6 ms·

For anyone confused like I was, this isn't about mailchimp shutting down, but rather a company named MFJ, which apparently makes amateur radio gear.

MBCook 3y ago
TONS of it. Everything you could need. Need a key for Morse code? A Morse code trainer? An antenna tuner? Antenna? Power supply? Test equipment? They had EVERYTHING. https://mfjenterprises.com/ https://mfjenterprises.com/ If you’re a ham this is sort of like CDW or NewEgg closing, but they’re #1 by a massive margin and well loved. No one else had the variety of stuff they did as I remember.
- rmason 3y ago
  I'm a ham and I've used some of their products over the years. It is indeed a sad day. I am surprised that someone didn't want to buy them. It is a niche but a handful of small companies (and divisions of large ones) do quite well servicing the amateur radio market.
  - cogman10 3y ago
    > I am surprised that someone didn't want to buy them. I mean... how big is the market for ham radios? I've not really met an enthusiast that wasn't at least 10 years older than I am.
    - topspin 3y ago
      One thing to remember about ham radio is that there is a bit of natural bias in the demographic: a lot of the stuff involved requires a certain minimum amount of things that older people tend to have. Property being one of the keys. HF antennas, towers, etc. are essentially outlawed by HOAs and entirely infeasible for renters. Some of the equipment is pricey as well. You can do a lot at low cost and without property, but some of the more compelling parts of ham radio are hard to reach.
      - germinator 3y ago
        Eh. It might be a part of it, but the hobby just lost its luster. It used to be this magical way to connect with friends and strangers. Now, cell phones and the internet make it a lot less magical. Other aspects of the hobby aged poorly too. The ham community (and the regulators) were slow to embrace use cases that might have been interesting to younger people in the 21th century - say, mesh networking. Instead, the kids were supposed to follow in the footsteps of the old-timers and get excited about slow-scan TV, RTTY, and collecting QSL postcards. Frankly, I don't know of any other hobby with a comparable amount of gatekeeping. It sucks because the increasingly idle spectrum will eventually get auctioned off for commercial use.
        hallway_monitor 3y ago
        I agree. Got into it during COVID - it was really fun learning about radios, RF, building antennas and stuff. But when it actually came to using it....there's not much to do unless you really get a kick out of making contact with random people who are far away and getting points for that to win contests. It is nice to know that I can communicate thousands of miles with no infrastructure but currently I don't have a need for that.
        mikewarot 3y ago
        >spectrum will eventually get auctioned off for commercial use Which is a tax on anyone who ends up using it. Selling the airwaves was a huge mistake.
        jjav 3y ago
        > Now, cell phones and the internet make it a lot less magical. I know people feel that way but IMO ham radio is still magical because you can communicate across continents without any dependency on anything or anyone else. Sure the internet is faster and more convenient, but for that IP packet to reach its destination it depends on a cast of thousands of components across dozens of providers to all be working correctly. With ham radio, you just need the radio and a generator and the laws of physics to communicate across the globe. That's pretty magical!
- etn 3y ago
  My neighbor, around 1984 or so had what appears to be the LP-1009A antennae right by my bedroom. No one believed me when I told my family and friends that I could hear a person speaking French from my record player.
  - aaronbrethorst 3y ago
    Where were you?
    - actionfromafar 3y ago
      Next-door to a radio station.
topspin 3y ago
They offer a huge catalog of low cost equipment. Some of it is very popular and much of it is pretty niche. Quality is occasionally an issue: you buy their stuff with expectations commensurate to the price or you risk being disappointed. That is a feasible business model with hams, however. Then again, maybe not? I can't think of any one thing they make that isn't available elsewhere. Some of their bread and butter tools, like their classic antenna analyzers, are completely out classed by newer alternatives today. For a long time, however, MFJ was the only affordable source for things like that. One of the niche MFJ products I bought is a 20 meter telescoping vertical antenna element. That's like an old fashioned car radio antenna but 5.2 meters long. Even that is made by competitors today.
- CamperBob2 3y ago
  That's a good point. I'm sure the NanoVNA and similar gadgets have utterly demolished the market for dedicated antenna analyzers, and those really were MFJ's bread-and-butter products.
- dbcurtis 3y ago
  > Quality is occasionally an issue Understatement of the century. Mighty Fine Junk -- it's been a looooong time since I've wasted any money on MFJ rubbish. Life is too short.
  - plowjockey 3y ago
    I also heard "Mississippi's Finest Junk" as well. To be fair, I found the MFJ items I had to be able to the job. It was never best of breed but was always serviceable.
- plowjockey 3y ago
  Actually, comparing the price to the quality/functionality, MFJ stuff is usually priced at a premium versus the kit or one-man-shop devices that they copied. Pricing also seldom changed in response to lower demand (thinking of the venerable MFJ-1270 TNC as interest in packet radio fell off in the late '90s and early '00s). Then there is the case where MFJ bought the rights to Coastal Chip works TNC-X and TNC-Pi and the prices went up significantly. MFJ has been a one-stop-shop for a lot of ham radio gadgets and accessories but were seldom the best value on the market as the pricing reflected their "No Matter What" warranty. Other than an older Ameritron amplifier, which may predate the MFJ acquisition, I see nothing with the MFJ logo looking around my "shack". I moved on from MFJ many years ago and sought better alternatives. Some years ago I bought a Rig Expert AA230-ZOOM analyzer that is far more capable, stable, and compact than any of the MFJ analyzers I had used prior. I also have a NanoVNA that I use for 70cm that is beyond the range of the AA230-ZOOM. Other items in the shack are better built and better performing than their MFJ counterparts such as a West Mountain Radio DC power strip and Palstar and LDG tuners. I am concerned about the fate of Ameritron and Hy-Gain. These two product lines have a strong history that pre-dates their acquisition by MFJ and it would be a shame to see them disappear from the ham radio marketplace.

MBCook 3y ago

TONS of it. Everything you could need. Need a key for Morse code? A Morse code trainer? An antenna tuner? Antenna? Power supply? Test equipment? They had EVERYTHING. https://mfjenterprises.com/ https://mfjenterprises.com/ If you’re a ham this is sort of like CDW or NewEgg closing, but they’re #1 by a massive margin and well loved. No one else had the variety of stuff they did as I remember.

rmason 3y ago
I'm a ham and I've used some of their products over the years. It is indeed a sad day. I am surprised that someone didn't want to buy them. It is a niche but a handful of small companies (and divisions of large ones) do quite well servicing the amateur radio market.
- cogman10 3y ago
  > I am surprised that someone didn't want to buy them. I mean... how big is the market for ham radios? I've not really met an enthusiast that wasn't at least 10 years older than I am.
  - topspin 3y ago
    One thing to remember about ham radio is that there is a bit of natural bias in the demographic: a lot of the stuff involved requires a certain minimum amount of things that older people tend to have. Property being one of the keys. HF antennas, towers, etc. are essentially outlawed by HOAs and entirely infeasible for renters. Some of the equipment is pricey as well. You can do a lot at low cost and without property, but some of the more compelling parts of ham radio are hard to reach.
    - germinator 3y ago
      Eh. It might be a part of it, but the hobby just lost its luster. It used to be this magical way to connect with friends and strangers. Now, cell phones and the internet make it a lot less magical. Other aspects of the hobby aged poorly too. The ham community (and the regulators) were slow to embrace use cases that might have been interesting to younger people in the 21th century - say, mesh networking. Instead, the kids were supposed to follow in the footsteps of the old-timers and get excited about slow-scan TV, RTTY, and collecting QSL postcards. Frankly, I don't know of any other hobby with a comparable amount of gatekeeping. It sucks because the increasingly idle spectrum will eventually get auctioned off for commercial use.
      - hallway_monitor 3y ago
        I agree. Got into it during COVID - it was really fun learning about radios, RF, building antennas and stuff. But when it actually came to using it....there's not much to do unless you really get a kick out of making contact with random people who are far away and getting points for that to win contests. It is nice to know that I can communicate thousands of miles with no infrastructure but currently I don't have a need for that.
      - mikewarot 3y ago
        >spectrum will eventually get auctioned off for commercial use Which is a tax on anyone who ends up using it. Selling the airwaves was a huge mistake.
      - jjav 3y ago
        > Now, cell phones and the internet make it a lot less magical. I know people feel that way but IMO ham radio is still magical because you can communicate across continents without any dependency on anything or anyone else. Sure the internet is faster and more convenient, but for that IP packet to reach its destination it depends on a cast of thousands of components across dozens of providers to all be working correctly. With ham radio, you just need the radio and a generator and the laws of physics to communicate across the globe. That's pretty magical!
etn 3y ago
My neighbor, around 1984 or so had what appears to be the LP-1009A antennae right by my bedroom. No one believed me when I told my family and friends that I could hear a person speaking French from my record player.
- aaronbrethorst 3y ago
  Where were you?
  - actionfromafar 3y ago
    Next-door to a radio station.

topspin 3y ago

They offer a huge catalog of low cost equipment. Some of it is very popular and much of it is pretty niche. Quality is occasionally an issue: you buy their stuff with expectations commensurate to the price or you risk being disappointed. That is a feasible business model with hams, however. Then again, maybe not? I can't think of any one thing they make that isn't available elsewhere. Some of their bread and butter tools, like their classic antenna analyzers, are completely out classed by newer alternatives today. For a long time, however, MFJ was the only affordable source for things like that. One of the niche MFJ products I bought is a 20 meter telescoping vertical antenna element. That's like an old fashioned car radio antenna but 5.2 meters long. Even that is made by competitors today.

CamperBob2 3y ago
That's a good point. I'm sure the NanoVNA and similar gadgets have utterly demolished the market for dedicated antenna analyzers, and those really were MFJ's bread-and-butter products.
dbcurtis 3y ago
> Quality is occasionally an issue Understatement of the century. Mighty Fine Junk -- it's been a looooong time since I've wasted any money on MFJ rubbish. Life is too short.
- plowjockey 3y ago
  I also heard "Mississippi's Finest Junk" as well. To be fair, I found the MFJ items I had to be able to the job. It was never best of breed but was always serviceable.
plowjockey 3y ago
Actually, comparing the price to the quality/functionality, MFJ stuff is usually priced at a premium versus the kit or one-man-shop devices that they copied. Pricing also seldom changed in response to lower demand (thinking of the venerable MFJ-1270 TNC as interest in packet radio fell off in the late '90s and early '00s). Then there is the case where MFJ bought the rights to Coastal Chip works TNC-X and TNC-Pi and the prices went up significantly. MFJ has been a one-stop-shop for a lot of ham radio gadgets and accessories but were seldom the best value on the market as the pricing reflected their "No Matter What" warranty. Other than an older Ameritron amplifier, which may predate the MFJ acquisition, I see nothing with the MFJ logo looking around my "shack". I moved on from MFJ many years ago and sought better alternatives. Some years ago I bought a Rig Expert AA230-ZOOM analyzer that is far more capable, stable, and compact than any of the MFJ analyzers I had used prior. I also have a NanoVNA that I use for 70cm that is beyond the range of the AA230-ZOOM. Other items in the shack are better built and better performing than their MFJ counterparts such as a West Mountain Radio DC power strip and Palstar and LDG tuners. I am concerned about the fate of Ameritron and Hy-Gain. These two product lines have a strong history that pre-dates their acquisition by MFJ and it would be a shame to see them disappear from the ham radio marketplace.