On Dec 22, 2011, at 11:27 AM, Rick - DJ0IP / NJ0IP wrote:
I thought TT had an exclusive on that.
Apparently not.
That's the problem dealing with the Chinese. They take their contracts
literally. So if you contract with a factory in China to make a
particular radio, they see nothing wrong with contracting with someone
else to make a different radio, although almost exactly the same with
someone else and give you both exclusive contracts.
Since the original radios these were based on were sold not from
China, but from Canada, it's possible that Ten-Tec made an exclusive
deal with the Canadian distributor and MFJ made an exclusive deal with
the Chinese manufacturer.
Note that the original radios were not legal for sale in the US as
completed radios, so they were first sold as kits and then sold as
completed radios in Canada (via eBay). They were not imported into
the US except by the hams that bought them.
Ten-Tec sells two different radios that transmit on two bands (40/30,
40/20), while MFJ sells several single band (40,30,20) radios. That's
enough difference.
The Ten-Tec radio has two output filters and some switching logic, the
MFJ only has a single band filter.
The thing to keep in mind is that Ten-Tec checks out each radio before
they sell it, and they provide warranty service and support for them.
What testing MFJ does and the quality of their support is something
for discussion elsewhere. I personally find that MFJ quality control
is less than Ten-Tec's but their support is pretty good. YMMV.
--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, N3OWJ/4X1GM
My high blood pressure medicine reduces my midichlorian count. :-(
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