[FARC] David and tuner

[david at retroscape.com]

Rolan,

THANK YOU for your generosity in offering to help me; I am
really quite grateful! I'll send you a separate note directly to see
what times might work well for you for us getting together.

I hope
you'll forgive me, but my understanding of the theory of this tuner's
operation is pretty limited. If you look at the second to last page of
the manual, you'll see that you are right about it probably not working
with standard dipole lengths. The counterpoise is actually shorter than
the active element. For instance, at 20m, the active element is 31.5'
and the counterpoise is 17.5'. They mentioned shortening the active
element by 10% to get a better match, so I tried that, too, but with no
luck. I was hoping to run the rig on 15, 20 and 40 meters, but bought
enough wire to make antennas for all of the supported bands.

I
purchased a telescoping fiberglass pole to which I attached the active
element, and raised it as far as the wire would stretch. I then ran the
counterpoise perpendicular to it across our deck to form an L
configuration. It seemed like this was supported from reading the text
on the sticker that goes on the bottom of the tuner (second to last page
of manual). I was hoping we could bungee-cord the pole to one of our
structures at field day and run the FT-817 with it. Mind you, I'm still
learning code (thanks to my good and patient friend Jim K3DQ), so I'd
have to rely on one of your pros to operate it. 

Thank you for the tip
about tuning for maximum rx noise. I tried that, too, but perhaps I'm
not very skilled at it. I am looking forward to learning from you,
Rolan!

73,

--David, K3PO

On 2013-06-17 06:21, ROLAN.CLARK at comcast.net
wrote: 

> David, 
> 
> Also remember that without transmitting you can
tune the antenna tuner for maximum rx noise and with a little practice
you can get so you will be very close to a match when you have the
highest level of rx noise, not necessarily signals but good ol'
atmospheric noise. I read the manual again and looked at the schematic
and I feel certain that it is designed for high Z end fed 1/2 length
antennas and probably a 'normal' dipole or vertical won't tune at all.

> 
> I didn't see where it said in the manual what indication to tune
for but it looks like in the tune position when the bridge consisting of
the input circuits for three legs of a bridge and the antenna tuner
making up the other 4th leg of the bridge that you would tune for min or
no LED indication. 
> 
> Looks like a neat setup. I like HI Z input
antennas because I believe gnd losses are minimized and the counter
poise lead reduces hand/body capacitive effects. 
> 
> I hope this
helps, 
> 
> 73 de rolan w3fdk 
>
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