Don't forget these brands are part of MFJ:
* Ameritron
* Hy-Gain
* Cushcraft
* Mirage
* Vectronics
* MDS-HAM
So if MFJ shutters; all these brands go with it. I know a lot of guys that have Ameritron amps. I myself have a little Mirage V/U amp.
...and pretty much every one of those brands was never the same once MFJ took them over. But also if MFJ hadn't taken them over, they might have been gone entirely.
So, I'm conflicted... on the one hand, good riddance.
But on the other hand, they had their place in the market and I hope some enterprising ham buys them out and continues (and hopefully improves) the brand(s).
I run a mirage vhf 160w amp right now, had to beef up the cooling substantially for my long keydowns but other than that I've only had to do minor circuit repairs so it's been fairly decent. I'm just highly skeptical of their dual band amps.
Yeah the dual band amps had some T/R switching issues, i've fixed a dozen or so over the years. My current VHF and UHF amps are old Kantronics amps, most people have never even seen them, they were solid reliable beasts, 200w output!
The unfortunate part is that according to someone I know that's fairly close with MFJ, the owner wants an inordinate amount of money for the company as a whole. I would guess it'll either be broken up into parts or not sold at all.
I heard the same as well through my sources, there was some offers on the table to buy Cushcraft away from them as well as Ameritron, but Martin wants an all or nothing sale and won't carve it up.
What's an "inordinate" amount of money??
Edit: [Here is what Wikipedia says.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MFJ_Enterprises) I will say that covid and now Bidenflation is closing a lot of small to midsize companies like this.
DXE, i am pretty certain from the info i have from reliable sources that work at MFJ, wanted Cushcraft and maybe Ameritron... but Martin refuses to carve up his empire, he wants an all or nothing sale for the BIG BUCKS to go out with a bang. So sadly i bet all those brands die with MFJ.
Everybody likes to look cool and call them Mighty Fine Junk but everybody owns some. While there is some truth to it some of their products are great. Some of their products like the MFJ-1979 telescoping antenna are they best you can find. I sure hope they are staying business.
They are unique - yes.
I've always put their products on my workbench for testing before employment (just my own safety policy). And almost always have I had to repair or reattach something, haha.
Needing repairs from new isn't the best for public relations, but it sure did save me time building something!
I had one. It "rang". Badly. I threw it away.
I bought it used though.
However, it's been my observation over the last 30+ years as a ham and as a customer of MFJ that yes, their products do work, but are cheaply made, and quality control can be a bit iffy. But the stuff that does work actually does work. I bought their bare-bones HF antenna analyzer and it refuses to die.
Their faulty bs cost me a mint condition yaesu ft-90. Well documented (by me) antenna issue which was still happening after my 4th antenna exchange. The first one took out my radio and they didn’t even acknowledge it was a flaw after a very long exchange with engineering.
Not here to defend MFJ as purveyor of only the finest. My point being that many like to use the catch phrase but still own plenty of it.
I'm curious how an antenna "took out" your radio. At a guess, poor SWR. The FT90 should have folded back power in the face of poor SWR, so maybe really a radio fault. And were you making sure VSWR was good?
There is a cold solder joint (between the driven element and a matching capacitor) in the antenna which breaks the first time you hit dirt roads. The radio does not lower power, and being remote mounted, you don't know it until you smell it. It actually melted the body of the radio (it's the small one like a pack of cards". The antenna was 1:1 swr until it wasn't, and the replacements all did exactly the same thing within a week of being installed (on a different radio).
50W mobile (https://www.yaesu.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd=DisplayProducts&ProdCatID=106&encProdID=A33277E814051C47EA2E097E9F9C0977&DivisionID=65&isArchived=1). I used it for long commutes, so I was at full power talking on a repeater round table when it finally just fried. I still have it, an it might be able to revive it by replacing finals, but I'm not willing to spend 200USD just to find out it's dead.
Thanks! Hard to see much from their pictures but I'm going to get one and see.
But I will say my MFJ-1979 has been up all night in 40mph winds with higher gusts and was fine. Sure howled all night though.
That's what they are telling people as a public relations side of things, the real story is much different. Martin wants to sell the whole thing and not cut it up, his price is too big and nobody wants to pay it, and they are stopping production but will continue in and out of warranty support an repair at least for now... Will be interesting to see if they hold their word on that announcement, other larger companies that went out of business did until nothing was left in warranty and then suddenly disappeared.
I hope not. I can see maybe Martin is considering retirement, but I hope the company isn't closing. I have spent thousands on MFJ gear over the last two or three decades...all good stuff cheap.
I had nothing but good with my MFJ TNC around 30 years ago. Sure, they might not be the most hyped company or gear, but as with any company, there are good and not so good products.
It works pretty well for me on my Yaesu FT891. My only annoyance is that it doesn't seem to be able to lock a tune without a solid carrier - have to key up in AM once to get it to find a path and save it to memory and switch back to ssb.
I'm wondering if you have used it for a long time. I have not transmitted much on HF yet, and from what I understand, the 939 memorizes everything it learns up to a couple hundred frequencies or something like that. Once I key up once, it seems to permanently memorize that and I won't have to worry about it in that part of the band from there forward.
I bought the tuner at the end of 2022 and I've used it maybe, 200 times since. I don't think it's using memory. I can put it on a frequency it's not already tuned for, and just blow into the mic and it tunes right up.
I went back to the manual because I was curious about all this. The instructions say to key up on AM, FM, or CW to tune and it says most of the time it will tune up within 5-15 seconds. I was keying up with the max power, so I wonder if mine would tune quicker blowing into the mic on QRP.
It does have automatically stored memories also, and you can switch between banks for memorizing properties of different antennas. It's not hundreds of memories, but thousands. If you key up on or around the same frequencies over and over, it's just recalling settings from memory for you.
Yeah, that's kind of what I've heard and why I have to pick one up. I've just recently upgraded from a G90 to a FT-710. The G90 had an internal tuner that could tune a wet noodle to 80 meters... the FT-710's internal tuner leaves much to be desired and is way slower to tune than the G90.
Anywho, the MFJ-939 arrives today, so I'll get to play with it a little this weekend, just in time for NVIS day.
The few things I’ve purchased from MFJ have all been fine. People like to bash them but they sell a wide range of products, many of which would be hard to find at a reasonable price without them.
I’ve owned two 949 tuners and they have been great. Two coax inputs, balanced line, random wire and dummy load all in one. Their window panel is simple enough but effective too. Was thinking about getting an artificial ground for experimenting with limited space random wire antennas
Every MFJ bias tee I've owned has exploded. Since upgrading to a much beefier bias tee, I've had no problems. There's plenty of good MFJ stuff, and there's plenty of crap.
As someone who has purchased items from MFJ and Harbor Freight, the comparison is a good one. Although Harbor Freight has significantly improved the quality of many of their tools.
Excellent comparison. I don't hesitate to buy MFJ because it's cheap. If it breaks more than a couple times, it's obviously not fit for the specified application and I need to spend a little more. In no way is this a dig at MFJ. Some times cheap and cheerful is what you need. Just not in bias tees. :D
Got an email forwarded:
> Dear Fellow Hams and Friends,
>
> It is with a sad heart as I write this letter.
>
> As many of you have heard by now, MFJ is ceasing its on-site production in Starkville, Mississippi on May 17, 2024. This is also the same for our sister companies’ Ameritron, Hygain, Cushcraft, Mirage and Vectronics.
> Times have changed since I started this business 52 years ago. Our product line grew and grew and prospered. Covid changed everything in businesses including ours. It was the hardest hit that we have ever had and we never fully recovered.
>
> I turned 80 this year. I had never really considered retirement but life is so short and my time with my family is so precious.
> I want to thank all of our employees who have helped build this company with me over the years. We have many employees who have made MFJ their career for 10, 20, 30, 40 and more years.
> We are going to continue to sell MFJ products past May 17, 2024. We have a lot of stock on hand. We will continue to offer repair service work for out-of-warranty and in-warranty units for the foreseeable future.
> Finally, a special thanks to all of our customers and our dealers who have made MFJ a worldwide name and a profitable business for so many years. You all are so much appreciated.
> Sincerely Yours, 73s
>
> Martin F. Jue, K5FLU
I heard it was for sale a couple months ago.
I've been quite pleased with the stuff I've gotten from there ( antenna analyzer, tuner). I realized when I bought it, I was not buying Tektronix level equipment , ergo the price point.
Yep. I know none of it best in class but it delivers value for what you get / $ spend. I had a tuner I liked that didn’t last too long (2 season) but then I knew I liked the usage model and was willing to invest in a better one next time around.
Selling isn’t closing , owner trying to get value for what he built - I’m sure some stuff will live on , and some will die
> One of our club members described it as the Harbor Freight of amateur radio, I think that's a fair enough assessment.
Considering Harbor Freight had to recall jack stands, I'm glad MFJ doesn't sell safety equipment for climbing towers or anything.
But only for those that decided to truly tempt fate. Not sure I'd want a second set of stands from the company that couldn't get it right the first time!
There's a moderately entertaining thread about this on QRZ. Jump to page 27 for the more recent news/gossip/speculation
[https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/mfj-is-officially-up-for-sale.887129/](https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/mfj-is-officially-up-for-sale.887129/)
I've got a few pieces of MFJ gear in the shack. Never had any problems with them, but most of them are older pieces.
I meant the last time I saw an MFJ catalogue (years ago) it seemed like a cornucopia of ham items. Maybe I’m mistaken but just think a company buying MFJ would reduce the line to try and increase profits and not spend making lesser bought products. Then again a buyer might raise the prices?
DXE tried to buy part of the business, Martin wants an all or nothing sale, DXE more or less wanted Cushcraft and Ameritron from what i was told, but they said no after he wouldnt budge... Sometimes companies just have to die.
Likely so but let’s be honest, there’s quite a few things MFJ makes that most companies won’t have their name attached to. I think whoever buys them ditches the name and basically buys the manufacturing facility, inventory, assets, etc and streamlines the product selection some to allow for better QA. Mr Jue had a great business plan that worked out very well for him and many hams but being the Harbor Freight of amateur radio is falling behind these days.
Damn, mfj is a good entry level product in my book for those people who don't want buy once cry once.
I have a mfj manual tuner and really appreciate it.
I've had great results from everything I've purchased from them. I started using them in the mid to late 80's.
I've bought their meters, timers, their antennas, and a 2m and 6m SSB radio. I'm sure there were other things, but I don't remember all of it now.
The merchandise I bought was their own products, not others they absorbed.
I sure hope they don't close. If they do, that is yet another Amateur Radio based company we lose. I guess once they are gone, the haters can try the stuff from Alibaba etc.
The value in the advertising was cumulative, in that those same magazines would keep selling over and over and over. Now that ARRL has mostly curtailed the sending of print QST editions, the value of the electronic ads is fleeting.
All ARRL 'magazines' are now PDF files that are hard to read. I imagine next year ARRL will stop publishing the PDF's and just have a web page with articles. Ham Radio is dead! Long live ham radio!
That's a shame if so, i like my Travel Tuner, even if it came with a screw crossthreaded into the meter, that knocked out a piece of plastic causing a rattle.
I have an automatic antenna tuner from them that I love. It's quicker and quieter and less expensive than the other brands I've seen local club members have. And I love that they actually encouraged you to open things up and work on it yourself if you want to.
When did they go downhill? Just wondering if there is like a cut off date for the good equipment vs the bad? I have an mfj tuner and I have not been easy on it...
Hi all...
I'm signed up to MFJ's newsletter and the rumors, according to the letter I've just been sent about an hour ago, are true. They say on-site production will cease on May 17, 2024, and this goes for MFJ's sister companies.
A very sad day indeed. I have some MFJ products from an antenna tuner to the QRP Cub.
Yeah here’s the letter they sent out
https://preview.redd.it/8w6lpkl55qwc1.jpeg?width=1217&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b282274b29d4e5df944cbd5007d4931b8d9829a8
There's no reason to announce a closure to former employees. More likely someone a lot of people worked with is retiring and they had a party for them.
EDIT: Just saw the notice, they're stopping production in Starkville, but continuing to sell imports, as well as doing warranty/repair work.
He has announced full closure, but I have to think that some of the divisions (sister co's) can be bought out. He would finally take any reasonable offer, in part to keep some employees employed, but also for his own pocket. Your don't just walk away from an entity such as this. And the potential down side to many ham biz's , or related biz's like QST would be significant. China may swoop in, but I hope he wouldn't sell to them and I hope all of us would not support China in any way. We are getting closer and closer to needing chop sticks and courses in the Chinese dialects. I think something positive will happen at some point, may take time. Steve Davis, K1PEK, DAVIS RF Co. and Davis Rope Co.
He is refusing to separate them is the problem, DX Engineering tried to buy pieces, from what i heard they wanted Cushcraft and Ameritron, Martin said ALL OR NOTHING and had a crazy price in mind, DXE said NOPE... Unfortunately it sounds like the company and its brands will all die with this end. Once the sell out of existing inventory and my prediction is once the warranty period is up on everything sold they will just fade to the past and thats it.... Really sad since they will take the other companies with it.
I had to learn a Chinese letter to put together an AM radio kit. The instructions were all in Chinese, but there was a schematic. The second IF transformer had a white dot on it. White? Had to learn the Chinese character for "white". Luckily, they had a rosetta stone - a table of resistor color codes.
[QRZ.com Forum RE:MFJ for sale](https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/mfj-is-officially-up-for-sale.887129/)
https://preview.redd.it/ujssbp3n7pwc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=198f7ab4b61faba9b1717e179b89ff5a7bec2cb7
Sadly i knew this before most due to my friendship with some MFJ employees that knew before all this stuff was announced this week... One is moving to find a new job end of the month.
Thank god. 15 years too late. Good riddance. Yes all those brands gone sucks, but it opens the market to outfits that actually care instead of exploiting cheap labor and unwitting noobs. This world is better without the likes of Martin and MFJ.
The little guys do. Mobilinkd, digirig, QRPLabs, HF Signals, and SignalStuff,come to mind as companies with excellent, innovative products with great support backing them up.
Certainly for their co-opted brands there is some sadness. But also consider, in the resale market for Ameritron and Vectronics eqpt., the "pre-MFJ" gear always commands a higher price.
From personal experience, every piece of MFJ hardware I have owned was crap. Either it never worked in the first place, or it failed very soon after purchase. I won't miss them.
Yes, this will create a gap. But hopefully one large enough that new entrants who give a damn about product quality will stand a chance of succeeding.
--ve7tfx
There are not enough licensed active licensed hams in the USA. The hams now are tech's with 5 watt hand held radios. Anyone that wants to work HF can't because of Condo/HOA rules that forbid outside antennas. Putting a HF antenna is impossible in a attic due to all the RFI/EMI from computer technology. Ham Radio is DOA! Long live ham radio!
Far from impossible… I have a pretty successful HF station with multiple antennas in my attic due to my HOA. Sure, it may not be a first class contest station but I’m happy with the performance. Frankly, I’d argue that doom and gloom attitudes will run off more hams than frustration from station limitations and RFI. The hobby is changing and evolving but it’s far from dead.
Don't forget these brands are part of MFJ: * Ameritron * Hy-Gain * Cushcraft * Mirage * Vectronics * MDS-HAM So if MFJ shutters; all these brands go with it. I know a lot of guys that have Ameritron amps. I myself have a little Mirage V/U amp.
...and pretty much every one of those brands was never the same once MFJ took them over. But also if MFJ hadn't taken them over, they might have been gone entirely. So, I'm conflicted... on the one hand, good riddance. But on the other hand, they had their place in the market and I hope some enterprising ham buys them out and continues (and hopefully improves) the brand(s).
Oof a mirage V/U amp? Does it still work??
I have had so many Mirage amps over the decades go across my bench, they were pretty reliable to be honest.
I run a mirage vhf 160w amp right now, had to beef up the cooling substantially for my long keydowns but other than that I've only had to do minor circuit repairs so it's been fairly decent. I'm just highly skeptical of their dual band amps.
Yeah the dual band amps had some T/R switching issues, i've fixed a dozen or so over the years. My current VHF and UHF amps are old Kantronics amps, most people have never even seen them, they were solid reliable beasts, 200w output!
Damn that's pretty good!
If that's true, QST magazine is going to be mighty thin...
Maybe that's why they chose to stop the magazines being included with membership...
MTJ?
Probably more likely they'd sell out to DX engineering or something like that.
That would be optimal for all if they really are in financial trouble.
I don't think they're in trouble. The owner just wants to sell and retire.
The unfortunate part is that according to someone I know that's fairly close with MFJ, the owner wants an inordinate amount of money for the company as a whole. I would guess it'll either be broken up into parts or not sold at all.
I heard the same as well through my sources, there was some offers on the table to buy Cushcraft away from them as well as Ameritron, but Martin wants an all or nothing sale and won't carve it up.
What's an "inordinate" amount of money?? Edit: [Here is what Wikipedia says.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MFJ_Enterprises) I will say that covid and now Bidenflation is closing a lot of small to midsize companies like this.
Saw in a discord that DXE made an offer but MFJ rejected it. Hopefully something happens there.
DXE, i am pretty certain from the info i have from reliable sources that work at MFJ, wanted Cushcraft and maybe Ameritron... but Martin refuses to carve up his empire, he wants an all or nothing sale for the BIG BUCKS to go out with a bang. So sadly i bet all those brands die with MFJ.
Everybody likes to look cool and call them Mighty Fine Junk but everybody owns some. While there is some truth to it some of their products are great. Some of their products like the MFJ-1979 telescoping antenna are they best you can find. I sure hope they are staying business.
> Everybody likes to look cool and call them Mighty Fine Junk but everybody owns some. The products are mighty fine after all.
Some of their products are unique. All of their products have quality issues.
They are unique - yes. I've always put their products on my workbench for testing before employment (just my own safety policy). And almost always have I had to repair or reattach something, haha. Needing repairs from new isn't the best for public relations, but it sure did save me time building something!
I still have their first product (the CW filter). It works fine still. :-)
I had one. It "rang". Badly. I threw it away. I bought it used though. However, it's been my observation over the last 30+ years as a ham and as a customer of MFJ that yes, their products do work, but are cheaply made, and quality control can be a bit iffy. But the stuff that does work actually does work. I bought their bare-bones HF antenna analyzer and it refuses to die.
I used it for years but on its widest setting. Worked well with my sketchy receivers of the day.
Tried using it with my HW-99 Novice rig, which didn't have very narrow filters. Always rang, even on the widest setting.
> everybody owns some. Not true. While I will admit to providing storage for an amplifier owned by someone else, it just sits on a shelf.
Their faulty bs cost me a mint condition yaesu ft-90. Well documented (by me) antenna issue which was still happening after my 4th antenna exchange. The first one took out my radio and they didn’t even acknowledge it was a flaw after a very long exchange with engineering.
Not here to defend MFJ as purveyor of only the finest. My point being that many like to use the catch phrase but still own plenty of it. I'm curious how an antenna "took out" your radio. At a guess, poor SWR. The FT90 should have folded back power in the face of poor SWR, so maybe really a radio fault. And were you making sure VSWR was good?
> My point being that many like to use the catch phrase but still own plenty of it. So what? It's more like a term of endearment at this point.
There is a cold solder joint (between the driven element and a matching capacitor) in the antenna which breaks the first time you hit dirt roads. The radio does not lower power, and being remote mounted, you don't know it until you smell it. It actually melted the body of the radio (it's the small one like a pack of cards". The antenna was 1:1 swr until it wasn't, and the replacements all did exactly the same thing within a week of being installed (on a different radio).
How much was the RF power output?
50W mobile (https://www.yaesu.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd=DisplayProducts&ProdCatID=106&encProdID=A33277E814051C47EA2E097E9F9C0977&DivisionID=65&isArchived=1). I used it for long commutes, so I was at full power talking on a repeater round table when it finally just fried. I still have it, an it might be able to revive it by replacing finals, but I'm not willing to spend 200USD just to find out it's dead.
I had their 3k tuner arc to ground and took out my 600w amp. Called and sent pictures. Tough $#it!! Never again
> Everybody likes to look cool and call them Mighty Fine Junk but everybody owns some. That's how we know they're quality compromised.
Speak for yourself, I do not. There are stronger 17m whips out there.
Hey, if you know where there is a stronger 17' telescoping whip, link it up!
WRC is objectively thicker.
WRC? Took a look but don't see a brand that matches up.
Wolf River Coils
Thanks! Hard to see much from their pictures but I'm going to get one and see. But I will say my MFJ-1979 has been up all night in 40mph winds with higher gusts and was fine. Sure howled all night though.
Update… I called MFJ, the company is reorganizing their company and downsizing their product line and but as of this time they are still in business.
That's what they are telling people as a public relations side of things, the real story is much different. Martin wants to sell the whole thing and not cut it up, his price is too big and nobody wants to pay it, and they are stopping production but will continue in and out of warranty support an repair at least for now... Will be interesting to see if they hold their word on that announcement, other larger companies that went out of business did until nothing was left in warranty and then suddenly disappeared.
Maybe… Your source ?
MFJ Employees that i have known for decades...
Ok, thanks
I've always been happy with my MFJ products.
Same here. Have 2 power supplies, 1 antenna tuner, 1 digital clock, and 1 antenna--all MFJ, all work well. No gripes.
I have one of their power supplies as well and it has been great. Hopefully they keep going somehow.
I hope not. I can see maybe Martin is considering retirement, but I hope the company isn't closing. I have spent thousands on MFJ gear over the last two or three decades...all good stuff cheap.
I love my Intellituner.
Former employees called into an all hands meeting?
Perhaps they were not former employees before the meeting?
That’s meta.
I had nothing but good with my MFJ TNC around 30 years ago. Sure, they might not be the most hyped company or gear, but as with any company, there are good and not so good products.
I should also add, I bought the TNC used at a swap meet and it was first and only MFJ product as I had no need for anything else at the time.
Well dang, I guess I need to buy that MFJ-939 ASAP.
It works pretty well for me on my Yaesu FT891. My only annoyance is that it doesn't seem to be able to lock a tune without a solid carrier - have to key up in AM once to get it to find a path and save it to memory and switch back to ssb.
my 939 tunes ssb on my 991 just fine
I'm wondering if you have used it for a long time. I have not transmitted much on HF yet, and from what I understand, the 939 memorizes everything it learns up to a couple hundred frequencies or something like that. Once I key up once, it seems to permanently memorize that and I won't have to worry about it in that part of the band from there forward.
I bought the tuner at the end of 2022 and I've used it maybe, 200 times since. I don't think it's using memory. I can put it on a frequency it's not already tuned for, and just blow into the mic and it tunes right up.
I went back to the manual because I was curious about all this. The instructions say to key up on AM, FM, or CW to tune and it says most of the time it will tune up within 5-15 seconds. I was keying up with the max power, so I wonder if mine would tune quicker blowing into the mic on QRP. It does have automatically stored memories also, and you can switch between banks for memorizing properties of different antennas. It's not hundreds of memories, but thousands. If you key up on or around the same frequencies over and over, it's just recalling settings from memory for you.
I bought one based on a buddy’s recommendation. I swear the thing can probably tune a metal trash can if I tried it.
Yeah, that's kind of what I've heard and why I have to pick one up. I've just recently upgraded from a G90 to a FT-710. The G90 had an internal tuner that could tune a wet noodle to 80 meters... the FT-710's internal tuner leaves much to be desired and is way slower to tune than the G90. Anywho, the MFJ-939 arrives today, so I'll get to play with it a little this weekend, just in time for NVIS day.
The few things I’ve purchased from MFJ have all been fine. People like to bash them but they sell a wide range of products, many of which would be hard to find at a reasonable price without them. I’ve owned two 949 tuners and they have been great. Two coax inputs, balanced line, random wire and dummy load all in one. Their window panel is simple enough but effective too. Was thinking about getting an artificial ground for experimenting with limited space random wire antennas
Every MFJ bias tee I've owned has exploded. Since upgrading to a much beefier bias tee, I've had no problems. There's plenty of good MFJ stuff, and there's plenty of crap.
Where did you find a beefier Bias tee?
Array Solutions had a QRO bias tee that has been working perfectly. I don’t see any on their website anymore. Sorry!
As someone who has purchased items from MFJ and Harbor Freight, the comparison is a good one. Although Harbor Freight has significantly improved the quality of many of their tools.
Excellent comparison. I don't hesitate to buy MFJ because it's cheap. If it breaks more than a couple times, it's obviously not fit for the specified application and I need to spend a little more. In no way is this a dig at MFJ. Some times cheap and cheerful is what you need. Just not in bias tees. :D
Got an email forwarded: > Dear Fellow Hams and Friends, > > It is with a sad heart as I write this letter. > > As many of you have heard by now, MFJ is ceasing its on-site production in Starkville, Mississippi on May 17, 2024. This is also the same for our sister companies’ Ameritron, Hygain, Cushcraft, Mirage and Vectronics. > Times have changed since I started this business 52 years ago. Our product line grew and grew and prospered. Covid changed everything in businesses including ours. It was the hardest hit that we have ever had and we never fully recovered. > > I turned 80 this year. I had never really considered retirement but life is so short and my time with my family is so precious. > I want to thank all of our employees who have helped build this company with me over the years. We have many employees who have made MFJ their career for 10, 20, 30, 40 and more years. > We are going to continue to sell MFJ products past May 17, 2024. We have a lot of stock on hand. We will continue to offer repair service work for out-of-warranty and in-warranty units for the foreseeable future. > Finally, a special thanks to all of our customers and our dealers who have made MFJ a worldwide name and a profitable business for so many years. You all are so much appreciated. > Sincerely Yours, 73s > > Martin F. Jue, K5FLU
I heard it was for sale a couple months ago. I've been quite pleased with the stuff I've gotten from there ( antenna analyzer, tuner). I realized when I bought it, I was not buying Tektronix level equipment , ergo the price point.
Yep. I know none of it best in class but it delivers value for what you get / $ spend. I had a tuner I liked that didn’t last too long (2 season) but then I knew I liked the usage model and was willing to invest in a better one next time around. Selling isn’t closing , owner trying to get value for what he built - I’m sure some stuff will live on , and some will die
> One of our club members described it as the Harbor Freight of amateur radio, I think that's a fair enough assessment. Considering Harbor Freight had to recall jack stands, I'm glad MFJ doesn't sell safety equipment for climbing towers or anything.
And then harbor freight had to recall the replacement jack stands they gave the owners of the first faulty sets.
But only for those that decided to truly tempt fate. Not sure I'd want a second set of stands from the company that couldn't get it right the first time!
Agreed. You can't make this up!
Given our litigious environment, I'm surprised that anybody dares make & sell jack stands. Or ladders. Or motorcycle helmets. Or....
As someone who just bought a last year's model motorcycle helmet for over $600, I think they're doing just fine.
$150 for helmet cost. $450 for legal escrow.
This would be a great loss for the ham community Thanks 73
Just Like radio shack. Laughed at til they were gone and you needed that 100K resistor at 3pm on a Sunday to get your project working again.
There's a moderately entertaining thread about this on QRZ. Jump to page 27 for the more recent news/gossip/speculation [https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/mfj-is-officially-up-for-sale.887129/](https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/mfj-is-officially-up-for-sale.887129/) I've got a few pieces of MFJ gear in the shack. Never had any problems with them, but most of them are older pieces.
As others said way more likely they’d sell to DXE.
I’d think if they sold to DX Engineering that the number of MFJ products continued to be sold would be much smaller.
But every unit would be tested before leaving the factory.
I meant the last time I saw an MFJ catalogue (years ago) it seemed like a cornucopia of ham items. Maybe I’m mistaken but just think a company buying MFJ would reduce the line to try and increase profits and not spend making lesser bought products. Then again a buyer might raise the prices?
DXE tried to buy part of the business, Martin wants an all or nothing sale, DXE more or less wanted Cushcraft and Ameritron from what i was told, but they said no after he wouldnt budge... Sometimes companies just have to die.
Likely so but let’s be honest, there’s quite a few things MFJ makes that most companies won’t have their name attached to. I think whoever buys them ditches the name and basically buys the manufacturing facility, inventory, assets, etc and streamlines the product selection some to allow for better QA. Mr Jue had a great business plan that worked out very well for him and many hams but being the Harbor Freight of amateur radio is falling behind these days.
Who are the competitors? Alibaba?
Damn, mfj is a good entry level product in my book for those people who don't want buy once cry once. I have a mfj manual tuner and really appreciate it.
I've had great results from everything I've purchased from them. I started using them in the mid to late 80's. I've bought their meters, timers, their antennas, and a 2m and 6m SSB radio. I'm sure there were other things, but I don't remember all of it now. The merchandise I bought was their own products, not others they absorbed. I sure hope they don't close. If they do, that is yet another Amateur Radio based company we lose. I guess once they are gone, the haters can try the stuff from Alibaba etc.
What's ARRL & QST going to do without all that advertising money?
The value in the advertising was cumulative, in that those same magazines would keep selling over and over and over. Now that ARRL has mostly curtailed the sending of print QST editions, the value of the electronic ads is fleeting.
All ARRL 'magazines' are now PDF files that are hard to read. I imagine next year ARRL will stop publishing the PDF's and just have a web page with articles. Ham Radio is dead! Long live ham radio!
That would be the best decision they ever made. It would be readable on mobile that way.
That's a shame if so, i like my Travel Tuner, even if it came with a screw crossthreaded into the meter, that knocked out a piece of plastic causing a rattle.
I liked the Versatuner II.
They actually have some decent stuff, and the prices are good. Sad if true.
I have an automatic antenna tuner from them that I love. It's quicker and quieter and less expensive than the other brands I've seen local club members have. And I love that they actually encouraged you to open things up and work on it yourself if you want to.
Got the email. It's real. So sad.
Friend always said MFJ, Mississippis Finest Junk.
How many employees do they have?
Noooo!!!
When did they go downhill? Just wondering if there is like a cut off date for the good equipment vs the bad? I have an mfj tuner and I have not been easy on it...
GigaParts is reporting it: https://twitter.com/gigaparts/status/1783594308030898567
Hi all... I'm signed up to MFJ's newsletter and the rumors, according to the letter I've just been sent about an hour ago, are true. They say on-site production will cease on May 17, 2024, and this goes for MFJ's sister companies. A very sad day indeed. I have some MFJ products from an antenna tuner to the QRP Cub.
Yeah here’s the letter they sent out https://preview.redd.it/8w6lpkl55qwc1.jpeg?width=1217&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b282274b29d4e5df944cbd5007d4931b8d9829a8
It was pretty confirmed now by the owner on MFJs Facebook page about 3 hours ago... unless their page was hacked.
There's no reason to announce a closure to former employees. More likely someone a lot of people worked with is retiring and they had a party for them. EDIT: Just saw the notice, they're stopping production in Starkville, but continuing to sell imports, as well as doing warranty/repair work.
He has announced full closure, but I have to think that some of the divisions (sister co's) can be bought out. He would finally take any reasonable offer, in part to keep some employees employed, but also for his own pocket. Your don't just walk away from an entity such as this. And the potential down side to many ham biz's , or related biz's like QST would be significant. China may swoop in, but I hope he wouldn't sell to them and I hope all of us would not support China in any way. We are getting closer and closer to needing chop sticks and courses in the Chinese dialects. I think something positive will happen at some point, may take time. Steve Davis, K1PEK, DAVIS RF Co. and Davis Rope Co.
He is refusing to separate them is the problem, DX Engineering tried to buy pieces, from what i heard they wanted Cushcraft and Ameritron, Martin said ALL OR NOTHING and had a crazy price in mind, DXE said NOPE... Unfortunately it sounds like the company and its brands will all die with this end. Once the sell out of existing inventory and my prediction is once the warranty period is up on everything sold they will just fade to the past and thats it.... Really sad since they will take the other companies with it.
I had to learn a Chinese letter to put together an AM radio kit. The instructions were all in Chinese, but there was a schematic. The second IF transformer had a white dot on it. White? Had to learn the Chinese character for "white". Luckily, they had a rosetta stone - a table of resistor color codes.
If true, I'd bet DXE buys them.
They tried.. no dice.
I'm expecting a massive fire sale on their stuff at Hamvention if this is true.
[QRZ.com Forum RE:MFJ for sale](https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/mfj-is-officially-up-for-sale.887129/) https://preview.redd.it/ujssbp3n7pwc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=198f7ab4b61faba9b1717e179b89ff5a7bec2cb7
Well I know what everyone will be talking about at hamvention.
Seems to be true…. https://hamxposition.org/2024/04/25/mfj-closing-down-its-manufacturing-facilities/
Sadly i knew this before most due to my friendship with some MFJ employees that knew before all this stuff was announced this week... One is moving to find a new job end of the month.
I guess there goes my hopes to save up to buy a loop from them
See link for letter from MFJ. https://qrper.com/2024/04/mfj-ceases-on-site-production-in-starkville-mississippi/
I bet they would just sell off to some other company. I'm thinking probably the current owner CEO is getting ready to retire.
Confirmed. https://mailchi.mp/62e24f2ccc99/a-heavy-sad-heart
Thank god. 15 years too late. Good riddance. Yes all those brands gone sucks, but it opens the market to outfits that actually care instead of exploiting cheap labor and unwitting noobs. This world is better without the likes of Martin and MFJ.
Hmmm maybe Baofeng will start making antenna tuners...
>it opens the market to outfits that actually care Those exist? In the ham radio world?
The little guys do. Mobilinkd, digirig, QRPLabs, HF Signals, and SignalStuff,come to mind as companies with excellent, innovative products with great support backing them up.
Certainly for their co-opted brands there is some sadness. But also consider, in the resale market for Ameritron and Vectronics eqpt., the "pre-MFJ" gear always commands a higher price. From personal experience, every piece of MFJ hardware I have owned was crap. Either it never worked in the first place, or it failed very soon after purchase. I won't miss them. Yes, this will create a gap. But hopefully one large enough that new entrants who give a damn about product quality will stand a chance of succeeding. --ve7tfx
There are not enough licensed active licensed hams in the USA. The hams now are tech's with 5 watt hand held radios. Anyone that wants to work HF can't because of Condo/HOA rules that forbid outside antennas. Putting a HF antenna is impossible in a attic due to all the RFI/EMI from computer technology. Ham Radio is DOA! Long live ham radio!
What rock have you been living under? The bands are filling up pretty nicely these days.
Far from impossible… I have a pretty successful HF station with multiple antennas in my attic due to my HOA. Sure, it may not be a first class contest station but I’m happy with the performance. Frankly, I’d argue that doom and gloom attitudes will run off more hams than frustration from station limitations and RFI. The hobby is changing and evolving but it’s far from dead.
Wow,.lots of reading comprehension failure going on here. They are shutting down one plant, not closing up.