MFJ Enterprises Avis 4

I decided to purchase an antenna directly from the USA site of MFJ. .......I wish I hadn't bothered. A genuinely awful experience made worse by there complete ignorance of any kind of communication whatsoever.
Despite my attempts to contact them any emails were ignored (10 in total )and there contact app on the site was full!!
I was only fortunate to have paid via PAYPAL using a credit card- so after nearly three months I have just got a refund.
My advise is either buy from a reputable Ham shop in the UK if you can get what you require- use a different make- BUT steer well clear of MFJ as a direct supplier.
PAYPAL we're excellent- MFJ were genuinely without any kind of service whatsoever.
A shame as there gear is generally good....if you can get hold of it.......

I bought a mfj 993b automatic tuner and interface for an ft-991A, read the manual and connected the unit properly according to the instructions and does not work automatically. Contacted MFJ tec support, immediately they blamed Yaesu for having changed the program on the radio, than I was told to not use the interface and use the tuner manually and then that I should read the manual because everything is there. Some customer SUPPORT this is. I did read the manual and I bought this tuner because I wanted an automatic tuner not to have to do it manually. I have looked on YouTube and many people have this unit working with this rig. I am done with MFJ they don't know their ass from their elbow.

Needed a spare part for an antenna.
The online shop was non existent for Cushcraft parts so I emailed but was told that the shop was in progress and to check later.
A few weeks later the same and told that I couldn't even order by email and had to phone them to order.
Not ideal asking international customers to phone due to language barriers, time difference, and cost of phone calls.

Also I don't like reading my credit card number down the phone to be written down somewhere! I trust online shopping much more.

However the person on the phone was helpful and the parts arrived about 4 weeks later and were perfect - just the sales process could be much much better.

Just before I passed my Foundation (June 2019) I bought a S/H FT-818 cos it was compact. I studied antenna specs, retail and homemade, watched every video and tried desperately to,achieve resonance using an analyser, not one HF contact. VSWR was a nightmare.

There are so many videos extolling different antennas and how important resonance is, there were verticals with a hundred radials, horizontals with anuns and baluns. Hams would go out, magically tune their antenna and be on the air, that never happened for me, I just became more frustrated and seriously disheartened, while everyone else was making contact.

Yesterday afternoon I received a S/H (£180 inc postage Radioworld) MFJ 934 with virtual ground. I had 30m of house 6mm copper earthing cable and placed it around the top of my fence about 6 feet off the ground, over my shed roof,into my bungalow bedroom window and straight into the MFJ 934. No anun, yeah I know........

I have no RF earth (yet) so I connected 5m of the same cable to the counterpoise socket and ran it around the bedroom floor. On 14.250 I tuned the long wire, then tuned the virtual earth counterpoise, as I did this the noise floor went down and more stations became audible, I then went back and re-tuned the long wire.

I have heard IZ1GCW (Torino Italy) many times but never was able to make contact, he was on 20m (14.256MHz) at 16:40 yesterday and I made the call, he immediately answered, I nearly dropped through the floor. After the QSO I was like an excited little puppy. He gave me a 4 4 from 6 Watts on internal battery.

The lesson to learn here is, if you are new to this and don't want to mess about and waste loads of money and time, all you need is an hf rig (new FT-891 coming Friday), a decent tuner and a long wire.

The magic of radio communication.... the MFJ 934