I have been using my K2 with an MFJ tuner to feed an end fed halfwave wire for portable use (like SOTA). The 20m antenna is 33' long and I use one or two 16' counterpoise wires. It seems to work well for what it is and 10W. I just built and installed the KAT2 ATU into the K2 to lighten my pack by the loss of the MFJ. The KAT2 tuner checked out fine on the bench, but it had a very hard time getting a good match to the antenna. In AUTO mode, it only got the SWR down to about 5:1. I put it in ALT mode, and it spent a long time searching before it got down to between 3:1 and 4:1, depending on the 20m frequency. I added about 2" of wire to the antenna, and the tuer got down to about 2:1 to 2.5:1. I added another foot of wire (now 36'), and it got down to about 1.5:1. Five or six feet added yielded a perfect match (1:1). So I now have a 39' wire for 20m use.
Is this normal? Should the KAT2 be able to more easily match the 33' halfwave antenna? Thank you. 73, Phl, NS7P ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
