[TenTec] Antenna Tuners...questions

[Jim Brown K9YC]

On Thu, 01 May 2008 17:31:19 +0000, info4mjs at att.net wrote:

>I've been considering the Ten Tec 238B, Palstar AT1500DT, and an 
>XMatch (N4XM).  

The high power Ten Tec tuners (229, 238) are very good. I own six of 
them. Their only shortcomings are 1) they're manual; 2) the caps 
have poor TC, so can drift a bit with heat under certain conditions 
of matching; 3) they have dial cords, which are a PITA after 15-20 
years. The 238B finally eliminated the dial cord. 

Advantages -- as a result of their L-section design, they tend to 
stay tuned over a fairly wide bandwidth. ARRL Lab tests have also 
shown them to have much better than average efficiency. 

They also have a very wide tuning range. I've actually used a 229 to 
load a 160M vertical on 80 CW -- that's tough, because it's a VERY 
high impedance. It doesn't load up in the phone band, but it does 
run fine on CW, and with the full output of a Titan 425! 

73,

Jim K9YC