MFJ in partnership with InnovAntennas and G0KSC

Every sentence above is pure Nathan at his best smoke screen generation as anyone who has followed your actions on here for many years. Your constant attacks from the fractal days to present are classics of your very disturbed personality that only knows how to attack without actually answering a simple question.

 

Details

 

For our consideration---
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Carl WHo:" Cushcraft was heading for dissolution."
MWRF Journal: "Cushcraft was sold for (close to) $90M (USD)".
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Obviously MFJ is a very flexible company in finding business models that work for firms it wants to be part of. In this case (OP) a distribution and manufacturing agreement with Justin made great sense for both parties.

Many times acquisitions of companies or brands lead to their downfall. Gibson is a perfect example of an acquirer that kills companies AND brands. It owns at least a dozen , that have fallen into or close to oblivion, such as Baldwin; Oberheim; and so on. Now Gibson itself is in serious trouble: only its Epiphone division is keeping it from closing down (how many Les Paul's can you own?) In Cushcraft's case, the company ceased to exist when Laird bought it. The brand continued and was purchased by MFJ, who continues it successfully. Cushcraft was never "heading for dissolution." And it hasn't.

I sure enjoy looking thru the MFJ catalog. Their ad copy is just SOOoooo COOoool!

Enjoy your success on this Justin. Time to celebrate

73
Chip W1YW

 

I guess that Nathan isnt capable of reading comprehension (again) what I posted earlier below.

Nathan also hasnt yet provided the data on how much Laird sold the minority sales amateur products to MFJ for?
Dont hold your breath folks

Keep it up Nathan, your nasty reputation is just keeping on growing but you are unable to realize it. When you finally crash it wont be pretty

 

and I would add... In spite of all the MFJ bashers and detractors!

 

Happy user of 4 MFJ products, and one Ameritron with no issues at all.

Haters are gonna hate, and people with bad experiences always make more noise than those with positive experiences. Nobody wants to bash a product they paid a lot of money for, just the less expensive ones. This also leaves companies with budget priced products with lots of negative reviews.

Five star and one star reviews of products are both kind worthless. I only pay attention to reviews with constructive information.

 

And I would counter that the proof is in the negative comments scattered all over the Internet unlike for any other brand.

The remainder are lucky, have such simple products that are trouble free, or are are prime examples of the decreasing technical ability/quality of hams that they are easily brainwashed by price first and have learned to accept the deficiencies.
A small minority, myself included, are sufficiently trained and able to do our own repairs, upgrades and modifications as well as for others.

 

Carl,

You are truly a *.

KE0KZI, welcome Joe! Glad to have you aboard

Hope to work you sometime on the bands...and be sure to come to Dayton

73
Chip W1YW

 

Hi Chip:

A quick five minutes by you with a search engine would've yielded plenty of hits regarding the defective "bendy" MFJ trap design now used in a variety of products by MFJ, including the A3S and A4S, plus others. But, for you and anyone else who is "search engine challenged", or otherwise living in the "Twilight Zone", here are some examples. If you'd like more, feel free to browse on your own.

From Jim Colville, W7RY:

"Well I decided to take the defective traps apart. I have another A4S that I got as parts from another ham. I took one of the traps apart and compared it to one of my NEW traps: What a HUGE difference. I don't know the vintage of the older antenna but the traps look very nice compared to the MFJ/Cushcraft trap. Old trap top picture, new trap bottom picture. Old trap fiberglass core (not sure what kind of wire, I'm sure aluminum), larger wire, and covered with some sort of hard epoxy. New trap, plastic core, small aluminum wire, no insulating covering, plastic is loose and flops on the aluminum element tube."

You can find this post and the story of Jim's trials with his antenna at: http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php?topic=101581.5;wap2

Jim posted photos comparing the newer, defective trap design to the successful Cushcraft legacy design at:
http://s900.photobucket.com/user/w7...nna/IMG_1548_zpswfc0tt5c.jpg.html?sort=3&o=13

Note how the unreinforced translucent plastic coil form of the new design is flattened at the end, weakening it even further, and is poorly fastened to the aluminum tubing connecting to the rest of the antenna element. Believe it or not, this feeble arrangement is a critical load-bearing portion of the antenna design. It can cause SWR to jump as it deforms or can cause shorts and arcs to the overlying capacitance sleeve. Pretty much the root of the problem, in my case. Not only does it bear the bending moment of the weight of the antenna element it is attached to, but also of any icing, wind and antenna rotation loads. To add even more inadequacy, the unreinforced (no structural filler, like glass or carbon fibers to make it rigid) plastic softens under heat and yields even more on hot days. As I said above, the problem, and its root, is obvious once the trap is taken apart.

Here is another relevant post regarding A3S trap issues - A3S traps are identical in construction method to A4S traps and to the traps in several other MFJ antennas:

Steve Katz, WB2WIK:

"MFJ changed the trap form material from the very strong material CC originally used to something not as strong, and the 10m traps have been failing -- adding the 40m element extensions, even with supports, makes the situation worse. Look up the subject of rebuilding Cushcraft traps and there are many suggestions, including changing to SCH80 PVC, etc. The problem isn't how much power you're running, it's the "new" trap form material. It's weak and flexes, which creates connection problems."

Sooo, yes, I'd say the MFJ trap problem is pretty well known recognized by the community, as well as MFJ. The irony is that this defective design is still in production and for sale. What does that say about MFJ? Its not something that can be easily fixed with a soldering iron or screwdriver, either.

Best Regards,

Brian - K6BRN

 

Brian,

There you go dissing again...obviously I am not "search engine challenged". Now you are being silly.


"What does it say about MFJ?" It says that a few users are encountering problems. The point is a mechanical one, and the question is: what is the MTBF for different user scenarios?

Eham has 8 PAGES of A3S user reviews--8 pages!--and only a very few are less than 4/5 ratings.

If I buy a Hy Gain Yagi, and it breaks in a snow storm, is the antenna defective, for example?

Here's NN4ZZ's STEPPIR in a storm...do we blame STEPPIR?


If I take one of these A3S's and put it up on Tierro Del Fuego, is the failure the user scenario or the product?

Should MFJ over-engineer the traps and charge $100 more per beam?

So, let me repeat the question: who has been having these problems? So far I see 2.

BTW I did that search and saw W7RY's comments, yesterday. It does not address the public query I posted here, on QRZed.

BTW, you NEVER EVER EVER put RF around carbon fiber. Go do your own search to find out why.

73
Chip W1YW

 

Chip:

The pity is that I know you're not kidding. Your reality does not overlap much with the world most of us live in. Which is too bad, because without your almost schizophrenic bending of facts and events to attract attention to yourself, at any cost to your own integrity, you'd be a lot of fun to talk and debate with over a beer or whisky. And in both Cambridge or Boston, I know some pretty good places to do just that.

So until next time,

Best Regards and Happy New Year!

Brian - K6BRN

 

Brian,

I don't drink. And even with Mass's new bizarre marijuana law, I don't smoke either

But you are always welcome for an eyeball QSO. Dayton?

73
Chip W1YW

 

KM1H said: ↑
Spoken like a real ham pro, licensed one month

Not gonna bug me... Some people don't understand that the validity of an argument stands regardless of who puts forth said argument... a 60 year ham, or a 6 day ham. Logical fallacies are just that, and most people are not trained in logic.

Running the devices a month pretty well demonstrates they do not suffer from the issues people complain about (broken out of the box). I also took each one apart and inspected the soldering and construction. You can certainly tell their stuff is made to a price, but it was the price I wanted to pay, and it is made in the USA. It's not an HP/Tektronix/Fluke piece of gear, but it does its job as advertised.

And I have done my own modifications to MFJ and other ham gear in my first month. No stranger to my soldering irons.

Oh, here is a complaint... cheap banana jacks. I ended replacing all of the cheap banana jacks on my MFJ gear. I stripped one trying to get it tight enough.

Ham pro is an oxymoron by definition. They don't and can't by law exist.

Chip, I am so non-pro that I still call CQ. So we may actually QSO some day.

 

Joe,

We are proud of you.

73
Chip W1YW

 

I've owned and own MFJ products. I've encountered a couple of poor solder joints and coax connectors wearing out over the years but those were easy to troubleshoot and easily fixed.

A lot easier to just fix these trivial problems like that, than to be a crybaby about it on the internet.

Over the years I've owned other tuners including Palstar, SGC and LDG. Guess which I still have and am I'm still using! Yes the MFJs!

You just cannot beat the 949E, for example, for the wide tuning range and easy of use and the price point. I have several other models of MFJ tuners, one of their 259 series analyzers, several of the QRP radio kits, a couple of power supplies and a few other odds and ends.

If they made them flawless and perfect and pretty, they'd cost three times as much and people would be whining on the internet about the hobby being too expensive.