[AMRadio] Balanced tuner

[Mark Foltarz]

Charlie,
  I have a Johnson KW matchbox that I picked up years ago.When I got it it was a junker. Lots of extra holes and  the cabinet was ugly.
I believe it was used for a magazine article some years back where the tuner had 160 meters added.
I also had trouble matching  various dipoles with it. Some worked great while others would not.
I found this link http://www.dj0ip.de/antenna-matchboxes/symmetrical-matchboxes/j-viking-upgrade-1/
Since the match box was sort of ugly  to begin with I took the plunge and did the mods.
Wow, the improvement is significant. The tuner actually works well now. As well as any balanced tuner I have seen -including my TMC TAC-1,
Just  a thought 
de KA4JVY
Mark




      From: CL in NC via AMRadio <amradio at mailman.qth.net>
 To: amradio at mailman.qth.net 
 Sent: Friday, April 27, 2018 8:18 PM
 Subject: [AMRadio] Balanced tuner
   
I have been using a Heath 2040 tuner with my 130ft dipole for many moons.  I recently got a fixer upper Johnson Matchbox, the 250 watt size, and restored it by replacing burned contacts from an apparent lightning strike.  Seems to work fine, but I need to know what some of you get dial reading wise if you have a similar dipole.  Feeding the matchbox through all the same lines and SWR meter, on 80, the tuner seems to work well and gives me good matches from end to end.  On 40 though, the Matching dial stays at 95-100, and tuning runs from 5 to 30 and am unable to get a perfect match, ranging from 1.2 to 1.5.  The Heath tuner will give me a perfect match everywhere. The question is, since the Johnson is a balanced tuner and the Heath has a balun, is the Heath masking the real quality of the antenna and feed when compared to the Johnson?  I tried it on 20 to 10 just see how it worked, and it did OK, but still unable to give me a 1 to 1 where the Heath will, but since  I don't u
 se my dipole above 40, not a concern.  Any thoughts on why the Matching dial likes to stay at 100 on 40 meters?  Maybe an feedline length vs antenna length conflict?

Charlie, W4MEC in NC
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