MFJ's Martin Jue, K5FLU answers questions on YouTube

Martin Jue K5FLU answers questions of subscribers to the 'Ham Radio Guy - G0KSC' YouTube channel.

Martin formed MFJ Enterprises almost 50 Years year ago and has taken his company to the World’s largest producer of Ham Radio accessories today. You can hear Martin’s responses to some of the most difficult of questions as well the easy ones!

 

Getting the extra large bowl of popcorn out for this comment section should be a doozy.

 

Not starting off easy, is he??

 

Kudos for getting the elephant out of the room with that first question.

 

50 years. Amazing. IMHO it is extremely difficult to keep a business running for that long. Mr. Jue is to be congratulated for that achievement! And yes, I have one of his antenna analyzers in my shack.

 

I have a MFJ Grandmaster memory keyer I've been using regularly for over 35 years and it still keeps going. I've had to replace only one of the four memory button switches. The one button that is pressed 95% of the time. The first one! The memory keyer has outlasted the TS520 I first hooked it up to too, the family TV set at the time, Atari game set, Commodore 64, the first cellphone I ever had and every other important and not important electronic gizmo. I've hauled it to Central America and back many times. It owes me nothing and I thank MFJ for a great product. I have a few other MFJ products that have stood the test of time but this one is my favorite because it was my first. Also hats off to Mr Jue for figuring out how to make a living making and selling gear to radio amateurs who normally aren't known for throwing their money away.

 

CW memory keyer Circa 1983, mines. And still going. And yeah, it still can eat a 9v transistor radio battery in no time.

I imagine that this keyer of mine will out last me. And generally
I prefer it to any other.

Several of these and tuners. Aswell as a few station accessories.

Thanks!
No matter what!

If it wasn't quite, proper Martin, I made it work to my liking.
Sorry it voided the warranty... Hams do that.

Happy Amazing Fifty, MFJ!

RRK

 

I’ve had a few flops when it comes to MFJ and a few things that worked really good. Those 939 tuners will tune my short end fed wire on 160m and I’ve made some nice contacts. My LDG tuners will not tune it on 160. I’m sure the efficiency is nil but I worked a bunch of stations with it.

Most of the stuff that I’ve personally seen bad from MFJ had been poor assembly practices. I have a CW decoder that I bought off of someone here on QRZ that there’s no way the thing could have worked for him although he sold it to me in “perfect working condition”. Imagine that. It had a bridged solder joint inside and I hit it with some solder wick and re flowed the two joints and I’ve probably used the thing for 40 hours or more with no issues.

MFJ has allowed a lot of hams that might not have otherwise been able to afford to participate in the hobby a chance at being involved at a lower price tag than buying higher priced gear. You have to give them credit for that but that can sometimes come at a price of getting something exchanged or waiting for something to be repaired until you get something that works. Part of the Good, Fast, Cheap principal. Pick two of those but you don’t get the third one.

Curt
WU3U

 

You know, I've heard all of the tales about how bad MFJ was in the past.... and maybe it's true. BUT my experience with 'em has been nothing but EXCELLENT. Our local MFJ dealer is always helpful, and all of the MFJ stuff in my shack does exactly what it is supposed to do.

I DID have a bulb in my SWR meter burn out once, though. I called my vendor and in less than a week a pack of three new little bulbs arrived.

Thanks for all you do, Martin!

 

Nice interview. I watched it in its entirety. MFJ is the brand we love to hate, but in all fairness, for the most part, once the shakedown cruise is completed, the loose screws retightned, the occasional cold solder joint reflowed, you usually end up with a decent product at reasonable price which lasts a long time. Long live MFJ.

 

I've had many MFJ (and subsidiary like Ameritron and HyGain) products over a period of decades. Only a couple had manufacturing defects like the infamous cold solder joints. I've had good service out of Martin's products and will rue the day they are no longer around

 

Terrible audio "quality" for the Jue end of the conversation.

Jue's answer to the first question was wishy-washy. What I extracted was that the training of those who assemble MFJ products and those who do follow up QC is seriously lacking. I'm not buying the excuses. We all know what rolls downhill...

 

I have just one bit of MFJ kit s manual versa tuner MFJ941E and its just fine for the price, just a bulb replaced and a bit of lube on coax switch, very reliable tuner.

 

MFJ has kept many ham radio brands alive and available at reasonable prices.

MFJ customer service is very good when you need it.

Long live MFJ and his company!