[Elecraft] K3 antenna tuner question

[drewko]

A quick way to find the best LC combinations manually is to tune them
for maximum receiver noise. You can refine this further by using the
K3's AFV meter to measure the noise level of the different promising
LC combinations. 

I have done this on some problem frequencies to improve the match over
that obtained by the auto tuning. I suppose such a "silent" tuning
routine could be included in the firmware. Not sure this would yield
any different results than the sutomatic SWR tuning method; I suppose
it could have the advantage of being able to be performed at a much
more leisurely pace than would be desirable using the transmitter.

A reminder abou auto tuning-- if you hit ATU TUNE a second time within
a few seconds of the first tuning operation it is supposed to find a
better match. However, I have noticed that the second tune sometimes
gives a worse SWR than the first one. (May be due to the variable
nature of my antenna-- bare wire through tree branches...)

73,
Drew
AF2Z


On Thu, 26 May 2011 07:31:53 -0200, you wrote:

>Another thing about the K3 ATU is, that it sometimes stops at an LC combination which is NOT identical to the LC combination giving the lowest SWR. If that happens you can manually change the L or C to obtain the lowest SWR - but it is a bit cumbersome - and not what you expect from an automatic tuner. I only have this problem when it is raining (antennas are partially hidden in trees and use 450 ohm open feeder and 4:1 baluns in the shack)
>73 de OZ4UN
>