[Elecraft] Auto Tuners Revisited

[Robert Klein]

You might look at:

n4xm.myiglou.com


Date: Mon, 1 Feb 2010 08:29:54 -0800
From: Phil Hystad <k7peh at comcast.net>
Subject: [Elecraft] Auto Tuners Revisited
To: Elecraft Discussion List <Elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Message-ID: <B4DA3D62-67B5-43E5-8375-64AEEC9AC8EE at comcast.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

I am thinking that there is a potential new product to be developed.  An
auto-tuner that can fill the gaps that the other great products miss (e.g.
Palstar AT-AUTO).  Or, maybe Elecraft is thinking along these lines.

For a full legal limit antenna coupler, I submit the following "wish-list"
new features or enhancements to the existing state of the art:


(1)  Separate the controls and displays into a control head desk top type
unit and leave the actual tuning hardware with all of its bulk in another
box to be hidden away somewhere (maybe even outside in the weather).
Connection cable should be high-speed serial (e.g. USB).

Comment:  legal limit tuners can sometimes be huge things and they would
take up a lot of valuable space on a desktop.  Surely we can separate them.


(2)  Provide for multiple input/output ports.  Ideally something like at
least two radio+amplifier inputs and possibly even 4.  And, multiple antenna
outputs, probably 4.  I would not include a balanced line output since a
good current balun should be an independent choice for a particular antenna
and not something built into the tuner.  Also, the location for the current
balun is not necessarily the same location as the tuner (i.e. the separate
box as per item 1 above).


(3)  Given the multiple  radio-amplifier input and antenna output ports, the
logic and memory choices for a match are port dependent and that information
should be in the memory storage.  Program logic in the tuner should allow
for the unique attributes of each radio.  I am suggesting that once a radio
and amplifier combination is associated with a given input port that their
may be some software configuration necessary so this is not a dynamic
(during operation) changeable setup.

(4)  Interface cables may be needed to be connected to the radio (tuner
control) and to amplifier for amp bypass.  Ideally it would seem that such
cables can be daisy-chained to minimize cable complexity with the tuner
logic properly blocking out radios that are not selected.  Only one input
port can be selected at a time.  Of course, there may be even better and
simpler ways to do this.