Another simple end fed antenna was described by W2FRH in QST, March 2011, "A 
Near End-Fed Antenna..." .  I just returned from a week at the Outer Banks and 
used this antenna with my K2 working DX from Europe and South America, plus 
several states.  No trees near the beach house so it was a sloper from the top 
deck to a fence post.  Measured SWR around 2:1 and the K2 matched to 1:1.

73 Bob K2GLS

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

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