I prefer to use resonant antennas, either single or multi band and not use a tuner, however, I have encountered that even resonant antennas are not always so due to ground conditions, Case in point, two weeks ago we hiked to the summit of Sentinel Mountain in Baxter State Park. I carried my KX3, foldable 42 watt solar panel, 6amp/hr lithium battery, coax and a 40 meter resonant slinky antenna which I had previously tested at my QTH in Mid Coast, ME. Antenna would not resonate due to the granite terrain. Luckily I brought with me a mAT-10 qrp tuner I had just purchased and was able to get on the air just fine. Tried to post pix earlier but file was too big for the reflector. I’ll gladly send it to antone that wants to see it. Stay Free everyone! 73 de Jose Douglas KB1TCD
Sent from my iPad > On Aug 1, 2020, at 3:12 PM, David Gilbert <ab7e...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > For what it may be worth, I'm a staunch supporter of antenna tuners myself. > I previously used one for many years to get 5 band operation out of two > vertical pieces of tubing on my roof back when I lived in Scottsdale, and I > just built a high power monster to get full coverage of the low bands with my > current antennas here in the boonies. I'm definitely not one of those who > think that antennas need to be resonant to be any good. > > Antenna tuners can indeed be lossy, but with the right components they don't > have to be, and if they are lossy enough to significantly affect your signal > most of them will burn up first. TLW, the free app that comes with the ARRL > Antenna Book, is quite informative on that score. > > My gripe with the original post from G3UNA was simply his generalization that > resonant antennas are bad and that non-resonant antennas are good. > > 73, > Dave AB7E > > > >> On 8/1/2020 11:21 AM, Al Lorona wrote: >> I'm glad Dave added that to the end of his message, because each time the >> topic of multiband antennas comes up, we are told, "That's too lofty a goal >> for one antenna. Just put up a resonant antenna and all your troubles will >> be gone." All except for the problem of operating on all bands without >> having to put up 9 resonant HF antennas, that is. I think we do a disservice >> to the hundreds of hams reading this by discouraging them from multiband >> operation just because we deem it too "noisy" or "lossy" or "inconvenient" >> or whatever. >> >> If a man or woman, knowing full well the consequences of his or her actions, >> chooses to utilize a single, horizontal antenna of no particular length, >> ultra-low-loss feedline long enough to reach the shack, and a low-loss >> homebrew or commercial manual antenna tuner to operate on all bands, then >> who are we to tell him or her that they shouldn't? To do so has always >> struck me as presumptuous. >> >> Incidentally, can we do two things? Can we all get over the gross assumption >> that we continue to make, that when someone mentions feeding an antenna with >> "balanced line" that must mean Wireman #553? There are better alternatives. >> If our beef is with Wireman #553, then let's be on with it without >> condemning *all* forms of balanced line. >> >> Secondly, antenna tuners are not necessarily lossier than the aggregate of >> cables, connectors, wattmeters, filters, switches, elbows, lightning >> arrestors, baluns, autotuners, &c., &c., that many folks use. Everything has >> loss, but in effect we trade that loss for some other valuable function... >> like being able to QSY anwhere, easily. To give you a data point, on 12 >> meters my station has a max loss (from transmitter to the antenna feedpoint) >> of 1.6 dB. I'll put that worst-case number up against anybody's long run of >> coax through all the other junk from their transmitter to their antenna. >> >> Folks, you should not feel inferior for having chosen to operate on many >> bands with an antenna tuner. I think the case could be made that the >> *resonant* antenna is the compromise, giving up all band operation for some >> other desired function. And sadly, sometimes that compromise is made just so >> they can say that they're not using a tuner! >> >> Al W6LX >> >> >>>>> Multi-band antennas are fine as long as you recognize that they are a >>>>> compromise. >>>>> Dave AB7E >> ______________________________________________________________ >> 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 >> Message delivered to ab7e...@gmail.com > > ______________________________________________________________ > 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 > Message delivered to kb1...@gmail.com ______________________________________________________________ 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 Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
