Author Topic: Antenna tuners  (Read 13706 times)

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asatrur

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Antenna tuners
« on: September 25, 2012, 09:43:49 AM »
Alright my fellow hams, I am in the market for an antenna tuner. I have an Icon IC-740 and a tri-bander antenna that folks are referring to as a Butternut, but none of pictures I find match mine. When attached to my 740, I can pick up 10, 20, and 40 pretty well depending on condition. I can also pick up 80, but can barely make out voices. The other bands either have a ton of noise or my meter just drops a few seconds after switching to them, so I am looking for advice on an antenna tuner. Eventually, I want to build a skyloop type antenna that can be used on all bands.
Thanks,
Devin
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scubadivingjoe

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2012, 09:57:04 AM »
Yes you need a tuner, but I dont know a good one for a Icon.  How much do you want to spend?  Do you want a manual or Auto tuner?  I have a auto tuner for my Ft 857, but I am thinking about getting a manual one.   

idial1911

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #2 on: September 25, 2012, 10:23:23 AM »
I have never heard anyone complain about the LDG tuners, good, reliable, can tune a wet noodle, and fairly priced..

Just a hit a button and its all tuned up.
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asatrur

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #3 on: September 25, 2012, 11:28:39 AM »
I was leaning toward auto, but what I am reading is go manual.
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BTPost

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #4 on: September 25, 2012, 12:21:30 PM »
Autotuners, especially Fixed, Lump Constant, Binary Switch Autotuners, are only as good as the Phase, and Forward/Reverse Power Detectors, and the Tuning Algorithms employed in the firmware. The original design was done by Motorola for the Micom HF SSB Radios, back in the 80s, and brought to the West Coast, by bill Schillb, when he came to Northern Radio Company in Seattle. When Northern liquidated, the Design Team migrated to SEA, and the first Micro Controlled Tuner, was designed by Bill Forgey, (Hardware) and Mark Johnson (firmware) in the SEA-1601, for the Marine HF Market. This design and Tuning Algorithms were refined by these two over the life of SEA and thru a whole Series of Autotuners, up thru the SEA 163x versions that are still in production today. All the SGC Tuners use the SAME (Plagiarized), or based on, firmware, (SEA 1612) written by Mark Johnson. These autotuners will do fair at tuning Whips, and RandomWire Antennas, assuming a Fair to Good RF Ground. they have one very significant Flaw. They can never tune an antenna, that has a fundamental resonance of 1/2 Wavelength, due to the impedance, that approaches Infinity, at exactly 1/2 wavelength. Typical Dead Zones around 1/2 Wavelength is about 125 Khz.  Manual tuners have always been My personal Preference. I have a Dentron MT3000A, and a Diawa CNW-419..... Oh yea, I did Beta Testing on ALL the SEA AutoTuners, many that never made it into production. Just Say'en...... YMMV....
Bruce in alaska AL7AQ

AD

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #5 on: September 25, 2012, 03:25:01 PM »
I use the MFJ 941E http://www.mfjenterprises.com/Product.php?productid=MFJ-941E

Work well for a manual tuner.  Takes a little getting use to, but the price of $130 was right in my range. 
The only dumb question is the one that did not get asked!!

AD

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #6 on: September 25, 2012, 03:29:36 PM »
I forgot, it has both coax and ladder line terminals. 
The only dumb question is the one that did not get asked!!

idial1911

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #7 on: September 25, 2012, 03:44:52 PM »
I was leaning toward auto, but what I am reading is go manual.

Long story short, if you like to tinker and screw around with stuff, manual. If you just want to get on the air and not have to worry about tuning auto.

Both my rigs have auto, i've never had a single issue with them.
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asatrur

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #8 on: September 25, 2012, 07:25:13 PM »
ok, I have a MJF-945E antenna tuner that I am not sure works. When I hook up antenna tuner to the radio with a short piece of coax and follow the manual, nothing happens on the tuner. There is a possibility that the coax might be bad, so I am looking advice on how to test the coax and any tips on using the tuner.
Thanks,
Asa
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BTPost

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #9 on: September 26, 2012, 12:29:59 AM »
Coax test with Ohm Meter.
Check for continuity from Center Pin to Center Pin....
Check for continuity from Shield to Shield, or Outside of the Connector to outside of the other Connector....
Check for Infinite Ohms between Center Pin, and Shield, or Outside of the Connector....
That will show basic connectivity of a length of coax with connectors on each end....
If these are as shown, then most likely the cable will be fine at LF/MF/HF...
VHF/UHF/SHF will require better test procedures, as the frequency increases.....
Bruce in alaska AL7AQ

PeterRabbit

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #10 on: September 27, 2012, 03:30:36 PM »
Long story short, if you like to tinker and screw around with stuff, manual. If you just want to get on the air and not have to worry about tuning auto.

I have a NYE tuner that works great, but I have to admit that even with a settings cheat sheet, it can still take awhile.

Recon prepper

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #11 on: September 29, 2012, 07:19:13 AM »
asa since the how to test cable has already been addressed thought I might mention what MFJ stands for.
Martin F Jue or something like that hes a small Asian looking fellow with a funny Mississippi accent.
Our club likes to say MFJ stands for Mighty Fine Junk as the Quality Control there seems to be asleep at the wheel sometimes.
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XJP5

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #12 on: March 05, 2013, 01:33:33 PM »
I have never heard anyone complain about the LDG tuners, good, reliable, can tune a wet noodle, and fairly priced..

Just a hit a button and its all tuned up.

I've been looking at a new ProII series LDG auto tuners lately and the only issue I see with them is the auto tuning threshold in auto mode is set between 1.7:1 and 3.0:1, which I'm not crazy about. The default is 2.0:1 as stated in their manual (below). So technically, unless there is a provision to change this, the tuner will never tune below 1.7:1 even if it's possible. WTF would they design it like that?

The "Manual Full Tune" section doesn't state any limitations, but if I were spending this amount of money on an auto tuner, I'd want better than 1.7:1 tuning, if it's possible, not just a threshold of performance pre-determined at the factory. I didn't know this until I read a thread on the QRZ forums, discussing this topic. Something to investigate further, if buying one of these LDG tuners.

From the LDG Manual:

"Automatic Tune SWR Threshold: When the AT-200/ 600/ 1000 ProII is in fully automatic tuning
mode, an automatic tuning cycle will begin any time RF is present and the SWR has exceeded a
set threshold. This threshold is user-programmable to any value between 1.7:1 and 3.0:1. To set
the automatic tune SWR threshold, press Func -> L Dn repeatedly (press Func, then L Dn;
Func, then L Dn, and so on...) to cycle through all the options. The SWR threshold will be
displayed on the SWR scale momentarily.

The default value of SWR threshold is 2.0:1. The following example shows setting the SWR
threshold to 1.7:1."

* I checked and this applies to the AT-200ProII, AT-600ProII, and AT1000ProII. For some reason, the AT100ProII specs are different, as shown below:

AT100ProII:

"Automatic Tune SWR Threshold: When the AT-100ProII is in fully automatic tuning
mode, an automatic tuning cycle will begin any time RF is present and the SWR has exceeded a
set threshold. This threshold is user-programmable to any value between 1.1:1 and 3.5:1. To set
the automatic tune SWR threshold, press Func -> L Dn repeatedly (press Func, then L Dn;
Func, then L Dn, and so on...) to cycle through all the options. The SWR threshold will be
displayed on the SWR scale momentarily.

The default value of SWR threshold is 2.0:1. The following example shows setting the SWR
threshold to 1.7:1."

I called LDG to make sure I'm interpreting this correctly. Left them a voice mail. We'll see if they return my call.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2013, 02:22:59 PM by XJP5 »

XJP5

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #13 on: March 05, 2013, 06:28:17 PM »
OK, I just received a call from Duane, at LDG, and he explained this. I misinterpreted the manual, along with many other hams. He said this is one of the top questions they receive.

Evidently, the 1.7:1 to 3.0:1 threshold is where the tuner can be set to begin auto tuning. He did state that if a value better than 1.7:1 is obtainable by the tuner, it will in fact tune to that ratio, which makes more sense. This seems like such a nice piece of hardware and I was happy to hear I was mistaken. I suggested they re-evaluate the way that paragraph is written in the PDF manual. It may cause them to lose sales if people don't understand the tuner's operation.

I would also like to add that LDG is one of the few companies I've recently received a response from, during product inquiries. The rep was polite and very helpful. That goes a long way in my eyes. I stand corrected. Sorry for the misinformation presented.

Lamewolf

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Re: Antenna tuners
« Reply #14 on: October 06, 2015, 11:26:08 AM »
I have never heard anyone complain about the LDG tuners, good, reliable, can tune a wet noodle, and fairly priced..

Just a hit a button and its all tuned up.

Then let me be the first one you hear complain about them.  I've had 3 of them and had problems with every one.  The first one was a Z100 - piece of junk !  Would only make a match if it was already close and wouldn't keep a match.  Second was a Z11 Pro.  Shortly after the warranty ran out it stopped matching at all but would continuosly search for a match without ever finding one.  Third is a Z11 Pro 2, it will find a match but sometimes seems to take too long to do so.  Then sometimes it will find a match as indicated by the green LED on the front panel but will search past that point and stop somewhere around 2.5:1 and this is with an antenna that is only a 2.1:1 match to begin with - it actually makes the match worse !  Get yourself a good manual tuner, you can set it and forget it and it will stay matched unless something drastic happens to the system and a manual tuner doesn't require a power surce to run it - you are the power.