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".........efficiency is well above your claimed 80%" July 5, 2007 You will be pleased to know that the Maxxcom tuner performs beyond expectations! I took some FS-measurements from my 200ft dipole with the balun before I installed the Maxxcom. After that I took the same measurements again with no noticeable drop in FS. A clear indication that efficiency when compared to a dipole is well above your claimed 80%. Immediately I could work stations around Europe on 80m & 40m. The 1000D will be installed in my Unimog radiotruck. For my shack I had an MFJ998 autotuner on order which I just cancelled. I am not going back to fuzz with conventional tuners anymore! So, please send me a 2000D this time. From what Sonny told me I take it that the 2000D will handle 500 Watts RTTY/FM mode? That should be enough. I will be honored if you post my letter in the testimonial section, maybe some more hams will "wake up" :-) Looking forward to my next Maxcom! See you, Willem Noorloss NNNN The Netherlands  Posted on Eham.Net on February 3, 2004 by WA4HND To anyone that is interested. I just picked up a maxx-com this week (my curiosity got the best of me and I figured if it didn't work, I'd get my money’s worth out of the bad press I would send Maxx-Com’s way.) If anyone is interested in what I found let me know and I'll post the details here. One clue ... after my first day of doing some tests (on and off the air)... there is no doubt in my mind that the unit is NOT going to be sent back for a refund. Al Posted on Eham.Net on February 3, 2004 by WA4HND Point of order.... As I'm sure you know, switching in a dummy load will just convert your rf to heat. The maxx-com is not just a big resistor. As I found out when I opened it up... ( the first thing to hit that box was my vom ). If that's all it was, it wouldn't make any difference what kind of load was attached to it or the length of feedline between your rig and the tuner. Look guys, I didn't come up here to start an argument... one week ago I had the same opinion you all did. But after actually using one, I just thought I'd come up here and tell another side of the story. We'll see you all on the bands. ( I'll be the guy who is making the contact while you're tuning up.) Al Al Acker ( wa4hnd ) Colorado State / Mesa County RACES officer Dist 3 ARES asst. EC http://www.ColoradoRACES.net Posted on Eham.net on December 2, 2003 by ZL1WDC Well, ITS NO SCAM! They work beyond a reasonable doubt. People can look down right silly when they say things about something they have no idea about or proof of. The Tuner, the one I bought, is very real. Because it is as good as it sounds and the fact that I am an ex-radio engineer I posted a review on this in the reviews section of this site which explains my initial findings on the subject. QST...there’s more to their findings than meets the eye, there has to be from what I have seen and know. I wouldn’t believe everything you read. They might just have a bee in their bonnet about it. How can someone claim that its smoke and mirrors when it works like they say. Maybe I passed all my exams on radio theory because I am thick...or maybe I am right. Anyway...who cares what those who don’t have one think, I am one of very few hams in the world that don’t have to use a manual/auto tuner ever...because I simply don’t need it. :) My pride is not bigger than my curiosity and that is why. Posted on www.eham.net December 10, 2002 73/Chuck/K4OG After reading some of the comments regarding the Maxx-com tuner/coupler by NQP's (that's an old Navy term for "None Qualified Pukes"). Which means, “I've never owned a Maxx-Com tuner, and I don't know anyone who has one, but I'm willing to pass along ‘scuttlebutt’ and state my uninformed opinion.” I thought my hands on experience with the Maxx-Com would add some balance to this thread. Now I have a Maxx-Com 1000D. That is the Military, Commercial unit rated a 1KW. But before I get to the tuner, some background is called for. The antenna situation here is rather limited. I run a 150-foot dipole with 450 ohm ladder line to a MFJ 989 transmatch. I could tune all band, even force it onto 160 meters, but the antenna is just to short to be an effective radiator on the top band. I decided to turn the room I was using for the shack into a computer/TV room, so I moved the shack to the basement. But I also wanted to keep a transceiver in the old shack and be able to operate from either room, without having to do anything more than flip a coax switch. That meant that the manual tuner had to go. My first approach to the tuner situation was the SGC SG-235 automatic tuner. Now this is a rather large unit. My 150 dipole does not have center support, so hanging the SG-235 at the dipole feed point was not an option. Just too big and heavy. But, as per the instruction manual, I should be able to run up to 200 feet of open wire line (300-600 ohm) between the tuner and the dipole. With about 70 feet of 450-ohm ladder line between the tuner and the dipole it tuned all bands just fine. The major problem was RFI, and I mean big time! Turns out the ladder line was radiating like crazy. About 50 feet of the ladder line traveled parallel to and about 8 inches away from the coax's that connect two Dish Network antennas for the HDTV system. No when I say TVI...I don't mean just a little cross-hatch. I mean wipe-out! Re-routing the feed line reduce the problem, but still unacceptable TVI wise, and the physical problem with ladder line was not practical. Now I might have been able to force this configuration back into a balanced condition with choke baluns, etc., but to the point, the SG-235 is a well constructed unit, but it just isn't intended to work into a balanced antenna system. On one end of the unit is an insulated post, about 16 inches away on the other end of the tuner is ground post connection, which has to be used for the other side of the ladder line. It is just didn't like the layout and I decided didn't want spend the time trying make it work. So back to AES it went. By the way, that was a $150.00 lesson. (15% restocking fee). The first time I have ever returned a piece of ham gear in 45 years. Anyway, on to the subject of this thread... An Internet search for "automatic antenna tuners" turned up Maxx-Com. After carefully reading all the material on the Website and a phone call and conversation with Mr. Sonny Irons, I decided to give it a try. Mr. Irons directly responded to all my questions, and even provided me with more information than I asked for. Also, try it for ten days, and if you don't like it or it does not perform as advertised, send it back. No 15% lessons here. The unit I have is quite small. About 4 X 4 X 2 inches with a metal backing plate for mounting and weighs about two and half pounds. There is an insulated post off each side of the unit, with the standard UHF connector on the bottom. No other connections required. The physical size of the unit is such that I was able to hang it from the feed point on the dipole. The first test showed that it received at least as well or better than the old dipole and manual tuner. I have a P-3000 RF Applications power/VSWR meter in line. VSWR was less than 1.5:1 on all bands. In fact, the highest VSWR is 1.4:1 on ten meters. Band switching for all practical purposes is instantaneous. First contacts running barefoot a 100 watts (SSB) turned up Q5 reports, some running S9+ on 75 through 17 meters. On 160 and the short antenna it works as well as the old lash up. Come spring I will rectify that situation with some more wire. I operate mainly with groups on 75 and 40 meters, and the more NVIS radiation the better. Running barefoot, I get 10-20 db reports from the gang on 75, depending on propagation. With the SGC SG-500 amplifier in line its 30-40 db over S9. That...by any standard, is pretty respectable for a "50 ohm resistor in a plastic box". Any time you run across K4OG on 75 running this QRP station...stop by and say hello and check it out for yourself. The end to this saga is this. All multi-band operation off a single antenna is a compromise. Mr. Irons will tell you up front, at 7 Mhz and lower, the unit is about 80% efficient. If you keep the wire off resonance (longer physically than the band you’re working), the efficiency improves. But assume 80%. With 100 Watts into the coupler you get 80 watts to the wire. That is about a 1 db loss. If you’re looking for ease of operation and frequency agility, it is an easy decision to make. The only controls I am concerned with now, from either operating position is the VFO and the PTT switch. Matching the antenna to the solid state amplifier in no longer even a concern. This thing just works. GC   The 500D works just fine. I've made several contacts around the country on my vertical on 10, 17, 20 and 40 meters with pretty good signal reports under poor band conditions. I plan on going up from the 23 ft radiator to 30+ ft very soon. I've attached a photo of my antenna installation. I might be ordering another one soon. I have another antenna project in the works. Thanks! Nick H. Verootis, K0NHV           | Return Home | About Maxx-Com | Our Models | Internet Special Pricing | Installation Info | Our Customers/ Testimonials | FAQ Page | Contact Us | |
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