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[TowerTalk] Adjusting antenna tuners

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Subject: [TowerTalk] Adjusting antenna tuners
From: ccc@space.mit.edu (Chuck Counselman)
Date: Wed Jan 29 13:47:52 2003
At 6:38 AM -0500 1/29/03, Eric Scace K3NA wrote:
>    A very convenient way to adjust antenna tuners is to use a 
>handheld impedance analyzer as the signal source....

This wonderfully convenient method doesn't work for hams who live 
near AM broadcast antennas.  The definition of "near" depends on a 
bunch of factors, obviously; but I can tell you that the 10-kW 
1150-kHz TX one mile away and the 50-kW 1510-kHz TX two miles away 
from my G5RV completely cream my Autek RX Vector Analyst Model VA1.

A Palomar noise bridge works for me, because my ham RX has plenty of 
dynamic range.  I wish I had a graphic display that I could use with 
the noise bridge.  Probably some surplus Elint RX....

Palomar used to make an antenna tuner with a noise bridge built in; I 
don't know whether they still do.

An autotuner that used a noise bridge would be nice.  I have two 
automatic antenna tuners (one built into my Icom transceiver), but 
both of them use SWR bridges that require you to transmit at least 10 
watts, which very often I don't want to do.

-Chuck, W1HIS



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