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[TowerTalk] Hy-Gain, responsibility shifted

To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: [TowerTalk] Hy-Gain, responsibility shifted
From: W8JI@contesting.com (Tom Rauch)
Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 10:58:31 -0400
The following post by "notawc" demonstrates how **little** some 
people know about some things they make comments on....  

From:                   notawc@juno.com
To:                     towertalk@contesting.com
Date sent:              Thu, 13 May 1999 16:46:23 -0400
Subject:                Re: [TowerTalk] Hy-Gain, responsibility shifted
>
> I disagree if I may. The original Ameritron amps when owned by Prime
> Instruments had a great name, top QC and no compromise on parts.
> Take an AL1200 for instance  made by both regimes and compare the parts
> quality.

The parts are exactly the same. The only changes were:

1.) The loading doorknobs were changed to multilayer chip caps 
(price increase) to stop drift with temperature.

2.) A carbon resistor was changed to a metal film because the 
carbon resistor became obsolete.

> MFJ still stands for Mississippi's Finest Junk IMO. You can conjure up
> your own version..

> Well, if you go by prior performance I again disagree. Mirage quality has
> gone down so bad it dont even register. If they continue selling previous
> stock rotator parts it may be OK...just get them fast before they start
> looking for "other" sources.

Nothing changed when MFJ bought Mirage. Service history and 
reliability are exactly the same as before they bought Mirage.

MFJ had to drop three products because they were unbuildable, 
and illegal. One was a 1000 watt CB amplifier without low-pass 
filter and bias that Mirage (in the California days) had no qualms 
about selling to Hams or CBers.

I'l be the first to agree Mirage amps need cleaning up, but it is 
unfair to blame MFJ for poor designs they inherited in the purchase.

Unlike Norm, who knows "everything" without having "been there or 
done that", I spent almost two months in California (when Mirage 
was in Morgan Hills) looking at problem after problem long before 
MFJ bought Mirage.

In about six months Norm will probably be saying the poor cold 
temperature brake release on some Hygain rotors is the fault of the 
recent Hygain ownership change.


73, Tom W8JI
w8ji@contesting.com

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