A NECESSARY TOOL....
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Radio accessories come and go, and are usually the first things I sell when trying to get some new rig money, but one accessory/tool that has been with me for
awhile is one that I find invaluable to have in my shack - it's MFJ's MFJ-259B antenna analyzer.
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I've only used but a few of this little gems features, but even those have kept me from pulling out anymore precious hair. Taken from MFJ's website, their description is:
awhile is one that I find invaluable to have in my shack - it's MFJ's MFJ-259B antenna analyzer.-
I've only used but a few of this little gems features, but even those have kept me from pulling out anymore precious hair. Taken from MFJ's website, their description is:
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"Here's what you can do: Find your antennas true resonant frequency. Trim dipoles and verticals.Adjust your Yagi, quad, loop and other antennas, change antenna spacing and height and watch SWR, resistance and reactance change instantly. You'll know exactly what to do by simply watching the display. Perfectly tune critical HF mobile antennas in seconds for super DX -- without subjecting your transceiver to high SWR. Measure your antennas 2:1 SWR bandwidth on one band, or analyze multiband performance from 1.8 to 170Mhz! Check SWR outside the ham bands without violating FCC rules. Take the guesswork out of building and adjusting matching networks and baluns. Measure distance in feet to a short or open in faulty coax. Measure length of a roll of coax, coax loss, velocity factor, impedance. Measure inductance and capacitance. measure resonant frequency and approximate Q of traps, stubs, transmission lines, RF chokes, tuned circuits and baluns. Adjust your antenna tuner for a perfect 1:1 match without creating QRM. And this is only the beginning! the MFJ-259B is a complete ham radio test station including -- frequency counter, RF signal generator, SWR Analyzer, RF resistance and Reactance Analyzer, Coax Analyzer, Capacitance and Inductance Meter and more!"
"Here's what you can do: Find your antennas true resonant frequency. Trim dipoles and verticals.Adjust your Yagi, quad, loop and other antennas, change antenna spacing and height and watch SWR, resistance and reactance change instantly. You'll know exactly what to do by simply watching the display. Perfectly tune critical HF mobile antennas in seconds for super DX -- without subjecting your transceiver to high SWR. Measure your antennas 2:1 SWR bandwidth on one band, or analyze multiband performance from 1.8 to 170Mhz! Check SWR outside the ham bands without violating FCC rules. Take the guesswork out of building and adjusting matching networks and baluns. Measure distance in feet to a short or open in faulty coax. Measure length of a roll of coax, coax loss, velocity factor, impedance. Measure inductance and capacitance. measure resonant frequency and approximate Q of traps, stubs, transmission lines, RF chokes, tuned circuits and baluns. Adjust your antenna tuner for a perfect 1:1 match without creating QRM. And this is only the beginning! the MFJ-259B is a complete ham radio test station including -- frequency counter, RF signal generator, SWR Analyzer, RF resistance and Reactance Analyzer, Coax Analyzer, Capacitance and Inductance Meter and more!"
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Usually my 259 gets a tad dusty while it waits to be called into action, but whenever the call comes it doesn't disappoint. Recently I was trying to figure out if I had a problem with my AT-50 auto-tuner, coax, or antenna (apartment antennas are a bugger to get right anyways) so I pulled my trusty MFJ-259B from it's lair and within 10 minutes figured out what the issue was (ed. - thankfully not the AT-50). It's not just for base antennas either - use it on Field Day to check your portable antenna, or even that new mobile installation you just completed, plus, you'll be very popular with the local HAM crowd because there's always a HAM out there who is having difficulty and looking for someone with an antenna analyzer to help them out.
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POLL RESULTS: The question was 'are you a fan of DSP or not' and voting ended in a tie.
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POLL RESULTS: The question was 'are you a fan of DSP or not' and voting ended in a tie.
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CW-DAVE sent in this photo of his current station, but rumour has it that his new FT-950 will be replaced with something new or something old shortly.
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73
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WOODY
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WOODY
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