without breaking a sweat at the legal limit all day.

super great tuner IF you can find one. Even worth the restoration time if you fine a basket case
N0PL Rating: 2012-03-11
Gerat Tuner Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had my tuner for a number of years (more than 10 but I just don't remember, probably closer to 20) and it has yet to cause one problem. Tunes anything I can hook up to it. I have some automatic tuners (LDG 1000) and there is no comparison between the construction. As said by others, if you get an opportunity to purchase one, GRAB IT. You will not be sorry.
K7NG Rating: 2012-02-17
Excellent & Reliable Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I debated whether to give a 4 or a 5 on the rating, and decided to make it a 5 even though in my personal category that means 'no cons'.

The tuner has only one 'con' and that's that it really needs one ot two more 'bypass' positions in the antenna selector switch, and I mean 'full bypass'. There is one bypass position and it's Antenna 1 - you've a choice of bypass or tuned. Other positions are always tuned. I have a SGC 230 remote auto tuner at the base of a vertical and I would like to have a fully-bypassed-always switch position for it.

Now that I've spent lots of space griping about one minor issue: here's the 'pro's'.

* I haven't run into anything I couldn't tune on any frequency.
* I don't use a linear, so I doubt there's anything I could do to this tuner that could damage it.
* The metering IS accurate.
* Internal grounding is very well done.
* The internal dummy load is a nice touch. No problem with handling 150W for almost unlimited periods.

I've used it on field days and except for having to find space for it on a small table, it makes temporary antenna operations trouble-free.

I grew tired of grandiose claims about antenna tuners, so I went out and found one that looked like it might actually work, and I (for once) was right. The MT-3000 is it.