At 11:28 AM 3/6/2011, Clint Bradford wrote:

First, befriend a Motorola technician at your local Moto dealership

• if you haven't already.

And you really have two price-point options: about US$400 for an MFJ-269, or a true piece of bench service gear at about US$5000.

If you get an MFJ-269, "use" your contact with a real service tech to "compare" results. There was an issue with QC on the MFJ-269 (SOURCE: Personal experience, as I sold them for a couple of years). So - if you get a good one - or one with consistent results, you'll really enjoy it.

Clint, K6LCS 909-241-7666

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I bought mine used on e-bay and spent too much for it. Failed the third day and cost me $70+shipping to get it fixed by MFJ. I ended up spending more than a brand new unit ;-) But is compares well with Bird43 measurements (which are 95% accurate) so good enough for ham use at my place. I modified mine to operate on LF for tuning loading coils on those "short" LF antennas. See my website under tech topics.

I ran it on a 4AH gel-cell for a couple years until I got tired of lugging around the battery (installed ten NiMH AA cells and charge it with the bench PS). It is very handy for those quick checks of antennas or cables.

73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45 ====================================== BP40IQ 500 KHz - 10-GHz www.kl7uw.com EME: 144-1.4kw, 432-100w, 1296-testing*, 3400-winter? DUBUS Magazine USA Rep dubususa@hotmail.com ======================================