Anyone have good luck with this unit? Looking for coverage in the 2,
1 1/4 meter bands.

Both the MFJ 259 and 269 cover the 2-meter band. The 269 also covers
the 70 cm band. Neither covers the 1.25 meter band. As far as I
know, MFJ has no analyzer which handles this range.

Both of the MFJ products work decently well within their limitations.
Neither can display the sign of the reactive component of the
impedance... you have to deduce whether it's inductive or capacitive
by changing the analysis frequency slightly and seeing what happens to
the reactance. Neither will work well if the antenna is picking up
strong RF from another transmitter nearby - the voltage- and
current-sensing diodes can't distinguish between RF from the analyzer,
RF reflected back from the load impedance, and RF being picked up by
the antenna. Both analyzers can actually be damaged by strong-enough
RF picked up by the antenna - the zero-bias sensing diodes are
somewhat fragile. The 269 is apparently vulnerable to diode damage if
you switch the "UHF" mode on or off in ways which violate the warnings
in the manual. The build quality of MFJ products isn't sterling.

However, these products are the de facto standard and "must have" in
the ham radio community, and I think they work well enough to justify
this reputation.

Autek Research makes a series of competing analyzers, one of which
covers the VHF range (37-75 and 138-500+ MHz). They don't read out
the reactive component of the impedance directly - they show the total
Z, and the SWR, and you must compute R and X yourself (instructions
are in the manual). Reports on eHam.net seem to indicate that Autek
has a build-quality problem even worse than MFJ's, and serious
problems with customer support and satisfaction.


--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!