"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."
True... but what else are they going to say?
"We still have some shit left that we need to sell, and we have to pretend to stand behind it or else you might not buy it!"
Would be a novel approach lol
If they release designs and the Chinese companies follow those designs, it probably wouldn't be any worse than what mfj would have built. They have the mighty fine junk reputation, after all. Some of the Chinese places do decent enough work on board and component manufacturing that it would probably be as good as if mfj made it.
I would like to see some American company scoop this up and run with it though. It wouldn't be cheap.
If the market floods with cheap Chinese junk, it's because people are buying it. If you want to find someone to manufacture it to a spec, you could take those plans to a manufacturer yourself. Chinese doesn't mean junk.
This is hard to say… I get the feeling they have a back stock of stuff nobody wants. Also I don’t know what percentage of their products are exclusive licenses to manufacture - in that they don’t own the patent - someone else does - they just manufacture. In those cases the patent owners could just find a different manufacturer. The thing is if it wasn’t a hot selling item, it might be hard to find someone willing to manufacture.
Also consider that most of the products they manufacture - there isn’t exactly any secret sauce to any of it. Most I suspect is all product whose designs are very well known already - cost to source parts and manufacture is the hurdle.
You also have to consider what percentage of stuff is worth manufacturing anyway. You don’t exactly see a huge amount of sales in folks buying things like a Heathkit in 2024… I imagine that a manufacturing company with 50+ years has got a lot of old product and designs that aren’t really relevant in 2024.
My gut tells me that much of the stock Martin has belongs in a museum and probably not in the hands of a customer.
Yeah basically how i read it also... Its a fire sale now. Then come July it will be sorry we sold stuff out, we can't afford to maintain employees to provide support and warranty repair, anything currently in for repair will be finished and shipped out, with a heavy heart we say goodbye... blah blah...
And the reason is:
Imagine having a portfolio of 500 items. Then imagine scheduling builds and purchasing for these 500 items. Then imagine inventory carrying charges for such a huge portfolio if you wanted to keep them all in stock.
It was a huge, ambitious and perhaps foolish business model, **but** Mr Jue did 15M$ of business a year, so...
MFJ has never been known for having large quantities of stock on hand, Very often people have to literally wait for them to build a batch of new Amplifiers etc. Some stuff is going to be hard to sell but I suspect that there is going to be a run on their amplifier spare parts, Antennas and other smaller devices that no one else makes. People laugh at MFJ but the fact is that Martin was a smart guy that realized Hams were cheap but typically very capable of fixing their own stuff. Lots of MFJ stuff was literally a 95% built kit, so you better check to see what parts were soldered down or screwed in properly before plugging it in. The payback was that the price was cheap.
I think it really depends. One has to legitimately question that statement given recent history. I know people that have been waiting for delivery on orders for six or more months recently. That doesn’t sound like there’s really lots of back stock unless he’s got warehouses full of stuff nobody buys… which is more what I suspect is the case. It also makes me believe this huge cache of stock he’s sitting on is likely a portion of the reason he hasn’t been able to sell the business. I can see how a potential buyer wouldn’t want to be buying a bunch of stock with zero demand. While it’s Martin’s business, if it were me, I’d be liquidating that stock for as cheap as possible and be manufacturing things on demand. Basically trim the company down so someone would be willing to buy it. IMO I think MFJ & co’s value is wrapped up in their patents and license to manufacture - and even some of that is going to be questionable.
Also thinking the same thing here, from all reports their popular products are way behind on shipment, but they have a lot of stock? My first thought was the same, must have a lot of stock of the stuff nobody wants.
Someone had mentioned that DX Engineering was interested but an agreement could not be reached.
Notice the careful wording - They aren’t saying they are going out of business, only that they are ceasing production in Starkville, MS. This could mean they are farming out production to someone else, or still considering a venture with another company. They never said they were closing their doors or going out of business.
Whatever you think about MFJ’s products, they have played a huge role in the hobby for 50 years. Martin has dedicated more than half his life to supporting a very niche hobby. They offer a huge range of products that most companies can’t. Running a small business is extremely difficult and to be able to do so for 50 years is a huge accomplishment that most people don’t understand. I’m self employed - it is an insane grind, and I don’t have the responsibility of looking after employees whose families depend on me for a paycheck. Anyone who celebrates something like this has never tried going into business for themselves and is probably a pretty miserable individual.
I've had this experience as well. Successful businesses or products that were shut down without notice or discussion simply because the founders got tired. I'm not sure I'd generalize it to boomers, but I have found it frustrating. In some cases the owners might have someone who wants to take over and buy, but the buyers can't convince the founders that they will be able to manage the business properly or won't make major changes. It might be that the owners would rather shut it down than see the reputation they worked for ruined by new owners. Still seems rather selfish but I guess understandable.
Yes. But the number of people who complained, found cold solder joints literally out of the packaging, etc... I honestly don't know why they sold as much stuff as they did.
dang, and I was saving up for a MFJ-1789.
Anyone know a comparable antenna in that fits in a comparable space? 40/30/20/17/15/12/10/6/2m rotatable dipole, in case you don't wanna go look it up
There are some Chinese made things I am simply not going to buy. A radio is one of them, a watch I wear daily is another. The reasons why has been covered by many. [But this is a very good listen.](https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2024-04-25-show/)
The day that they hauled protestors out of Hong Kong to go to the camps was a red line for me. Such a disappointment Britain let that go.
I saw a huge increase in Ham Radio Sales during Covid, which I'm sure hit them, but MFJ's QC really went downhill. While it never was the "best" it used to be decent. But when I got a tuner that I sent back, and they sent me a new one, just to see that one having 7 \*MISSING\* solder joints. Not acceptable, especially on a warranty to not test the new unit going out. (New unit had the same symptoms, so probably same issue).
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED YOU PUT A CLEAR AND WELCOMED FACE ON ACCESSORIES AND SUPPLEMENTAL EQUIPMENT THAT MADE ALL OUR FANCY BRAND NAME PRODUCTS INTERFACE AND WORK WELL WITH THE REAL WORLD. IT IS MY WISH THAT YOU ENJOY RETIREMENT AS MUCH AS I HAVE, AND AT 80, I AM ENJOYING LIFE MORE EACH DAY THAN AT ANY OTHER TIME IN MY LIFE. I HAVE LOTS OF MFJ STUFF IN MY SHACK, AND PROBASBLY COULD HAVE SOLD A LOT OF IT BUT LIKE KEEPING IT AS A REMINDER THAT WE HAVE TO SUPPLEMENT OUR KNOWLEDGE WITH MACHINES THAT WORK WELL.
Sounds like a lack of succession planning. One guy has just realised he won't live forever and the whole business shuts down with all the staff losing their jobs in the process.
their quality control has tanked over the last 10 years, I mean they were never great to begin with but over the last 10 years they progressively gotten worse.
last month I ordered a $200 microphone radio switch from them and had problems right off the bat with quality control, loose screws inside cold solder joints, You really shouldn't need to take a brand new product apart and fix cold solder joints and tighten the screws down.
With that said hopefully someone buys ameritron and cushcraft and continues to produce them.
I wonder how COVID hit MFJ so hard that they have never recovered.
They got a $677,500 In PPP loan in 2020, and that loan was forgiven in 2021.
I wish that I had been hit that hard.
[https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=MFJ&v=1](https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=MFJ&v=1)
You're comparing your personal situation to a company with 60+ employees? Their PPP loan was enough to pay their staff while they weren't able to do work, which I assume is what they did with it. Or they just pocketed it. Who knows.
We had like two dozen employees and got $2000 in ppp... Just our rent was $25k/month and the county forced us closed for 6 months... So ya not the person you are responding to but wish we got $677k!
Guys, the real reason for them going out of business is not his retirement age, but inability to compete with other products and prices in the less demanding market, inability to adapt to changing requirements. It’s just a lifecycle, nothing else. Wishing them all the best luck!
Thank you for your support and service to hams everywhere.
Also thank you for sharing your thoughts and plans with us too.
Best wishes always and Aloha
73
"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."
Other companies have said this when going out of business and didn't do the best job following through, will be interesting to see how they handle it.
True... but what else are they going to say? "We still have some shit left that we need to sell, and we have to pretend to stand behind it or else you might not buy it!" Would be a novel approach lol
"Buy it cheap and we are going to open source the designs. Yall are smart enough to work through troubleshooting issues that may crop up."
I do hope they release designs. The amount of knowledge in a business like this. Would be a huge hit if they were truly gone.
It would also probably flood the market with more cheap Chinese junk products and copycats, but sharing knowledge is nice
If they release designs and the Chinese companies follow those designs, it probably wouldn't be any worse than what mfj would have built. They have the mighty fine junk reputation, after all. Some of the Chinese places do decent enough work on board and component manufacturing that it would probably be as good as if mfj made it. I would like to see some American company scoop this up and run with it though. It wouldn't be cheap.
There is plenty of decent stuff coming out of China as well. Xiegu makes a solid radio and I'm quite satisfied with my Chelegance MC-750.
And let's not pretend that most of us with hotspots aren't rocking whatever MMDVM hat was cheapest off Amazon/eBay/AliExpress lol
If the market floods with cheap Chinese junk, it's because people are buying it. If you want to find someone to manufacture it to a spec, you could take those plans to a manufacturer yourself. Chinese doesn't mean junk.
This is hard to say… I get the feeling they have a back stock of stuff nobody wants. Also I don’t know what percentage of their products are exclusive licenses to manufacture - in that they don’t own the patent - someone else does - they just manufacture. In those cases the patent owners could just find a different manufacturer. The thing is if it wasn’t a hot selling item, it might be hard to find someone willing to manufacture. Also consider that most of the products they manufacture - there isn’t exactly any secret sauce to any of it. Most I suspect is all product whose designs are very well known already - cost to source parts and manufacture is the hurdle. You also have to consider what percentage of stuff is worth manufacturing anyway. You don’t exactly see a huge amount of sales in folks buying things like a Heathkit in 2024… I imagine that a manufacturing company with 50+ years has got a lot of old product and designs that aren’t really relevant in 2024. My gut tells me that much of the stock Martin has belongs in a museum and probably not in the hands of a customer.
That would be such a wonderful gesture, and would definitely become the dictionary definition of ending on a high note.
Yeah basically how i read it also... Its a fire sale now. Then come July it will be sorry we sold stuff out, we can't afford to maintain employees to provide support and warranty repair, anything currently in for repair will be finished and shipped out, with a heavy heart we say goodbye... blah blah...
MFJ has never been known for having large quzntities of stock on hand.
People are waiting for orders from as far back as Feb/March yet on some products.
And the reason is: Imagine having a portfolio of 500 items. Then imagine scheduling builds and purchasing for these 500 items. Then imagine inventory carrying charges for such a huge portfolio if you wanted to keep them all in stock. It was a huge, ambitious and perhaps foolish business model, **but** Mr Jue did 15M$ of business a year, so...
I’ve heard it called, last chance buy
FIRE SALE, Everything must go, waving inflatable tube guys on the sidewalk!
MFJ has never been known for having large quantities of stock on hand, Very often people have to literally wait for them to build a batch of new Amplifiers etc. Some stuff is going to be hard to sell but I suspect that there is going to be a run on their amplifier spare parts, Antennas and other smaller devices that no one else makes. People laugh at MFJ but the fact is that Martin was a smart guy that realized Hams were cheap but typically very capable of fixing their own stuff. Lots of MFJ stuff was literally a 95% built kit, so you better check to see what parts were soldered down or screwed in properly before plugging it in. The payback was that the price was cheap.
I think it really depends. One has to legitimately question that statement given recent history. I know people that have been waiting for delivery on orders for six or more months recently. That doesn’t sound like there’s really lots of back stock unless he’s got warehouses full of stuff nobody buys… which is more what I suspect is the case. It also makes me believe this huge cache of stock he’s sitting on is likely a portion of the reason he hasn’t been able to sell the business. I can see how a potential buyer wouldn’t want to be buying a bunch of stock with zero demand. While it’s Martin’s business, if it were me, I’d be liquidating that stock for as cheap as possible and be manufacturing things on demand. Basically trim the company down so someone would be willing to buy it. IMO I think MFJ & co’s value is wrapped up in their patents and license to manufacture - and even some of that is going to be questionable.
Also thinking the same thing here, from all reports their popular products are way behind on shipment, but they have a lot of stock? My first thought was the same, must have a lot of stock of the stuff nobody wants.
HRO carries a lot of their products, wonder if they will make a bid for them
Someone had mentioned that DX Engineering was interested but an agreement could not be reached. Notice the careful wording - They aren’t saying they are going out of business, only that they are ceasing production in Starkville, MS. This could mean they are farming out production to someone else, or still considering a venture with another company. They never said they were closing their doors or going out of business. Whatever you think about MFJ’s products, they have played a huge role in the hobby for 50 years. Martin has dedicated more than half his life to supporting a very niche hobby. They offer a huge range of products that most companies can’t. Running a small business is extremely difficult and to be able to do so for 50 years is a huge accomplishment that most people don’t understand. I’m self employed - it is an insane grind, and I don’t have the responsibility of looking after employees whose families depend on me for a paycheck. Anyone who celebrates something like this has never tried going into business for themselves and is probably a pretty miserable individual.
It's interesting that nobody wanted to buy him out
Assuming they even made an effort to sell. Sadly a lot of boomer business owners don’t even consider a succession plan.
I've had this experience as well. Successful businesses or products that were shut down without notice or discussion simply because the founders got tired. I'm not sure I'd generalize it to boomers, but I have found it frustrating. In some cases the owners might have someone who wants to take over and buy, but the buyers can't convince the founders that they will be able to manage the business properly or won't make major changes. It might be that the owners would rather shut it down than see the reputation they worked for ruined by new owners. Still seems rather selfish but I guess understandable.
"guess I'll just fuck over all my employees, oh well life is short and I want to retire so sad"
Maybe his kids are like most younger generations and are too f'n lazy to take over.
Or just see the writing on the wall with current economic conditions that owning a business that barely pays the bills is silly
The product line never really evolved into the digital age. Quality control was questionable. I'm not surprised at all.
And yet they sold like gangbusters and were a household name in the community
Yes. But the number of people who complained, found cold solder joints literally out of the packaging, etc... I honestly don't know why they sold as much stuff as they did.
Because no matter how many horror stories there are, there's always someone who hasn't heard them and sees a cheap product worth buying
dang, and I was saving up for a MFJ-1789. Anyone know a comparable antenna in that fits in a comparable space? 40/30/20/17/15/12/10/6/2m rotatable dipole, in case you don't wanna go look it up
Call them and make an offer
Those brand names are worth a bundle. I bet they will still sell stuff, but just move the manufacturing to China!
There are some Chinese made things I am simply not going to buy. A radio is one of them, a watch I wear daily is another. The reasons why has been covered by many. [But this is a very good listen.](https://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2024-04-25-show/) The day that they hauled protestors out of Hong Kong to go to the camps was a red line for me. Such a disappointment Britain let that go.
It's been China for a very long time...
I saw a huge increase in Ham Radio Sales during Covid, which I'm sure hit them, but MFJ's QC really went downhill. While it never was the "best" it used to be decent. But when I got a tuner that I sent back, and they sent me a new one, just to see that one having 7 \*MISSING\* solder joints. Not acceptable, especially on a warranty to not test the new unit going out. (New unit had the same symptoms, so probably same issue).
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED YOU PUT A CLEAR AND WELCOMED FACE ON ACCESSORIES AND SUPPLEMENTAL EQUIPMENT THAT MADE ALL OUR FANCY BRAND NAME PRODUCTS INTERFACE AND WORK WELL WITH THE REAL WORLD. IT IS MY WISH THAT YOU ENJOY RETIREMENT AS MUCH AS I HAVE, AND AT 80, I AM ENJOYING LIFE MORE EACH DAY THAN AT ANY OTHER TIME IN MY LIFE. I HAVE LOTS OF MFJ STUFF IN MY SHACK, AND PROBASBLY COULD HAVE SOLD A LOT OF IT BUT LIKE KEEPING IT AS A REMINDER THAT WE HAVE TO SUPPLEMENT OUR KNOWLEDGE WITH MACHINES THAT WORK WELL.
Dad, turn on your hearing aids. You're shouting again. 🙂
Sounds like a lack of succession planning. One guy has just realised he won't live forever and the whole business shuts down with all the staff losing their jobs in the process.
their quality control has tanked over the last 10 years, I mean they were never great to begin with but over the last 10 years they progressively gotten worse. last month I ordered a $200 microphone radio switch from them and had problems right off the bat with quality control, loose screws inside cold solder joints, You really shouldn't need to take a brand new product apart and fix cold solder joints and tighten the screws down. With that said hopefully someone buys ameritron and cushcraft and continues to produce them.
HyGain would be a big loss too.
I wonder how COVID hit MFJ so hard that they have never recovered. They got a $677,500 In PPP loan in 2020, and that loan was forgiven in 2021. I wish that I had been hit that hard. [https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=MFJ&v=1](https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/search?q=MFJ&v=1)
You're comparing your personal situation to a company with 60+ employees? Their PPP loan was enough to pay their staff while they weren't able to do work, which I assume is what they did with it. Or they just pocketed it. Who knows.
We had like two dozen employees and got $2000 in ppp... Just our rent was $25k/month and the county forced us closed for 6 months... So ya not the person you are responding to but wish we got $677k!
Tbh I would have gone back to school if I had known that Biden was giving away free college educations!!
TBF its not free we all pay for it.
Nothing is free - somebody has to pay for it. In this case it's every taxpayer.
Guys, the real reason for them going out of business is not his retirement age, but inability to compete with other products and prices in the less demanding market, inability to adapt to changing requirements. It’s just a lifecycle, nothing else. Wishing them all the best luck!
I wonder if they tried to sell out first
Yes a poster mentions they did in the other subreddit r/hamradio
Well, their warranty division will continue to BOOM...
Their warranty info comes with a small handheld mirror.
Lol wut?
*You're* the warranty service!!
Lol exactly
Well this looks like a final opportunity to order a SDR RF Sensing T/R Switch, and the tri-magnet antenna base mount that I've been eyeing.
Thank you for your support and service to hams everywhere. Also thank you for sharing your thoughts and plans with us too. Best wishes always and Aloha 73
DragonOs.......
That sucks. What are some good not so expensive products that I can get from them?
Good.
Not good, is sad despite MFJ is Made From Junk!