[Elecraft] Thoughts on internal vs external ATU for K3

[Don Wilhelm]

Steve,

That is not necessary.  The KAT3 remembers the settings on each band, so 
one can bandswitch from one band to another without need to re-tune.
Exception - if you have changed antennas for the new band since the time 
you did a TUNE on that band, then yes, you will have to re-tune.
For those running with multi-band antennas (resonant or not), this is a 
huge time savings when switching bands - if that antenna was tuned on 
that band before, just hit the bandswitch and operate, no need to do a tune.

If you operate with a multiband antenna, take some time and TUNE the 
KAT3 at several places on each band - after that, no TUNE required, just 
change bands.

73,
Don W3FPR

Steve Ellington wrote:
> The K3 tuner does store it's settings in memory but you must transmit in 
> order to get the tuner to change to your frequency. Let's say you're on 80m, 
> all tuned up and hop to 40 meters. If you don't transmit and your reception 
> may be rather weak because the tuner is peaked for 80 meters. I usually hit 
> the ATU tune button and let the tuner switch to it's memory settings. I do 
> this instead of hitting the key and transmitting a full 100 watts. Maybe not 
> necessary but seems like it might be easier on the finals.
> So yes....you need to transmit somehow to make the ATU change. It doesn't 
> follow along as you spin the dial like ICOMs do.
> Steve
> N4LQ
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Richard Ferch" <ve3iay at storm.ca>
> To: <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 3:48 PM
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Thoughts on internal vs external ATU for K3
>
>
>   
>> You do *not* have to push the ATU button every time you change bands.
>> See the firmware release notes for MCU 3.03.
>>
>> The ATU remembers the last setting used on each band/antenna input; in
>> fact, it remembers the setting for every 20 kHz segment (every 10 kHz
>> segment on 160m, every 50 kHz segment on 10m and every 200 kHz segment
>> on 6m).
>>
>> If you use an external antenna switch, then you may have to push the ATU
>> button every time you switch antennas on a given band.
>>
>> One other thing the KAT3 gives you, by the way, is two antenna inputs,
>> switchable on the radio, and remembered on a per-band basis.
>>
>> 73,
>> Rich VE3KI
>>
>> N8MHD wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> This isn't true, is it?  It's certainly not the case for the K1 or K2
>>> tuners, and I can't believe that the K3 is less capable.
>>>
>>>         Peter N8MHD
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 1:52 PM, Steve Ellington <n4lq at carolina.rr.com> 
>>> wrote:
>>>       
>>>> I'm afraid you have the wrong concept of the internal tuner. Every time 
>>>> you
>>>> change bands, you must push the ATU Tune button.
>>>>         
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