[Elecraft] Re: MFJ259

[Dave Sergeant]

I don't have a 259 myself but some of my friends do. It is clearly a 
useful bit of kit.

But I have repaired a couple! I agree about the build standard, not 
that hot, and not made easy to repair either with most of the 
components inaccessible underneath the board. In both cases they had 
been damaged by the user applying the supply the wrong way round - 
there is no idiot diode to prevent this. It takes out one of the 5V 
regulators and also a LM324 quad op-amp. If you have one it is worth 
adding a series diode in the supply to save you the hassle.

I would also make a plug for a noise bridge. I built the one by KI6WX 
which appeared in QST in August 1989 (available to download from the 
ARRL site). If you have a suitable portable rig to couple to it does 
most of what the fancy analysers can do at a fraction of the cost.

73 Dave G3YMC


http://www.davesergeant.com