[TenTec] Experience with the Eagle in CQWW CW

[Rick - DJ0IP / NJ0IP]

One more point of interest regarding the transmitter.

I live in a rental house and have permission for just one antenna.
The idea of openwire feedline running in clear sight of the neighbors was
not welcomed.
I chose an all band antenna fed with coax that can be run along the ground,
out of site.

The antenna works ALL bands from 80 to 10 except 17m. (no 160m)
The SWR is only great in the CW section of 80m.
It's about 2:1 on most bands, a little higher on 40m and 3.5:1 on 15 meters.
The antenna is fed with about 100 ft. of LMR-240 coax.

THE PERFECT ANTENNA TO EVALUATE THE EAGLE'S TRANSMITTER!

I was curious to see how the rig's transmitter would fair with this less
than perfect match on the bands.
Most of the time the rig was transmitting into a 2:1 or higher SWR.

I did not want to use an external matchbox because I did not want to tune
anything.
For the first half of the contest I only used the Eagle's built in ATU on
40m and 15m.
On the second day I did not even use it on 40m - only on 15.
I also tried a few short periods of operation on 15m without the ATU, but I
didn't want to push my luck.

I found I could make contacts equally well with the ATU in or out.
At no time did I ever experience any problems other than the minor one
described in the next paragraph and as I already said, the rig never got
hot.

On 15m there was a 50/50 chance that the ATU would match the antenna on the
first attempt.  Several times it failed to find a good match.  I simply
pushed the Tune button again and let it have a second or third try.  It
always found a good match after a couple of tries; sometimes even on the
first attempt.  My on the air results on 15m were excellent.  It is the band
on which I scored the most points.

Of course in normal usage I didn't have to hit the tuner all the time.  When
I returned to the band, it knew where it should be. The scenario described
above was experienced during the pre-contest preparation where I was trying
everything out.

I wanted to know how this tiny little 100w rig's transmitter would behave in
contest conditions with a less than perfect antenna.  I found out:
"perfect."

73
Rick, DJ0IP