I've long had mixed feelings about MFJ. They have some very interesting, innovative, and cost-competitive products. However sometimes the quality isn't there. For example I have an MFJ antenna analyzer that was intermittent until I fixed a poor ground connection. I forget the details, but as I recall the problem was partly one of design.
Alan N1AL On 2019-04-07 09:28, Wayne Burdick wrote: > I've used many MFJ products and in have had very little trouble with any of > them. For example, I make frequent use an MFJ-223 hand-held VNA -- it's > versatile and does the job. I've also used their manual tuners, antenna > switches, and portable/mobile whips. They have a very comprehensive product > line that's really unique in the industry. > > That said, I do have some suggestions for MFJ's engineering team on how they > might improve their ATU. > > Looking at the photo, I see that they used much smaller toroidal cores for 5 > of the 8 inductors in the L network. This could result in excessive heating, > especially on the higher bands, at full power into a worst-case match. We > specified T68 sized cores to remain conservative based on extensive testing. > Also, if you click on the photo to see the details, you'll see what appears > to be very inconsistent hand soldering of the SMD components. While this > doesn't necessarily worsen performance or reliability, it should be done in a > way that inspires confidence in the buyer. (Easy for me to say, of course. We > have the luxury of mass-producing these assemblies using automated > pick-and-place equipment at our fabricator in Monterey.) > > Wayne > N6KR ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
