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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site abnjh.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!abnjh!cbspt002
From: cbspt002@abnjh.UUCP (Marc E. Kenig )
Newsgroups: net.ham-radio
Subject: Review - MFJ 304 Auto SW converter
Message-ID: <673@abnjh.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 10-Jun-84 20:28:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: abnjh.673
Posted: Sun Jun 10 20:28:12 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Jun-84 00:55:42 EDT
Organization: ATTIS, NJ
Lines: 25

<>

The converter is only about 4x4x1". It can tune *parts* of the 19, 25, 31 and 49
meter bands. There is a button on the front for each band, and they are 
ganged to the on/off-bypas switch. There is an LED on/off indicator.
  There's good news and bad news, mostly good.  It does a very good job
converting for my car radio (an AM/FM Ford OEM).  It down converts on a
1:1 ratio to the tuning strip.  Shortwave comes in between approx 800 and
1200 Khz, giving a 400Khz slice of each band:
19m 15075:15475- 25m 11638:12038- 31m 9438:9838 and 49m 5875:6275. 
Reception is about on par with a $100 portable, BUT with a much better
bandspread.  Heavyweights (RCI, BBC, DW, etc.) come in with hardly noticable
interference.  If a station is down in the dirt, it's lost.  Nighttime
reception is great, daytime poor. Suprisingly, there is hardly any fade.
  Now for the BAD news...1) It cuts heavily down on regular AM reception (I
know, I know, I should thank heaven...). FM sensitivity is left unchanged.
2) My car electrical system causes so much RFI, that I might have to license
it. I can quiet the ignition system, but weaker stns get wiped by, say, the
windshield wiper motors. 3) The 'mounting hdwr' supplied was a joke. A trip
to Radio Shack was necessary.

  All in all the MFJ allows me to fulfill a childhood wish of DXing in the
car, and gives me something to twiddle with in traffic. It's worth the $80.

M. Kenig, ATT-IS S. Plainfield