On 9 Oct 2003 08:03:44 -0700, Jason wrote:
I have recently upgraded to General Class and have only worked a
little CW on my dad's Kenwood TS-820S back in 1995. I just purchased a
Yaesu FT-857 and made a couple of contacts last night on 40 meters.
However, I only have a 40 Meter dipole that a friend let me borrow
made of (what looks like) a long spool of paired electric wire like
you would find on a household lamp. It must be doing fairly well...


i'd agree! i have an ft-857 as well and use a $2 windom semi-stealth
antenna (offset centerfed w/homebrew 4:1 balun)... tuning is done
using an LDG AT11MP...

The FT-857 has an SWR Meter in the rig itself, however it leaves much
to be desired. I also have never used an antenna tuner before and
would like to be able to work some of the other bands using this one
antenna and the tuner. Really, this should be a three part question:

1) Can anyone explain the SWR meter on the rig?

not the greatest display... more important is to watch for the
'SWR' message flashing if SWR is out of range... meter is vertical,
and you need to check your menu settings for the display...

2) How do I get a continous tone out of the rig so that I can
calibrate my SWR meter?

drop the power out to 5W, then PTT in AM mode

3) Once I get it calibrated, what would be the process of utilizing
the SWR meter and Antenna Tuner together for optimum performance from
my rig?

1. cut your antenna as closely as possible to resonance... see the
ARRL's Wire Antenna Classics book, pg. 1-13 for an inexpensive, 4-band
HF wire antenna - no tuner required! but of course, you may want other
bands... i found that my antenna requires no tuning for 20M and 40M,
but easily tunes to 10, 12, 30, 80, and 160M...

2. use a 'real' SWR meter... i find the Yaesu LCD metering worthless
(others may argue this observation)... you'll want to see not only
the SWR, but forward and reflected power for a better idea of your
antenna's efficiency ... you want the most 'out' and not 'back' to
your rig...

3. IMHO, don't screw around with a manual tuner... get the LDG AT11MP,
or if you also have an FT-817, a Z11 QRP tuner (which works up to
60W - which i rarely use, btw)...

FWIW, i like the FT-857... here's what i like:

- multimode (VHF, HF, broadcast SW, AM, FM, etc.)
- small size
- the remote control mic - the reason i bought the rig!
- can use a CW and SSB filter, along with DSP...

here's what's bad:

- mushy sound on HF; this rig's design (as with all multimode rigs)
is a tradeoff on size and features... OK as a 2M, broadcast radio,
but something has to give on squeezing design features in, and
i think the HF end isn't that good (even though i've made 5,000-
mile contacts - the experience wasn't pleasant)...

- fan turns on no matter what power setting

- display - metering, as you've pointed out, is quite confusing,
non-intuitive... signal strength reporting is worthless, IMHO...

hth!

Thanks in advance - 73!