[TowerTalk] HyGain Antenna Quality control issues: Let's Put MFJ in Perspective

[Kelly Taylor]

From a marketing perspective, companies like MFJ and others (it’s not the only one trading quality for volume) operate on the premise the vast majority of customers simply don’t know any better.

If you asked Joe Q. Ham what products 4O3A produces, they’d give you a blank stare. If you showed them the price difference between a 4O3A switch and Ameritron switch, they’d look at you like you had two heads. Which isn’t to validate their ignorance of quality vs. price, simply to recognize it. And even if you could convince them, they’d probably check their bank balance, see they can afford the Ameritron and not the 4O3A, and still choose the Ameritron.

These are the people who will continue to lap up MFJ products.

73, kelly, ve4xt 



> On Apr 2, 2018, at 1:52 PM, Jim Brown <jim at audiosystemsgroup.com> wrote:
> 
> On 4/2/2018 10:47 AM, Drew Vonada-Smith wrote:
>> I am an electronics engineer, involved for many years in electronics, including manufacturing at several small companies. I understand that we are not all wealthy, and there is a place for product's like MFJ's.  But that is not the issue.
> 
> More correctly, there is a place for decent products and low cost. There is NO place for the sort of junk that comes out of MFJ and the companies that the owner has taken over. And I refuse to accept that Mr. Jue has "rescued" those companies. Rather all he has done is continue the "brands" but turned them into junk. G0KSC has made great strides in the design of antennas, and I'd considered buying one -- UNTIL Mr. Jue took over manufacturing them.
> 
> When I was younger, I had little to spend on radio, whether as a student, or raising a family, helping them with college, or saving for retirement. I economized NOT by buying junk, but by buying quality used gear, by prowling the aisles at ham flea markets, and by using antennas that I could build.
> 
> On 4/2/2018 10:21 AM, David Gilbert wrote:
>> That's actually a crock.
> >>SNIP
>> Poor manufacturing quality occurs through ignorance or indifference, period.   What you don't understand is that how the manufacturing floor looks is key to how the product works. Disputing that simply shows ignorance.
>> 
>> MFJ designs their products to meet a particular price point and that's fine.  But there is simply no valid excuse for the quality level of the stuff they build.  I've bought roughly a dozen items from MFJ over the 50+ years I've been a ham and at least ten of them had quality defects.  Not design limitations ... quality defects. 
> 
> Exactly right on all counts, Dave.
> 
> 73, Jim K9YC
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