[Elecraft] Re: KAT100 with Ladder Line

[Darrell Bellerive]

On Friday 16 November 2007 14:22, Robert 'RC' Conley wrote:
> Okay Dave thanks
> I saved all your information and it looks like I found something I can
> work on this winter. Just about anything can be used to build the open
> wire feeders and If your using the KAT2 a tuner would not be needed
> but without a KAT2 a manual tuning "Z" match would do the job. It
> looks like it will be fun to work with..
> RC kc5wa

There are trade offs and compromises with each type of antenna system tuner.

Here are some factors to be considered in an antenna system tuner:
Frequency range,
Matching range,
Efficiency,
Common mode current suppression,
Isolation,
Harmonic and/or spurious emission suppression or out of band rejection,
Ease of operation,
Physical size,
Price,
Number and type of feedline terminations,
Balance in the case of balanced tuners,
and more that don't immediately come to mind.

There is no one best tuner.

Unfortunely most tuners on the market today are sold on the basis of ease of 
operation, flexibility, and price.

Reviews of tuners generally follow suit. It was good to see the ARRL publish 
efficiencies in their test of balanced tuners a while back. It was a step in 
the right direction. Even that though was only for pure resistive loads. A 
comprehensive test of a tuner would be quite a process.

The big problem as I see it is that those who buy the tuners don't realize the 
tradeoffs they have gotten. After all it tunes to a 1:1 SWR and contacts can 
be made, so it must be working well. The reality could be quite different.


-- 
Darrell Bellerive
Amateur Radio Stations VA7TO and VE7CLA
Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada