Looking for info, experience with a 100 watt automatic tuner for twin lead (ladder line) to an 80 meter dipole. Would like to work all HF bands, if possible without manually tuning.

Tom

Tom,
How about an automatic antenna tuner and a balun?
'Doc

Tom - KS5x wrote:

Looking for info, experience with a 100 watt automatic tuner for twin lead (ladder line) to an 80 meter dipole. Would like to work all HF bands, if possible without manually tuning.

Tom

I use an SGC 230 for this sort of thing. Antenna is 105' of wire center fed with
about 30' of 600 ohm home brew line. The SGC is mounted on the gable end of the
house. One side of the ladder to the 'hot' connection, the other to the ground
connection. The SGC is 'floated' by a choke balun in the feed. The feed to the
SGC is RG213 and it and the 4 core control cable are wound into choke baluns
immediately below the SGC. I used 11 turns about 12" in diameter. This seems to
prevent any RF coming back down the control cable and the outside of the coax.
I've had no problems with RF in the shack. It tunes all the amateur bands 160 - 10.
Operating convenience is a revelation after using a manual 'T' match tuner for
some time. It only needs a whiff of RF to tune. My rig is an FT-920AF. I made a
home-brew control box (Smartlock) for the 230 - circuit in the manual save $60.

http://www.sgcworld.com/products/230/sg230.html

HTH


Andy, M1EBV