[Icom] AH-4 malfunctioning...

[Demetre Koumanakos]

Hi Clete,and all who replied...

My AH-4 tunes a vertical element (10 meters long) with a direct
ground connection (about 10-11 meters from the ground) and a number
of 5 and 10 meter long radials randomly laid down on the roof of
my house.
Up to about a week ago the tuner tuned from 3.5 to 50 Mc with no
problems, this past Sunday it refused to tune anywhere but 14 Mc.
Yesterday on my bench it seemed to work fine tuning all bands again, 
once on the roof it lost 80m again.
I can probably live without 80m but not knowing what the heck makes 
it malfunction is driving me crazy...

For some time now I've been thinking of replacing the vertical 
element with a rotatable large loop verticly polarized for 40m.
in theory the AH-4 can tune this arangement also.

73
Demetre - SV1ENS

> de WB2CPN South Central Pennsylvania   2002.06.10
> 
> You could disconnect the antenna terminal on the AH-4, and attach
> a 50 Ohm dummy load instead.  Use 2 inch wire for the antenna
> terminal, and about 10 inches to the coax ground inside the AH-4. 
> Then see if it will tune all the bands.  Then, instead of the
> wires,  add a few feet of coax, six or so, between the AH-4 and
> the dummy load.  This will place additional capacity on the output
> of the AH-4.  See if it will tune all the bands.   Important: 
> whatever kind of wire you use for an antenna, make sure it's OK. 
> You didn't mention a balun, so I guess you're using a random long
> wire, if so, how do you get a ground wire up on the roof?       73
>  Clete

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