MFJ 16010 RANDOM WIRE TUNER?

[KD6WAG]

I'm thinking about buying this nice and small random wire tuner. I've already read some reviews on eham.net but they are pretty old. I'm wondering what some qrz.com users think of that tuner.

I want to use it for field use and I like the compactness. I already have an LDG 200Pro, but I want the random wire tuner to be able to go "light and portable" with ease.

Thanx.

[NN4RH]

I have one. I bought it about four years ago. I think I used it maybe three times.

Nothing wrong with it. It's just that after awhile it made more sense to me if I wanted to go minimalist portable, to just bring resonant antennas or tunable antennas, and leave the tuner at home. So, I have made up several W5ALT Travel Antenna (http://www.comportco.com/~w5alt/antennas/index.php?pg=4) for 20, 15 and 10 m when I need to travel light. And I have a Superantenna MP-1 (http://www.superantennas.com/html/mp-1_portable.html) when I can bring a little more with me. THere are other similar base-loaded portable antennas, or you can build one yourself e.g. W5ALT Indoor Vertical Antenna (http://www.comportco.com/~w5alt/antennas/index.php?pg=3). #The point is that if you have an antenna that is close enough to resonance to give 2:1 or better, or can be adjusted, you don't need the tuner.

Having said that, if you're still interested in getting a MFJ 16010, I'll let you have my almost-unused 16010 relatively cheap. Email me.

[K5RCD]

As a random wire tuner it works very well. I have used one at 100 watts in my travel trailer a few times, and with a long enough wire it will tune down to 160 meters.

Max wattage rating is 200 watts, and I imagine it can handle that nicely.

I now use mine only as a tuner for a short random wire to a receiver in my shack. Works for that too.

Incidentally that tuner is still in production and was the first product MFJ ever marketed.

I think it will serve your intended purpose as well as anything available, and at a reasonable cost. #http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[KD6WAG]

Do you guys use a balun when your running a piece of random wire?

Here is what I was thinking of using. By the way, my wife bought me the radom wire tuner for Christmas.

Taking a long piece of wire without measuring it. Basically, keeping it "random" in length. Throwing it up into the top of a tree for the "hot" wire side of a 4:1 balun. Then running a smaller wire to the ground terminal of the balun and laying on the ground or driving it into the ground with a stake.

Next, connecting some RG-8 coax (about 25' length) to my random wire tuner and a 1' coax out to the radio.

Will this work? Thank you.

[NN4RH]

These tuners are really intended to directly feed the random wire; i.e. attach the wire and it's ground/counterpoise directly to the tuner. If you have to use a coax from the tuner to the antenna, make it as short as possible.

[AJ8L]

I have one mounted to the outside of my backpack that contains an SG-2020. I connect a 40 foot piece of wire to the tuner with a bannana plug and throw the other end of the wire in a tree. The tuner is connected to the radio with 1 foot of coax. I tune it easily on 20 through 10 and have even had luck tuning it on 40. I do not use any counterpoise. Stay away from 1/2 wave length wires with respect to the band you want to work. The impedence will be too high for the tuner. An antenna anilyzer helps in tuning your wire. Geoff, AJ8L.

[KD4PDQ]

I've had one of these tuners for several ears now. It works quite well with my kenwood 200 w transmitter. I have not had any problems eith the tuner thus far.
Presently I am using it on my DX 302 reciever as it works well on recieve too.
Picked up Barcelona Spain with poor baand conditions. I highly recomend the MFJ 16010

[G0GQK]

Those things cost a small fortune from the retailers in Britain, consequently nobody buys them.

G0GQK

[KF6OCI]

Does it tune a random wire any better than one of their other
manual tuners??

Dan

[NN4RH]

Does it tune a random wire any better than one of their other manual tuners??

Dan

No. It's just smaller.

[KF6OCI]

Thank You.

Dan

[KA1MAF]

This my point random wires are OK and very easy to put together.Now lets see if you agree with me put a balum coil in line and running a counter poise will make it better to tune it with a tuner.

[KF6OCI]

I've wondered about that. Do you mean a 1:1 balun and run one wire
as the long wire and the other as a counterpoise?

Does this work ? Does it matter which side of the balun, is it marked,
to use as the long wire?

Thanks

Dan

[ZL3GSL]

KD6WAG and KA1MAT. What do you want a balun for, particularly a 4:1 one? A random length wire working against an earth, or counterpoise is unbalanced,so doesn't need a balanced feed and it's unlikely to have a feed impedance anywhere near 50, or 200 ohms so a balun will not work very well. Why use coax, anyway? Read the manual (www.mfjenterprises.com/man/pdf/MFJ-16010.pdf) for this tuner to see how to connect a random wire antenna. ;)