[Elecraft] High SWR problem

[Vic Rosenthal]

Edward Kenworthy wrote:

> The ATU manual says, in essence, my RF earth is crap. 1 rod and using
> braided is bad idea it says. OK fair enough, but isn't the point of a long
> wire that it's easy - if I have to install an ultra-efficient earth system
> with multiple rods etc then that rather defeats the point.

Yes, that type of ground is worthless for RF, but that is not the cause 
of your being unable to load the antenna.  Assuming that all the 
connections are OK, the wire may be presenting an impedance that is out 
of the range of your tuner.  If the wire is exactly an even multiple of 
1/2 wavelength long at your frequency, it will have a very high 
impedance.  Just adding or removing a few feet will change this.  Or 
just see if it works on another band.

Also, you may already know this, but you will possibly have to adjust 
the inductance as well as the capacitors on the tuner.  It should be 
possible to load almost any reasonably sized wire with an ATU; the poor 
ground and low location of the wire may cause it to be a poor radiator, 
or it may give you 'RF in the shack' problems.

Vic K2VCO