[Elecraft] Tuning band segments with the KPA-1500

[Peter Dougherty]

Is it possible (or might it be possible with a firmware upgrade) to selectively
use the KPA-1500's tuner on only a portion of an individual band? 

As a contester I face my biggest SWR challenges are 40m and 80m SSB. 

On 40, my Yagi is resonant at 7045, and the KPA will give me a full-power match
between 7000 and 7125 pretty easily. Anywhere north of there, however, I'm above
3:1, rising as high as about 7 or 8:1 at 7295. On 80, I could use the KPA from
3500 (resonant 3550) to about 3750, but would need to switch to the external
tuner for anything above that (I only ever go as high as 3850, and extremely
rarely at that. Maybe a dozen transmissions per year calling mults).

At the moment, I have a Palstar HF-Auto, which is bypassed everywhere except the
phone portions of 40 and 80, and the internal tuner in the KPA that's bypassed
only on those two bands. The freeware software for the HF-Auto is positively
wretched, and the tuner itself is only RF-sensing, not commanded by band data,
so obviously I'm looking for a better solution that will allow me to use full
legal limit with fast, seamless switching. I would prefer to use the KPA-1500
for as much of the tuning duties as possible, and only dropping to the HF-Auto
when absolutely necessary, since quite frankly I don't trust the Palstar to not
go rogue on me (a regular occurrence, sadly).

As it stands now, I can set the KPA's internal tuner to operate or bypass on
full bands only, not in segments. It doesn't seem like a stretch to allow a user
to put in limits within a band.

----------------------------------------------------

Regards,
Peter Dougherty