[Elecraft] Auto Tuner Wish List

[Lee Buller]

In defense of the KAT100 Tuner....which I do not believe was being attacked....but, in its defense.....
 
I have come back to the fact that the LC or CL antenna tuner is a very good tuner concept.  See recent articles in QST.  The LC tuner is quite the tuner once you understand what it is doing and how it works to your advantage.  The KAT100 has never missed a match since I have owned it and when I say never missed a match...I am not talking about perfect antennas.
 
It even matched a longwire very well and it radiated too.  In otherwords, I made contacts right and left with the KAT100 matched longwire.  I made the contacts on 160, 80, 40 and 20.  The 130 foot (or so) hunk of wire even matched oon 15 and 10 meters.
 
Yes, it would have been nice for the KAT100 to have a watt meter and extra antenna ports, but I have found it is excellent .... very excellent ... the way it is designed.  Elecraft was very thoughtfull in design...making it easy to use...and it matches a very wide range of impedances.
 
Because of my experience with the KAT100, on my other station I have been foolling around with a high powered LC matching systems that can take 1500 watts.  Again, the matcher tunes in all.  You just have to make sure you use 20 watts or so to find the match because moving the alligator clip from coil turn to coil turn at 1500 watts....hurts.
 
The LC Match is not new...I used it years ago in my college days in my basement appartment to have a station with 70 foot of 18 bell wire using a cold water pipe as ground.  Worked well then too.  Old is still good.....
 
Lee - K0WA
 


Common sense is in short supply - get some and use it  - Lee Buller