MFJ-941E MFJ941E MFJ Enterprises Original HF Antenna Tuner with Mini Cross Meter, 300 Watts

I use it to tune my stealth inverted V. My homebrew tuner cant tune it on 80, so I hoped this tuner would do the trick. It was not able to achieve much of a match (~5:1 SWR) on 80 but tunes it well on 40 - 10 meters. Switched inductor and nice dials on the capacitors make it easy to return to settings when switching bands. Crossed needle meter makes it easy to see if you are adjusting in the right direction. Multiple antenna selections are handy. I didnt have a chance to try it on a balanced line antenna yet. I dont have instrumentation to assess its losses, but I was able to work several stations on each of the working bands with modest power (~80 W, not bad for a low inverted L (about 20 ft off the ground). I have some ideas to try to get the antenna working on 80m, some of which are suggested in the manual. Speaking of the manual, its only available online, and is downloadable. So, I tried feeding the coax feed as a single conductor (shield is connected to ground rod at far end, so its hard to predict what impedance that reflects to the tuner). The MFJ was able to get a good match with that. I also tried using my homebrew tuner in cascade with the MFJ, hoping the h.b. tuner would push the impedance within range. That almost worked, but not as well as feeding it as a single conductor. No QSOs on 80 m yet, so still not sure how well it works, but SWR is below 1.5 so Im optimistic. A single gripe and a suggestion or two. The meter LED blew out when coupling to a difficult load. RF coupled into it, and incinerated it with smoke evident. I suggest adding a series resistor and bypass capacitor at the LED to reduce likelihood of recurrence. I also added small bypass capacitors to the meters, to better protect them from RF and reduce their tendency to follow the audio on SSB. It should make them last longer. I rewired the Balun to a 4:1 un-un. This allowed the tuner to match higher Z loads, but you lose the balanced-line feed so it depends on what youre going to feed with it. Im going to drill a small hole in the rear panel and add a DPDT switch so I can select both configurations, but dont have the tools to do it here at my vacation QTH. Im not sure how much power it can handle as an un-un, but it had no problem with my 80W transmitter.

couldnt get less than 3:1 swr and believe me I tried !!!

Its pretty easy to use.

used to turn a piece of wire into an antenna

This is the 2nd 941e I have purchased in about 30 days. Each one arrived in sparkling condition but neither one would perform as an antenna tuner. The meter would not function on either. My meter on the transmitter (TS530S) functioned fine but zero response on the meter. The TS530S has a max operating wattage of 100 and the switch to and from 300 did not affect the meter. However, MFJ customer service responded to me about other models and had difficulty, 3 times today, even finding the model I was having problems with and kept telling me, strange.... or do you have it installed right. Yes, it is installed correctly and that is why I can transmitt in bypass. Jeez! I think I will spend an extra 100 to 200 and buy a decent tuner.

great

I have a compromised location, so I have the antennas I can have, not what I really wanted. This antenna tuner allows me to work on all the bands and it does this well. Unit arrived well packaged - everything included. Checked tightness control knobs and shafts.....all looks good.

Works great. Tunes my antenna quick and easy. You could probably tune your rain gutters or a coat hanger with this tuner.

easy to use and works as described. tnz NoQES