[Elecraft] KAT500 Auto or Manual

[Fred Jensen]

Kevin, here's a little background, direct from one of the KAT500 engineers:

The KAT500 memories cover the range 1500 KHz to 60.0 MHz, no gaps, in a 
series of "bins".  Each bin holds capacitor and inductor values, relay 
settings, antenna connector selection, and a couple of other values.  
Each bin covers a bandwidth that is a function of frequency.  The lower 
bands are narrow and the BW of a bin increases as you go up in frequency.

For 80 meters, the bins are 20 KHz wide, and there are 90 of them from 
3001 KHz to 4800 KHz.  Most of the higher frequency bands [40 thru 15] 
have 50 KHz bins. 12 and 10 are 100 KHz, and I believe 6 is 200 KHz.  
So, to "train" your KAT500:

1.  AUTO mode.  Tap ATU TUNE to make it tune

2.  Start at the center of the lowest bin for the band [3510 for 80] and 
tune

3.  QSY up the bin-width for the band and do it again.

4.  You need to do this for each antenna you have for a given band. 
Using the KAT500 Utility, you can designate one of the three antenna 
connectors the default for each band.  You can also lock out connectors 
for each band, and they will be skipped when manually selecting antennas 
on the front panel.  It takes awhile but once you do it, you're set.  I 
found that some bands needed a little tweaking between summer and winter 
but that's all.

You want to operate in MAN mode.  The tuner can't measure SWR on other 
than a continuous, steady signal.  Operating in AUTO will cause phony 
tune events.  If the KAT500 is connected to the ACC connector of the K3, 
it will follow your receive frequency and select the correct tuning 
memory as you QSY.

Hope this helps,

73,

Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County

>> In the meantime, I got comment about how I run my KAT500: "KAT500 - We
>> normally leave the KAT in the MAN position, not AUTO. With varying 
>> SWR, the
>> KAT will tune while in transmit when in the AUTO position."
>>
>> I'm not quite sure what that to make of that. I have my KAT500 in the 
>> AUTO
>> position thinking it's a good thing that the KAT will tune if something
>> happens... which it never does. But in AUTO, at least the tuner will 
>> retune
>> if I jump to a frequency that is not in memory.
>>
>