at the risk of sounding Aserbic, you are dealing with MFJ.
Quality control has always been, and continues to be an issue plaguing this 
company and all the companies it buys up.
Quality control issues simply means that while the majority of the products 
are fine, there is a certain percentage that have some kind of issue or 
other.
So yeah, I know, there are a bunch of us who have MFJ equipment that has 
been perfect since the day we got it, and there are those who have had 
issues with one product or another and no issues with other similar 
products...it's quality control and it doesn't seem to exist at MFJ lol.
Yay for good old American manufacturing hi hi.

73
Colin, V A6BKX
-----Original Message----- 
From: Matthew Chao
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2015 2:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Oh, those nagging quality control concerns

Wow!  Not a great experience; am getting ready to upgrade to my
general and will soon be dealing with equipment like this.  I
remember that back in the old days, quality meant a lot; your
reputation was riding on that quality.
   I guess today, not so much.  Everything is commodity-driven; how
many items can you sell?  Put  Guess mediocrity rules.  In my book,
that doesn't cut it.  Very frustrating to hear.

All the above aside, good luck in getting your shack
reconfigured!--Matt, N1IBB.


At 02:40 PM 3/12/2015 -0400, you wrote:
>Hi, everyone.
>
>
>
>As most of you know, I recently purchased an MFJ 998 auto-tuner, and an
>Ameritron ALS600 solid-state amplifier as new additions to my station here
>at the home QTH.
>
>
>
>I have been in the process of re-configuring my station setup, getting the
>equipment installed, and testing the equipment to be sure it is totally up
>and running.  I now think I'm just about ready to put everything on the air
>in a sustained way, but wanted to report on a few nagging quality-control
>concerns that I've experienced over the past few days.
>
>
>
>First,  I ordered an MFJ 5114K Kenwood interface cable to connect between 
>my
>TS590, and the MFJ 998 auto-tuner.  One thing I immediately noticed when I
>took the cable out of the package was that the molex connector that plugs
>into the TS590 was not securely fastened to the interface cable.  The wires
>were all connected, but the shrink tubing on the cable was not close enough
>to the connector to insure sufficient strain release for the connections.
>Fortunately, I had some shrink tubing here, and was able to firm up the
>connection, and secure it further with electrical tape.  I guess that's
>cheaper than sending the cable back to HRO for a replacement, although I
>don't think this is something I should have had to do.
>
>
>
>Secondly, I ran into an interesting problem with my new ALS600.  I 
>purchased
>and installed the 10 and 12-meter modification for the amplifier, and to
>install it, I had to remove the amplifier cover.  This should have been a
>simple process, right?  Well, installing the mod was actually quite simple,
>but where I ran into problems was when I tried to put the cover back onto
>the amplifier.  There are 22 screws that are used to fasten the cover to 
>the
>amplifier, and all went well, until I got to the four screws on the very
>bottom right-hand side of the amplifier case.  The screws simply would not
>re-fasten to the chassis.  It turns out that there are little pop rivets
>that are fastened to the holes on the chassis, and these serve as nuts for
>securing the screws.  Those nuts had fallen out when I initially loosened
>the screws, and I have been unable to fit them back into the chassis holes.
>Of course, the cover is still very securely fastened to the amplifier unit
>via the 18 remaining screws, but it simply seems to me that, after paying
>$1349 for the amplifier, this kind of problem should not happen.  I called
>Ameritron Technical support, and they assured me that this will not affect
>the safe operation of the amplifier, so I am not going to pay the money to
>send the amp back to them for a warranty repair.
>
>
>
>I guess this all goes to show you that they simply don't make things like
>they used to.
>
>
>
>Tom Behler: KB8TYJ
>
>