[Johnson] Small Johnson Matchbox has its limits

[Ka9p@aol.com]

I'll chip in here because I'm running three small ones and agree that for 
feeding balanced line, they are superior to just about anything else for 
convenience.

Using a 160 meter CF Zepp with 450 ladder line, I can tune 80 thru 10 in 
about 3 or 4 seconds when switching bands, tuning at 100 watts or less.  10 meters 
is about 2:1 at best, but with no loss, who cares...

Once matched, it works at near 1:1 with my L4 amp on all bands EXCEPT 80, 
where there is a very high voltage point at the Matchbox due to the high voltage 
at feed point and unfortunate feedline length.  On 80, 200 watts is about it 
before arc over.

But all in all, I've put my big old roller inductor on the shelf - in most 
cases, throwing the bandswitch and peaking the noise gets me close enough to 
feed a bit of rf for a couple seconds and get the SWR to an acceptable point.

And its really convenient for SWLing as well....wish the large Matchbox tuned 
as wide a range...

But it won't tune too short an antenna like a T Tuner will - I've also got a 
40 foot CF vertical Zepp with about 50 feet of ladder line - it won't get any 
kind of acceptable SWR below about 10 MHz - I'd have though it would reach 40, 
but although it peaks well on receive and sounds great, it won't tune below 
about 4 or 5 to 1 there.  Go figure.

And I've modded one with the Johnson mod for 160, and it works great there, 
but I don't run an amp....

73, Scott


--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/alternative
  text/plain (text body -- kept)
  text/html
The reason this message is shown is because the post was in HTML
or had an attachment.  Attachments are not allowed.  To learn how
to post in Plain-Text go to: http://www.expita.com/nomime.html  ---