I have to say sorry about my last post because I must have had a Brain Fart because I was thinking MFJ but my meters are Dosy. About the same difference Everybody bitches about them. I must have worked in the Sun too long today. LOL
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MFJ to stop Building
- Thread starter AudioShockwav
- Start date
They dont seem to put their best on the phone.. then again, maybe they do.
The mfj antenna analyzers actually work really well when they work . And they are fairly intuitive for a few operations. Certainly simpler than a nano vna.
I experienced the same when I called Walcott Radio to ask a question. Funny how you can sense a Attitude over the phone. I be careful I don't get on a roll because it isn't pretty !
$7200 is with CPI/Eimac, which is what I have. I have a few MFJ analyzers, one no longer works, but I don't use them anymore. If it is important, I use an Anritsu, if not I use a VNA.
The problem is multi faceted. You have a company that makes the cheapest versions of every ham product imaginable. They also fabricate alot of what they sell. Good labor aint cheap and cheap labor aint good. On top of that hams are cheap tbh. The only way to make a profit in the amp business, even in the lowly cb side, is get parts as cheap as possible, make stuff yourself, and deal in volume. They did all three. It still wasnt enough. Think about it, you used to be able to get the AL 811 for less than 800 bucks. I mean that was positively CB radio prices. And they sold a ton of them but certainly not enough to keep them in business. And it's a tough ask to ask more than $1,000 from a hamster for multiband amplifier that does 1500 watts. I mean look at the market, there's literally a cottage industry keeping Heath kit 220s and Drake's alive when they should have been long buried at this point. Hams are cheap and they're going to stay that way. It's tough to try to coax $8,000 plus from somebody. The guys in that market aren't going to buy an ameritron, they're going to buy something else.
Most people don't even know they actually have a sheet metal shop and they stamp all their own cases for all their own products. They wind their own baluns, they assemble a lot of their meters and stuff in house, that's insane nowadays.
Couple that with a labor rate and a burden rate that's gone through the roof for businesses, even in mississippi, and it's easy to see how they would struggle to stay in business selling $250 analyzers. Who's going to buy them? Nobody. And if anybody does they're going to buy the trademark and ship all the production off to China. If it was me I would throw all the amplifiers out of the line and sell rebranded vnas.
Aside from their parts, almost everything else is available elsewhere. I would never get involved in the amplifier business professionally.
I mean just look at the transceiver market there's a reason why all the good radios are made in Japan and China.
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I must be an idiot, I bought an AL-1500 and ATR-30. The labor they employ, are college student, that have no idea how to solder. I had to rewind the balun in my ATR-30, it was junk. The AL-1500 is another story and I never got answers to what the hell they did and why.
Like I said, I hope someone gets the company and turns it into something good.
You are not an idiot but for that money i would have gotten an alpha 9500 with auto tune. Just under $9k. And you can put a brick on the key and walk away
If I spent 9k on an amplifier my wife might hit me with said brick and walk away....they are pretty though.
Alpha Scarce 77SX EIMAC8877*2 HF Linear Amplifier NON For CB Ship FREE WW | eBay
Alpha 77SX. Collectors Quality Amplifier. The equipped 8877 is made by EIMAC and has hardly been used since it was replaced with a new one. It is used to confirm operation.
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And there's your problem. No decent supply of tech-savvy folks to hire and do that job properly. Reading between the lines, I think a shortage of qualified labor is the biggest obstacle that Martin faced, and couldn't find a way to fix.
How many small businesses do you patronize that DON'T have a help-wanted sign on the door?
Shortages of labor are the scourge of the post-covid era.
73
I disagree. The guy I was talking to had over 20 years in the company. MFJ doesn't pay and you know the saying about what you get what you pay for. His company has in excess of $10M in revenue annually. He is just a cheap bastard, that makes cheap junk, that isn't cheap anymore.
And sometimes the more money they have the cheaper they are. I know that for a fact ! LOL
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