[Elecraft] KPA 500 and ATU

[Jim Brown]

On 4/7/2011 6:18 PM, Johnny Siu wrote:
> IMHO, ATU is nearly a must.

That depends a lot on your style of operating, your antennas, your 
budget, and how much power you are willing to give away in the antenna 
tuner. ARRL lab tests have shown that some antenna tuners are a lot more 
efficient than others.

I have a half dozen wire antennas, and do a lot of contesting.  I have 
five of the high power Ten Tec 229 and 238 manual tuners, which have 
better than average efficiency and antenna selector switching built in. 
Each tuner is dedicated to one or two antennas, and each tuner feeds the 
power amp through a selector switch.Before a contest, I simply set them 
up for the bands and antennas I'll be working, and switch between them. 
These tuners are widely available used for $250 $325, so I bought them 
for not much more than the cost of one decent auto tuner.  And because 
all my eggs are not in one basket, I can split the tuners up between two 
rig and amp combinations for SO2R operation.

Yes, auto tuners are nice, but they're not the only good way to skin a 
cat. :)

73, Jim K9YC