[TenTec] Aux Antenna on Omni VI/opt-3

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson]

On Tue, 2008-09-09 at 14:06 -0400, lciotti at twcny.rr.com wrote:
> Quick question about using the auxiliary receive antenna jack on my Omni VI.
> 
> I notice that when using my current Antenna (Doublet through an LDG-200pro tuner) the received signal strength will be stronger when the antenna is tuned.  Would the same apply to the axillary antenna jack?

The auxiliary antenna input will work just the same. Its a simple
connection opened by the switch to let the receiver use a different
antenna than when transmitting. Most often used for 160 and 80 meter
receiving on a Beverage and transmitting on a vertical.
> 
> The reason I am asking is have started to use Faros to monitor DX beacons to get a feel for band conditions.  This program will cycle the different bands, and with my setup in order to get a true representation of band conditions my antenna would have to be tunned when ever it switches bands.  I am thinking that if the aux. antenna does not need to be tunned I can string up a second antenna and get better results.

Unless you string up a multiband dipole (trapped or parallel dipoles)
you will need the tuner for best signal on each band. But if you leave
the main tuner tuned a particular way, you will hear signals on all the
bands if there are signals to be heard but not always as well as if the
antenna had been tuned. But since the tuner requires transmitting (maybe
at low power) to make it tune for the different frequencies, you won't
be able to change the receiver without transmitting a bit (and QRMing
the beacons). There maybe some internal tuners that will set the tuning
according to the receive frequency and the last known frequency, but
that's harder to do with the external tuner. Shouldn't necessarily be,
but most don't have that provision built in.

73, Jerry, K0CQ