[Mobile-Portable] Mobile antenna tuner questions

[Art Clemons]

Martin Glazer:

> Good post. A Hustler resonator is $15 at a swap meet, while a screwdriver antenna can be much more $


However almost anyone with a minimal amount of tech skills, the ability
to follow instructions and the proper instructions can complete a
working and reliable screwdriver antenna for well under $100 including
$24.95 for the CD from WorldRadio.  A new set of Hustler Resonators for
four bands plus mast, mount et al comes to more than that and without
modifying the Hustlers, they're most inefficient below 20 meters.  Even
assuming you can find or build the mast, it takes some tech skills just
to modify a Hustler so that a longer whip can be used with it (or you
can try cutting off lengths of whip until you get a decent match with
the resonator for a higher band until you get a match on a lower band}
but once again you're discussing tech skills that exceed those needed to
build a screwdriver.

I also would like to mention incidentally for any interested that it
appears from my testing that the nominal 400 watt Hustler resonators are
more efficient at let's say 100 watts than the 2000 watt resonators, a
result that at first confused me.  Disassembling one for 40M that had
burned out though soon disabused me of any confusion, the silly thing
was scramble wound, which likely gave it great power handling ability
but lousy Q.