[Elecraft] CW power output and remote tuners

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Welcome back to a great hobby Kurt!!

I have an inverted L because my shack is at one extreme end of the best space to run a wire on my property. 

My L goes straight up 40 feet and horizontally just a tad over 60 feet for a bit above 100 feet overall. 

MATCHING TO THE ANTENNA

The K3's ATU and the KAT500 both load it fine. To keep me away from the hot antenna, I use the KAT500 on a shelf above the operating desk. 

The "trick" to making it work is two-fold: 

1) Use the best ground that you can if you work 160 with it (on 80 through 10 it's fine with a minimal ground, but something is good to keep the rig from floating high with RF voltage that can cause problems with the rig's circuits and which will cause your SWR to jump around when you touch the rig). A couple of wires on the ground, a connection to a metal water pipe, etc., are probably fine.

2) Be willing to tinker with the length a bit, if needed, so the tuner can find a match on all bands. The most difficult band is where the wire is near 1/2 wavelength long (80 meters for me). That's where the impedance is highest. Once you have it working on the band closest to where  the antenna is 1/2 wavelength long, it should do fine on all of the others. When the wire is longer than 1/2 wavelength, the impedance it presents is never as extreme. 

The challenge with any tuner is to never present an impedance that produces voltages in the tuner that exceed its ratings. 

POWER RATING

The SG230 is an excellent remote tuner. The critical rating is the peak which is 200 watts. The 80 watts continuous presumes that you put a brick on your key and leave it transmitting. We don't do that in normal CW operation. The SG230 will handle well over 100 watts in normal CW mode. Now, if you get into operating full-carrier A.M., you might want to limit your output power to 100 watts if you tend to be very long-winded, Hi! 

73 Ron AC7AC



-----Original Message-----
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Mini Builder
Sent: Friday, December 20, 2013 6:45 PM
To: Elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Elecraft] CW power output and remote tuners

Background:
I got into ham radio back in the 1970s, getting my license at age 12, then life moved on and my license expired. Recently, going through my dad’s stuff after he passed away, I found his license, which brought back many fond memories, so I decided to get back into it.
 
Now:
I just passed the Technician and General test (no call sign
yet) and have been looking at the state of the art - HOLY SMOKES have things changed! Anyhow, after a lot of research, I’ve decided to get a K3, but before that, I need an antenna. The K3 (with amp) outputs 100W. I’m pretty sure that I’m going with an inverted-L antenna, which requires a remote antenna tuner at its base. One promising remote tuner is the SG-230, but it can only handle “80 watts continuous.” My question: In CW mode, how much power does the K3 output? (assuming worst-case key down 100%).
 
If the answer is “100W”, what remote tuner are you guys using with inverted-Lsand your K3s? Yes, I know that the K3 can have a built-in tuner, but I don’t think it can work with an inverted-L.
 
Kurt – currently call-sign-less, but who was once WB6DSW.

(I understand about keeping posts short, but this is my intro post. Follow-ons will be shorter :) ______________________________________________________________
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