A friend bought a G5RV Lite and has a Kenwood TS-480SAT, hoping the ATU in
the Kenwood would be able to tune all bands.
But only two bands would tune - 6m and 10m.

He then borrowed a G5RV Jr. Same results.

So question is does G5RV's in general require an external tuner with a wider
matching range than the typical internal ATU's in late model rigs??

The Shadow usually knows. (;-)

"The Shadow" wrote in message
...
A friend bought a G5RV Lite and has a Kenwood TS-480SAT, hoping the ATU in
the Kenwood would be able to tune all bands.
But only two bands would tune - 6m and 10m.

He then borrowed a G5RV Jr. Same results.

So question is does G5RV's in general require an external tuner with a
wider matching range than the typical internal ATU's in late model rigs??

The Shadow usually knows. (;-)

The shadow would probably suggest you to try changing the feedline length a
bit to 'see what happens'.
I love the g5rv - especially on 20 m

On Sep 12, 2:04 pm, "The Shadow" wrote:


So question is does G5RV's in general require an external tuner with a wider
matching range than the typical internal ATU's in late model rigs??

The Shadow usually knows. (;-)

Yes. Most tuners in radios are not much more than glorified
"line flatteners". They were never intended to match antenna
systems per say. They are intended to use with antennas that
are tuned, or in the "ballpark" so to speak.
The main purpose of the tuner is to provide a wider usable
bandwidth for the radios finals when using existing antennas.
IE: say you had a dipole that covered 3.7 to 3.9 mhz.
The tuner will let you run say 3.55 and keep the radio happy.
And the losses with such a setup are still fairly low.
The tuners were never intended to run "all band" antennas
where the Z can be from very low to very high.
For that, you really need a outboard tuner made for that job.
And if you go that far, might as well ditch all the G5RV
"junk" and just run ladder line all the way from the tuner
and the antenna.
You could tune the feedline to get a decent match, but
then you have to rig the same for all the other bands..
IE: the Cecil method..
MK

wrote in message
ps.com...
On Sep 12, 2:04 pm, "The Shadow" wrote:


So question is does G5RV's in general require an external tuner with a
wider
matching range than the typical internal ATU's in late model rigs??

The Shadow usually knows. (;-)

Yes. Most tuners in radios are not much more than glorified
"line flatteners". They were never intended to match antenna
systems per say. They are intended to use with antennas that
are tuned, or in the "ballpark" so to speak.
The main purpose of the tuner is to provide a wider usable
bandwidth for the radios finals when using existing antennas.
IE: say you had a dipole that covered 3.7 to 3.9 mhz.
The tuner will let you run say 3.55 and keep the radio happy.
And the losses with such a setup are still fairly low.
The tuners were never intended to run "all band" antennas
where the Z can be from very low to very high.
For that, you really need a outboard tuner made for that job.
And if you go that far, might as well ditch all the G5RV
"junk" and just run ladder line all the way from the tuner
and the antenna.
You could tune the feedline to get a decent match, but
then you have to rig the same for all the other bands..
IE: the Cecil method..
MK



I have, quite serendipitously, found a radio with a built-in auto tuner that
will match my Van Gordon All Bander with its twinlead feedline and a 4:1
balun. So far, I haven't discovered anywhere that it won't tune, but I don't
use 160 meters...

The rig is the Yaesu FT-890AT from ten or fifteen years ago. I was blown
away after trying it just for a lark and finding it operable everyone I
chose to operate.

Ed, NM2K

On Sep 12, 3:04 pm, "The Shadow" wrote:
A friend bought a G5RV Lite and has a Kenwood TS-480SAT, hoping the ATU in
the Kenwood would be able to tune all bands.
But only two bands would tune - 6m and 10m.

He then borrowed a G5RV Jr. Same results.

So question is does G5RV's in general require an external tuner with a wider
matching range than the typical internal ATU's in late model rigs??

The Shadow usually knows. (;-)

Sir Cranston: One answer to your question is "it depends". It depends
on the radio and it's ATU. My old TS-940S(AT) autotuner successfully
handled several Field Day G5RVs which had gawdawful high SWRs on most
bands.

The direct answer to your question is that according to it's published
Kenwood specs the autotuner in the TS-840SAT can't handle SWRs above
3:1 which immediately precludes it's ability to match G5RVs on most
bands. As Mark put it it's a "line flattener", not a real antenna
tuner. Annoying marketing gimmick.

My FT-847 doesn't have an ATU which is OK with me because I use an
external LDG AT-11MP ATU which I'm convinced will match almost *any*
antenna to the radio. Did a proper job of matching couple more
recently used G5RVs. The MP is out of production and has been by
replaced by the even better AT-100Pro. A couple hunded bucks well
spent.

http://www.ldgelectronics.com/index.php

Brian w3rv

The Shadow wrote:
So question is does G5RV's in general require an external tuner with a
wider matching range than the typical internal ATU's in late model rigs??

Yes
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com

On Sep 12, 3:04 pm, "The Shadow" wrote:
A friend bought a G5RV Lite and has a Kenwood TS-480SAT, hoping the ATU in
the Kenwood would be able to tune all bands.
But only two bands would tune - 6m and 10m.

He then borrowed a G5RV Jr. Same results.

So question is does G5RV's in general require an external tuner with a wider
matching range than the typical internal ATU's in late model rigs??

The Shadow usually knows. (;-)

FWIW, I have an ICOM Pro II, an Ameritron ALS 600 and a Palstar AT-
AUTO Tuner feeding a True Talk 102' G5RV. Just for the heck of it, I
took the amp and Palstar out of line. The Pro II tuner tuned all bands
from 80 to 6 with no problem. You might want to consider adding 6' or
12' of coax to the transmission line. Sometime that will do the
trick. GL es 73, Tom K3MOV

On Sep 12, 8:19 pm, Brian Kelly wrote:


Sir Cranston: One answer to your question is "it depends". It depends
on the radio and it's ATU. My old TS-940S(AT) autotuner successfully
handled several Field Day G5RVs which had gawdawful high SWRs on most
bands.

Some radio tuners will tune many loads..
But... I'd be kinda paranoid to use it as such if the
loads are far off the 50 ohm path. In some cases
the tuners can run real hot in those cases, and
I'd be afraid to whack it out.. Not a cheap fix for most
of those built in tuners.
But thats just me.. If anyone else feels lucky, have at it.
Myself, I never buy the built in radio tuners. I'd rather
have one outboard if I needed one. In most all cases,
my antennas are ready to go as is..
IE: all my home/portable antennas are resonant/tuned,
and my mobile is already matched by it's own devices.
So for me, I rarely would need a inboard tuner.
I'm still using a IC-706mk2g for most of my radio play.
No tuner in it.. Ditto for my old TS-830.. Course, the
830 will match a pretty wide spread just with it's
loading control. A 3:1 match is no sweat to it most
of the time..
MK

Many thanks to all that took the time to answer the G5RV & Tuner question.
My friend and I learned a lot and he is investigating an external tuner.
Great news group - kudos
The Shadow

"The Shadow" wrote in message
...
A friend bought a G5RV Lite and has a Kenwood TS-480SAT, hoping the ATU in
the Kenwood would be able to tune all bands.
But only two bands would tune - 6m and 10m.

He then borrowed a G5RV Jr. Same results.

So question is does G5RV's in general require an external tuner with a
wider matching range than the typical internal ATU's in late model rigs??

The Shadow usually knows. (;-)