[FARC] Antenna Tuner

[Kirk Talbott]

I recently bought a Vectronics VC300DLP antenna tuner and I am using it with 
an ICOM 718 transceiver. My antenna is a hy-gain model 18 AVT/WB-S vertical. 
I bought an antenna tuner based on a consensus of other experienced hams 
that if I used the ICOM 718 I would probably need an antenna tuner 
regardless of what antenna used.

I am new to ham radio, HF, and antenna tuners in general and that is mostly 
the problem,   however I am having specific problems with the tuner and am 
ready to pitch it into the street!

The instruction manual for the tuner is essentially useless due to many 
typos and obvious errors in English translation.  I was able to divine how 
to hook it up to the transceiver and to set the defaults for the 
transmitter, antenna, and inductance controls on the tuner for a particular 
band.  Since the labels on the tuner's controls didn't match the labels in 
the manual, it's a toss-up as to whether I had things set right from the 
get-go.

Now to transmitting.  Do I have it tuned?  Probably not.  Both the forward 
and reflected power needles dance back and forth wildly to the lows and 
highs of my voice during SSB transmission, making it nearly impossible to 
read the SWR at the intersection of both needles. The tuner has a dummy load 
built-in which is convenient, but remember, there is no carrier in SSB 
transmission, so you can't just hold the PTT switch down while you 
simultaneously fiddle with the three tuner controls.

Put the transceiver in FM or AM mode so you have a continuous carrier you 
say?  Nope, I tried that.  The transceiver has no FM, and using AM pegs both 
needles to their stops on the tuner with some erroneous indication.

After much fumbling I was able to finally coordinate mike, talking, and 
twiddling the controls but to no avail, adjusting the controls did nothing 
to change tuner meter needle indications.  As a matter of fact, the controls 
on this tuner will turn past their stops  infinitely, giving you what tuner 
setting as a result?  One ham said, "After you tune, write down the 
settings."  So I would write down, 20 turns to the right past "6" on the 
antenna knob?  Or 5 turns to the left past "1" on the transmitter knob? 
This can't possibly be the way it works.

Now, fortunately the transceiver has an SWR meter so I could use that maybe 
as an indicator of getting close to doing something right, and not burn up a 
transmitter in the process.  Nope again. The transceiver's SWR meter varied 
between 1:1 to 9:1 depending on the highs and lows of my voice during 
transmission.  If I spoke softly, it would read 1:1 all the time.  Raise 
your voice, and it would peak out at 9:1 then drop back to 1:1.

Anyone up for some antenna tuner 101?  Or better yet, would someone like to 
purchase an antenna tuner, cheap, that is before I reduce it to its 
elemental parts with a sledgehammer? You don't have much time.

Plodding along blind
KB3ONM
Kirk