[TowerTalk] Soliciting opinions on SGC SG-230 remote ATU

[Jim Lux]

At 07:55 AM 2/25/2005, Bill VanAlstyne, W5WVO wrote:
>The subject line says it all. I'm looking for a good remote ATU that will
>tune balanced or unbalanced HF wire antennas outside the shack, without need
>of separate control head/wiring or homebrew weatherproof enclosure. Most
>everything I've read on e-Ham about it seems to be a rave review. Would be
>interested in the TT take on this unit. Is there anything better? As good,
>but cheaper?
>
>Bill / W5WVO

Fundamentally, this is designed to feed a whip against a ground 
plane.  It's a adjustable L network with the shunt able to be switched to 
either end of the L.  There are schematics online if you're interested 
(googling should find them).

The autotune mechanism basically works by looking for excessive reflected 
power, which triggers a retune cycle.  There's a memory internally and a 
frequency counter built in, so after it has tuned to a particular frequency 
once, it will retune for that frequency in one "clunk".  There ARE some 
external control lines to force a retune, etc.

I don't recall if the SGC unit takes DC power up the coax or not.


You might also look at LDG Electronics (http://www.ldgelectronics.com/) 
makes a remoteable version of their tuners as well (the RT-11).  Generally 
less expensive than SGC.

None of these tuners is a "balanced" tuner, but then, that's probably not a 
big issue right at the feedpoint.