[Elecraft] Suggestions needed - antenna to tuner

[Barry]

Alan,
     Good questions. The Elecraft tuners can not be beat for what they 
can tune, so the only real issue is how to transition to coax from open 
wire/ladder line. Probably, the easiest is to use a 4:1 current balun to 
make the transition. I would go with one that is rated at least 3KW. Why 
so heavy? The answer is core heating when running with a high SWR; this 
is more of a design "safety" issue. And, the current balun will stay 
balanced better than a voltage balun when presented a high SWR.

     I use a variant of this here in my station, meaning the antenna is 
slightly different. It works great with no problems and I can use my 
antenna 80-10 meters. DXengineering and Balun Designs make good baluns 
as I'm sure there are others, but I know these work.

     One last thought. Make the transition as close to where your egress 
point is. If you have a fairly lengthy transmission line run, you will 
be using the lowest loss line for as far as you can go and then 
transition. I would use a very low loss cable from the balun to the 
tuner, something like LMR-400.

73,
Barry
K3NDM

------ Original Message ------
From: "Alan Lambert" <alan at thelamberts.com>
To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Sent: 2/12/2018 9:26:40 AM
Subject: [Elecraft] Suggestions needed - antenna to tuner

>I could use a little advice
>
>My present setup is;
>KX3 > KPA100 (w/ ATU)  >   MFJ Balanced line tuner  >  ladder line fed
>80m Inv 'V'
>
>I run this with the ATU disabled and then manually tune.  Obviously
>this is time consuming and makes band switching a pain so I am
>considering removing the MFJ from the chain and start using the ATU.
>Also I plan to add a KPA/KAT500 in the near future and my MJF tops out
>at 300w so I has to go anway.
>
>
>The questions are...
>
>1) Should I do it? or will I see a significant performance decrease?
>
>2) If I do  -  How should I make the ladder to coax conversion? I
>think I need a "tuner balun"?
>
>73
>Alan
>KN4BBC
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