The first MFJ product I bought was a 941-C Versa Tuner circa 1984 or so. A few years later I tried to load my 80m dipole as a Marconi antenna with 100 Watts. With only about 35 feet of vertical feedline that didn't work so well. In the process the torroid transformers overheated and melted the PVC forms the transformers were housed in. A few years later I ordered replacements from MFJ and these had a larger torroid, Teflon insulated wire, and sandwiched between phenolic wafers for mounting. I sold it a few years later after procuring a second hand 949-D tuner.

I also had a 986 Differential Tee tuner for a number of years that I replaced with a Palstar AT1500DT differential tee tuner. I routinely had to pull the 986 out and clean and lubricate it. I've had the Palstar about 15 years and have yet to open it up. The Palstar was priced about 50% higher than the MFJ but the quality is an order of magnitude better. With the Palstar I only cried once, as the saying goes.

It didn't take long to get acquainted with them as the company would send a complimentary catalog to new licensees and to those who upgraded their license class. At least that was the case years back.

Mostly digital. For an extra $25 per anum one can still get the print QST mailed as it always was but for the regular membership dues QST is digital only. However, the membership dues also include digital access to National Contest Journal, QEX, and On The Air. Perhaps it was at my suggestion along with others but ARRL has enabled PDF downloads of all content via the digital provider. These PDFs are fully text searchable and much smaller than a "print to PDF" version that was a collection of graphical images for each page.

As is half of any of the retailers' catalogs.

I'd like to see DXE acquire the Hy-Gain and Ameritron lines if possible.

I've not followed this closely to know if Martin wanted to sell everything as a single unit or had entertained offers for the individual brands he's acquired over the years. Hopefully if it was the former he'll now consider the latter.

"Best regards"

As I understand it, '73' comes from the landline Morse/news wire reporting tradition.

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.

Better than Hughsnet which was the only option for a long time other than cellular.

$90/month for 25/2.5 Mbps here. I honestly never thought we'd see that kind of speed. In late 2015 it went from 512 kbps to 10/1 Mbps on a new system. Four years later (2019) they upgraded it to the present speed with no increase in price. It's all wireless and since we're in AT&T telco territory there is no chance of them doing anything (the phone lines have been in the ground since the late '70s), so this independent telco built out as a WISP almost 20 years ago. They're looking at doing their own FTTH in this area.

I read much on zsh, but I seem to be too invested in Bash to change. Is there are good migration guide for someone with a moderately complex ~./bashrc and a lot of aliases in ~/.bash_aliases?

I seem to recall doing an Arch installation a couple of years back and the zsh instance was well done but none of that setup was installed on the system even with zsh installed. I suppose I could have copied it from the installation media but didn't think about that at the time.

Apparently the Corgi on this place didn't get the memo! Generally he just stops and does his thing whatever direction he's going and wherever he happens to be. No, he's not obedience trained or any such thing.