[TenTec] Rudimentary Jupiter SWR question...

[Ben K8DIT]

Yes, but will anyone hear you? Doubt it beyond 50-100 miles away. In theory
you could go 2:1 all day providing you have a fan on the heatsink. Above
that and you risk the thermal shutoff taking you off the air involuntarily.
Finals today are supposed to be fairly robust, but why test them beyond what
the heatsink will dissipate?  If you do this, or say use a tuner to tune out
the swr, you are  heating up some other part of the feedline or antenna. The
remaining rf energy will not happily radiate off into the ether since there
is still  the problem of complex impedances, ground losses and radiation
resistance impeding your successful attempt at communicating.
Unless your antenna is fairly happy radiating on 160, meeting all the
requirements to resonate/radiate your energy, then any of several factors
will be eating your lunch. While you may be able to hear loud signals from
others, your transmitted signal will be dramatically attenuated to the point
where he may just be barely able to hear you, if he even notices you are
there. This is a fairly common mistake newcomers to the top band make.
Radiation characteristics are way different on 160. Havent you asked
yourself, if this were easy, wouldnt everyone be doing it? I took me over a
decade before I found a satisfactory answer to my particular situation. Its
a 290' inverted L with an L network tuner remotely tuned on the feedpoint.
The antenna and tuner are homebrew.