Reader Submission: ‘The Fine Tuned Bench’

Below is another reader submission. Some really smart cookies are reading this blog and sending in stuff anonymously. The number of views to the blog on a daily basis is starting to exceed 1,000 and it’s growing. I will need to update my hosting plan soon. I am starting to get a lot of good articles like this one, and a lot of hate from the few Fine Tune trolls. I must be doing something right to solicit the 20 or so emails a day I now get from the whole 2 maybe three of them. They have graduated to death threats, too!

With that, on to the article. Thanks Anonymous!

The Fine Tuned Bench. What is it? The basis of his ‘Fine Tuned Bench’ is outlined in a 5 minute video where he shows the end result.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwcDfXOgAls is the video in question.
(I suggest you download and save it because after this I bet it’s either removed or edited.)
This video is linked on all of his videos including the most recent video.

If you want the synopsis, skip to the end, otherwise read on soldier!

He starts the video talking about having to conduct maintenance. If he was adhering to NIST this maintenance would be checking his equipment against some references and logging the results. We never see a log, nor any standards employed. Not even the temperature. Again, must not be showing everything – but we have to PAY ATTENTION!
NIST need not be worried about this guy other than tarnishing their reputation.

He talks about redoing the wire and ‘re-tuning the bench’ as he shows an MFJ antenna analyzer. He then says was ‘an ohm or two off’ which in this case would be a pretty substantial amount, at 4 percent. For someone that touts ‘precision’ 4% is a really large deviation. This is the result of not following NIST standards and verifying your equipment before use. Standards clearly not applied here. He claims he was ‘due’ for this maintenance that by the standards he claims to adhere to, is supposed to be performed BEFORE EACH USE. If he was ahering to these standards he might have known he had a problem

Then he discusses how ‘critical’ this process is yet he doesn’t seem to treat this ‘critical’ process with the same importance that he says he does. If he did he would have known about this ‘ohm or two’ discrepancy a lot sooner. He then compares it to a carburetor on a car, which is something that does not really compare very well to electronics then says.. well anyway this is different. Yes, yes… it is different.

Then we get into the ohms law and power stuff. At this point his speech is laced with ‘Hmmm’ and ‘Ummm’ as he cannot figure out what to actually say but cites ‘other videos’. His speech becomes rapid and mumbled as he rattles off ‘AC volts squared divided by the load’ and points to the antenna analyzer and says that it’s the load. Really? That looked like the source to me. But there is no context to why we are doing AC volts squared divided by the load… that would be apparent power and has no real use. It sounds interesting and it might be interesting to some but it’s just filler material. We tend to care about apparent power (VA or volt-amperes) when dealing with the power grid, not when dealing with RF power on a CB radio.

Then there is just alphabet salad… jumbled nonsense… as he rambles into RF watts….

“radio power PEP divided by 2.. you know,….. for peak because you know, you multiply peak times…… angular degrees of .707…. that give you your effective… you know? watts? but if you can’t see everything (with hands waving) on the money certification calibration you all be just a bunch of mumbo jumbo… .you know.. these are the facts.. you don’t want no mumbo jumbo”

Which is the mumbo jumbo I just typed. That was the real mumbo jumbo. You cannot get watts from AC volts with this formula he spouted off. And who the hell calls it “angular degrees” anyway? We in the REAL WORLD certainly don’t call it this. It’s just degrees plain and simple. This is just filler material. Which is it? PEP divided by two which is usually spouted by the junior audiophool crowds or peak voltage * .707? This is for AC Volts to compute RMS volts. It’s this confusion between AC volts RMS, AC volts peak, RF peak power, and RMS watts and its designed to keep you in the dark and keep his pockets flush. In fact, I suspect this is partial ignorance at work as well. If he was really interested in showing you he would give some actual values and run thru the formula but I don’t think he understands math beyond what he can do with a calculator.

Then he talks about the antenna analyzer he bought in Florida to ‘set this bench up’ and the ‘antenna on the roof’ so clearly his ENTIRE methodology of a ‘tuned bench’ is based on some antenna analyzer? Are you kidding me? That’s all it is? What ROOF? It’s a damn RV! It’s not like he has a tripod up there!

“everything is at temperature, we are in the shop” – AKA the RV, it’s not a shop… but he then removes the BNC connector from his outdated jalopy CDMA test set and you see no change, then on his oscilloscope, and then says that there is no hocus pocus and that it’s pretty cool. Not really. It’s a sampled signal so what would give anyone an impression the sampled signal from an RF sampler is going to have a deleterious effect on things? That’s one reason we use RF samplers. We want a SAMPLE of the signal, not the whole signal. You cannot put a few hundred watts into a spectrum analyzer, or communication test set or it’s bye-bye- instrument.

Then he tells you, the viewer, that you should DEMAND you see a “certification of calibration” and the analyzer. What for? It’s a CB RADIO that at best, is a device that deviates many tens of hertz. some old clunker frequency counter from a garage sale is certainly just as accurate if not better than a damn CB radio is. OH SORRY – 10 meter amateur radio – but funny I don’t see Stryker 955s at HRO?

So, Mr. Fine Tune CB wants you to demand that your “favorite radio guy” show you an analyzer connected to the system and to your antenna? Why? We already established that the person telling you to demand this cannot adhere to the very standard he preaches? And he checks his system… with an MFJ analyzer? Is this a joke? That’s his ‘tune’? some piece of equipment that radio users all over refer to as ‘mighty fine junk’? I think that name is unwarranted but more often than not I hear CBers call it that. For him it’s pro shit?

Then we get a sweep of roughly the CB band shown. And he remarks the amplitude doesn’t change. That’s a reflection of the SIGNAL SOURCE – THE MFJ 269 – being more or less linear, not the spectrum analyzer! You just verified the operation of the MFJ, not your gear! That’s great! We know they work! Yay! Champagne falls from the sky!

Then he says he can make his antenna system “perfect” – and I can pick this apart 10 times over but let’s just assume he means a 1.0:1 on his ‘MFJ’ and move on. I can do that too. Lots of people can do that. He then mocks the viewer implying that he likes it to be slightly out so he can mingle with the masses. ‘Very few people will experience something like this’ and that it’s ‘the procedure’ along with slurring and rambling, most likely thought search. Clearly the creative portions of his brain are activated as he searches for a whizz bang thing to say to try to impress the viewer. At this point the video turns into stammering about amplifiers and input tunes and other ‘scenarios’

He reiterates being able to ‘see this’ meaning the tech of your choice and his antenna analyzer connected to a dummy load. Laughable stuff. Just hilarious. He will move the goal post after this for certain and it will turn into ‘I don’t do it that way anymore’ or something like that. but he refers to this method AS OF TODAY 2/13/2019!

And then he starts the backpedalling….. “not saying not anyone can work on your radio” but in a sort of jumbled way. At this point in the video he is jumbling and stammering a lot. But goes on to saying they can change meter lights, and PLLs- the “typical, you know, service manual tune-up” saying that “they get them in the ballpark” despite his “tuned bench” being off 4% in his own video but “they work, you know… that type of tune”.

At the end, admitting that in the end what others are doing does work. HOLY SHIT the bats have escaped hell itself! Then what was the five minutes of drivel over? Where is this superiority? If it works what is the point? He just undid his entire argument with one sentence!

What did we learn?

The MFJ antenna analyzer is a GREAT tool, but that’s what it is. A TOOL. Not a calibrated instrument that you can use to calibrate other instruments. This is a tuned bench? An MFJ analyzer run into a dummy load with an RF sampler in between? Do you know just how trivial this is to achieve? I connected my antenna analyzer to my dummy load via a Bird 43 and sample port ….and *GASP* I had R=50, X=0 on mine.

HOLY SHIT I HAVE A TUNED BENCH! And I used RG8x jumpers at random lengths!
I am pretty sure that HP/Agilent/Keysight or Bird never said that you calibrate your gear with a f–king MFJ antenna analyzer!

Cue RabbiPorkChop, a failure in life, on some forum to argue about phase angles and angular degrees, or some precision measurement on Fine Tune’s calibrated bench that’s 4% off. They always make up new terms anyway so let’s see what we get.

Like I said, NIST need not be afraid of the former truck driver with an MFJ antenna analyzer performing calibrations any time soon.

God that shit is funny…

-THE REAL BENCH. The one that’s not 4% off.