[Elecraft] Clever antenna tuning ideas wanted

[Vic K2VCO]

Darwin, Keith wrote:
> My antenna is similar.  28.5' tall, ground mounted over twelve 28' long
> radials.  Fed with 30 feet of RG-213.  With a tuner the system works
> well enough on 40, 30, 20, 15.  80 Meters is the pits.  Dummy Load City!
> 
> I'm considering putting a remote ATU at the base of the antenna.
> Basically, eliminating the 30 feet of coax feed line and all the high
> VSWR losses it entails.

I thought of this.  A tuner would help by reducing the coax loss, as you 
say, but at 80 meters the radiation resistance of the radiator is very 
low, and so it's necessary to improve the ground system -- either by 
making it more extensive, of resonant length, or loading it to 
resonance.  Since the effective ground resistance is in series with the 
radiation resistance, the efficiency suffers when the ground or 
counterpoise system is poor.  Also, the usual autotuner is not very 
efficient when loading a short whip -- that's why the mobile guys use 
big bugcatchers.

-- 
73,
Vic, K2VCO
Fresno CA
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco