MFJ closing down manufacturing facilities effective May 17th 2024

Sir, I applaud you! Not many on these forums would admit they posted wrong information. It happens, but (unless they say "in my opinion") even if they're dead wrong, they'll insist they're right. Another Rosesanne Roseanna Danna..."It just goes to show you - It's always something. If it ain't one thing, it's another".

 

Yeah, I'll be damned if I can find the information that I quoted. I guess it doesn't really matter anyway because whatever it was it was not official. But it did say they would continue to import and sell things like power supplies. That's what stuck in my memory. But, you know, those same units are available with other brands on them. So I'm not sure what MFJ would really add - wider distribution, I guess.

I have a couple of those small cute switching power supplies and I like them. My only gripe is fan noise. I'm thinking of fitting an additional fan on top of the existing ones and running both at half speed to see if that quiets things down.

I had an RF current meter on order with MFJ. I don't know if I will get it or get my money back. Lots of customers get burned in most bankruptcies. But this appears to be an orderly shut down rather than a bankruptcy, so perhaps I will end up whole.

 

Here is a thing that popped up on farcebook:

https://www.facebook.com/share/h5fYg1XfwWoY9gA4/?mibextid=xfxF2i

 

The first post here says they'll continue selling imported products.
And here:

 

It looks to me like Intellitron just popped up out of nowhere after MFJ announced its closing, and may be affiliated with, not just sold by, Gigaparts. Or as one might say, a new vendor to pick up some of the slack from MFJ may "Pan out".

But it would be a shame if the old CDE rotator line and some other popular antenna lines did not get saved by someone.

 

So much speculation and inferences! I didn't read anything into Martin's (retirement) closure letter that indicated they would "continue selling their wide selection of imported products", as the above Gigaparts facebook post says. My impression was that they would continue selling *existing stock on hand* past May 17, eventually reaching depletion, and then closing up...a complete liquidation. Warranty and repair service "for the foreseeable future" is up for interpretation.

However, Gigaparts is one of their vendors, so I guess they might know something that we don't.

 

There you go! I knew I had seen that. It was from Gigaparts...

 

Yes...I re-read that first post, and it looks like it is either an employee or officer of Gigaparts! Look up his QRZ page. To me, it seems like a Gigaparts ad, trying to get a jump on the competition to buy from them, taking you to their website. Again, I didn't see where Martin specifically indicated that MFJ would stay in business, only selling their imported products. My impression of his letter was his retirement and complete liquidation.

 

intellitron.com was registered by gigaparts

 

I had never seen Intellitron before but Gigaparts registered the domain name in 2017 so maybe it has been there all along; I just haven't been perusing the Gigaparts web site. It does look like a vehicle for some MFJ-like products, though.

 

I think somebody just got Mississippi and Missouri confused.

 

When I'd occasionally buy a "MFJ PRODUCT" we'd first "SHAKE THE BOX" !!! :-(

 

Looked through their site, can confirm a lot of their products are aliexpress specials (mostly because I bought them from aliexpress), they have more than doubled the prices as far as I can tell, e.g the $20 clock is $11 from ali express, the $25 2 port antenna switch same thing... so these do look to be curated chinese imports, nothing wrong with that, everything wrong with the markup.

 

To the editors of QRZ: Sorry about that! I didn't know it was already posted. Whoops!

 

On what? A Dosy test center?