John, I think you're setting your sights too high. There are excellent analyzers for HF through low VHF, and excellent analyzers for VHF through UHF, but very few that cover HF through UHF. I once tried the MFJ-269, but gave up on it after the THIRD unit died. The first unit had a defective switch, and it was replaced under warranty. The second unit had an improperly-threaded RF connector, so it was replaced under warranty. The third unit was okay when received, but the UHF section died after about three weeks of use. I complained to the MFJ customer service people, and sent the unit back and received a full refund, including the cost of shipping all three units. The sloppy solder joints and haphazard component placement suggests that the assembly was performed by poorly-trained people. Quality control is not one of MFJ's strong suits!
Like you, I want to see more detail in the antenna analysis, so I decided to spring for a VIA Vector Impedance Analyzer made by AEA/Tempo. Definitely not cheap, but it does everything I could ask for, including the ability to display results and plots on a computer. It covers 100 kHz to 54 MHz. I was already familiar with this brand, since I had purchased a 140-525 MHz analyzer a year earlier. Although my experience with antenna analyzers is limited to just MFJ and AEA/Tempo, I know that there are other brands available with similar features. Perhaps some commercial test equipment makers offer portable analyzers that will cover HF through UHF, but instruments in the Site-Master class cost many thousands of dollars. Choose wisely... 73, Eric Lemmon WB6FLY -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Transue Sent: Sunday, January 31, 2010 8:26 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Repeater-Builder] Which Antenna Analyzer? I would like to have an antenna analyzer. The most common with hams seems to be the MFJ analyzers, but I am not a fan of MFJ. So, what do you all use? I'd like the analyzer to cover HF through ham UHF. It would be nice to have it tell me the sign of the reactance, but I guess this can be easily inferred by varying the frequency around the resonance. Thanks in advance for your views and experience. John
