[TowerTalk] Tuners and Matchers

[Don Havlicek]

Lee,
Choice of a tuner depends mostly on what you're trying to tune .. 
ESPECIALLY on 160m.
Remember that an antenna tuner serves only ONE purpose .. to 'match' the 
impedance at the shack-end of the feedline to the output impedance of 
your rig/amplifier.
Another consideration is whether or not the feedline is balanced 
[open-wire/ladderline, etc] or unbalanced [coax/similar].
In my [humble?] opinion, a separate tuner for each band of NEED would be 
best .. set it an forget it .. but I would NEVER use a tuner with a beam 
.. if the feedline impedance and the antenna feedpoint impedance are 
correctly matched, there is NO NEED for a tuner.
Don
N8DE


Lee Buller wrote:
> Hello Ladies and Gents....
>  
> I have been researching tuners to determine which one to obtain.  I have been getting mixed feelings about ... well ... just about all of them.  So, I an asking for opinions about tuners.  I currently have a Palstar and it is OK...but 160 meters suffers.  I also have a homebrew tuner that works, but....I want something different.  So to that end, what do people think of the following....(yes, I have read all the reviews I could find in QST and in Eham)
>  
>  
> MT3000a
> MT2000
> TT238B
> Nye-Viking
> Heath 2040
> Heath 2060A
> Ameritron ATR-30
> Ameritron ATR-20
> MFJ ... well forget that
>  
> Bonus Questions....
>  
> It seems that the popular T-Match and the SPC Match is being challenged by the plain old L-Match (TT Model and others).  When I was a kid so many years ago, the best tuner for the old long wire was the L-Match...a cap and a coil and a bunch of aligator clips all mounted on plywood.  So, is the L-Match making a comeback in everyones thinking because depending on how you set it up, it can match from 5 ohms to 3000 ohms where the other are not that robust.
>  
> Comments please
>  
> Lee - k0WA
>  
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