A Ham buddy 's son just got his General ticket, and asked for my
assistance in making a surprise contact with his Dad for his first HF
QSO. He had bought a nice 100W HF rig with an auto tuner, and an
40M-10M coax fed multi-band doublet antenna that was to be put in his
attic initially. He lives about 100 miles from his Dad.

I thought this was really cool, so I said I would set the whole thing
up. Suggested 80M early evening for that distance would be best bet.
He told me the auto tuner would not tune the 40-10 antenna on 80M
(5to1 SWR). He then asked (here is the magic part) what he could do in
1 hour to get the antenna to tune on 80M.

I told him to short the 40M loading coils, and add enough Home Depot
wire to each end so that the auto tuner was happy. He had a 100'
extension cord that he cut up and got the auto tuner happy 1.5 swr.

At QSO time he could hear neither his dad or myself, and we gave up.
Not to be discouraged he removed the shorts and additional wire, the
tuner provided a 5:1 swr, and he had a nice QSO with his dad. He also
stated he heard a lot more signals than before.

Other than the obvious (he was mistaken in what he reported to me) any
ideas as to what went wrong? I don't think he will ask for any more
advice from me.

Gary N4AST