[TowerTalk] 30m Dipole

[Dan Zimmerman N3OX]

I dunno, some of us still use manual tuners.  I like to have a bunch
of antennas that each exhibit low SWR in my favorite parts of the
bands on a switch.   I'm an incurable band hopper when I'm operating.

I've been using a manual (but remote) tuner with my apartment doublet
for a couple of years now and am ready to go back to quicker band
changes!

Neither of my HF rigs (TS-440S and FT-857D) have tuners, and my big
1500W MFJ manual is a pretty capable beast, especially now that I've
made it remotable, but when I have a backyard in a week, I'm going to
change things up and have at least:

A dedicated 20m antenna... probably a delta loop at first, eventually
a Moxon rectangle.

A 31 foot vertical over a good radial bed with switched fixed-tuned
networks (or passthru on 40) to match it on 40, 30, 20 and possibly
80m

It's worth having a tuner for wide band excursions, but I like nothing
more than just flipping the switch to the right antenna position and
operating.  I'd probably have a different take on it if I actually
owned an autotuner of any sort.  Given that when I have enough space,
I like to have an antenna for each band, I don't see any reason *not*
to make them have a low SWR and just leave the tuner out of it.

Dan