[TenTec] 160 meters, ten ted 238 tuner, part two

[Mike Bryce]

Well gang, 

It’s great being able to move again and once more I’m in the shack.

I did some interesting testing with my doublet.

here’s a recap

132 feet on each side fed with 180 ish feet of 600 ohm open line. That goes to an external 1:1 balun feed with three feet of LMR400 to the coupler.

A palstar coupler and the Ten Tec 238 coupler were unable to find a match.

So I added 15 feet to both ends.

No joy.

I added about 10 feet of wire inside the shack and strung it across the ceiling. Looks like hell, but it’s up there

The palstar will find a solution at 1.890 now, but the swr is around 2.7:1

The 238, not so much. I did get it to tune, but the SWR slowly increased (I plan on modifying the coupler with the high voltage doorknob caps)

Now, here’s the odd part.

I have a Ten Tec 253 AUTOMATIC tuner. That tuner found a solution for the 160 meter band from one end to the other.

Happy days!

But, using the same tuner, it can’t find a solution on 30 meters.

But the 238 and the palstar will tune it flat.

I don’t mind changing antennas, but swapping out couplers to operate from one band to the other kinda sucks.


Mike WB8VGE



Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.