I am not familiar with the Palstar tuner, but can share with you my experience with the K2/100 external tuner and with the Flex 3000 internal ATU. The K2 external ATU was excellent/outstanding in its ability to "match" just about anything. The F3K tuner was junk, and I ended up buying an external "Armstrong" type roller tuner. The key to success in the tuners that rely on relay switching of capacitors/inductances is for the switched reactances to be fine enough for the bridge circuit to find an appropriate selection amongst them. This becomes particularly important on the higher frequency bands, e.g. 10 and 6 meters.
My F3K found it impossible to match my 6 meter quad, which is a fairly high Q antenna. I am assuming that the K3 which I have on order will be as good as the K2 external tuner was...we shall see, but knowing Elecraft, I think I am on OK ground. WRT portability, an external tuner is just one more piece of stuff to carry along...this may be an important consideration for you (or not) depending on whether you plan to use the "portability" feature of the K3. I would opt for the internal tuner. Best, John Ragle -- W1ZI ______________________________________________________________ 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