[Elecraft] Is a K3 ATU with balanced outputs possible?

[Don Wilhelm]

Andrew,

A bit of 'trivia' first:
That was "supposed" to be a solution in the KAT500 tuner.  The initial 
design put the balun on the input of the tuner, and attempted to "float" 
the rest of the tuner while trying to maintain balance.

There were problems with maintaining balance through the rest of the 
tuner, while studies indicated there was no efficiency difference 
between the balun at the input vs. the balun at the output, so the 
design was changed to an unbalanced design driving (if required or 
desired) a balun at the output of the tuner.

"trivia off":

So more specific to your question, a balanced output from the K3 KAT3 
can easily be obtained by using an Elecraft BL2 on the output side of 
the KAT3.

73,
Don W3FPR

On 9/28/2012 6:22 PM, Andrew Moore wrote:
> I'd love to see a K3 built-in ATU with balanced outputs to feed "ladder"
> line. Has this been considered and dismissed, or is it a possibility for a
> future option?
>
> I'm guessing this might be a problem for the already crowded rear panel,
> but could it be provided as a plug-in board (like the KANT3 or the KAT3)
> that uses the two antenna ports (ANT1, ANT2) for the two sides of the
> ladder line, and does away with the SO239 altogether?
>
> Failing that, could the functionality be provided in the KAT500?
>
> Apologies if this has already been discussed; I haven't found much
> discussion on it in the archives.
>