On Fri, 10 Jul 2020 23:27:37 +0200, kristoff
wrote:

Where does this "lost" energy go to?

Mostly into heating the tuner inductors. The Q of the inductors is
the major contributor with skin effect being a close second. That's
why antenna tuners tend to use big fat silver plated conductors.

This T-network antenna tuner simulation might be helpful:
http://fermi.la.asu.edu/w9cf/tuner/tuner.html
Download the tuner.jar file to your machine. Assuming you have a Java
runtime installed, running the program will produce a front panel with
adjustment knobs and VSWR meter. To minimize knob twiddling, it has
an autotune button. You can adjust the component values and coil Q's
with the setup button. The default frequency is in the 160 meter
band, where the effects of coil Q are the worst. With the values
provided (Q = 100), the tuner loss at 1.83Mhz is 2.0dB (36.3%).
Capacitors also have a Q value, but losses from high Q air dielectric
caps are minimal.

Also, by the same author:
"Estimating T-network losses at 80 and 160 meters"
http://fermi.la.asu.edu/w9cf/articles/tuner/index.html

Mo
http://fermi.la.asu.edu/w9cf/index.html


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Jeff Liebermann
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Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558