I will agree with the below email. I have a Ameritron ALS600 and an MFJ 998 autotuner. I bought this combo for use with my former TS850. When I purchased the K3, I continued to use the tuner, albeit with no "rig control", as the tuner was connected to the TS850's "tune" button with a home made interface cable (which cost me $2, not the $60 that MFJ asks for the same thing).
To tune when using the amp and the K3, I simply press and hold the XMIT button, after setting my tune power to 10 watts. The amp then makes about 40 watts and the tuner auto tunes. Pressing XMIT again concludes the tune cycle and away I go. I have it plugged into my secondary TS570D and it works with the tune button there like it did with the '850. I just implemented a $15 Radio Shack Video Switch to switch Foot Switch, Keyer paddles and Amp Trigger between the rigs. Works perfectly (tho I drool over the new Microham SO2R mini box!). The amp will eventually bandswitch using some Unified Microsystems decoders, but this is a future "enhancement" when I have time. The first '998 I received had a bad relay. HRO immediately sent me a new one, which then "burned in" powered on for three days with no issues. It has survived unscathed since then through many contests. I originally thought I would miss the "tune button on the radio" functionality, but with my somewhat resonant antennas (a "Carolina Windom" on 80/40 and WARC bands and an A3S on 20/15/10) I dont miss the feature. Just make sure and "preset" the MFJ by doing a tune cycle every 10kHz on all the bands I operate on and let it make noise for a while. Next time I operate there, it remembers the settings and if your antennas have not changed, the settings just take less than a second and one "clack" of the relays. Frankly, I am very pleased with the (knock on wood) reliability and performance of the MFJ998. It has been rock solid. I had a '993 before it and it too was rock solid. I had an LDG AT1000 that was horrible, so YMMV. Best MFJ devices I have ever owned. I will look into the new Elecraft autotuner in the P3 box. If it implements Kenwood protocol (for my backup rig's use) I may look into it, however, for the cost, the '998 is pretty hard to beat for what you get and how it works! Yeah, its kind of ugly, but it does work well. -lu-w4lt- Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:32:38 -0500 From: "Bill K9YEQ" <k9...@live.com> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] LDG To: "'Jack Brabham'" <k...@att.net>, <Elecraft@mailman.qth.net> Message-ID: <blu138-ds10c04f17630a71ca39e11d9c...@phx.gbl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I hesitate to add this reply: I have had the original LDG tuner for QRP... I forget which model. I had to replace the firmware chip and then things were better. Then I changed Qrp rigs but then the tuner didn't work so well. I upgrade and sold that unit... it didn't match in the same circumstances. I gave up. I tried several LDG units without success. I don't own any now. I have done SGC and similar result. Not much luck. I have better success with MFJ... can you believe that? The internal units in Elecraft units are superior to all. Cable lengths, antennas and all the rest of the stuff we deal with I like the Elecraft tuners. I am not happy they haven't delved into this market more with heavier duty stuff, but then I have what I need for now. ______________________________________________________________ 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
