wrote in message
ps.com...
On Sep 12, 2:04 pm, "The Shadow" wrote:


So question is does G5RV's in general require an external tuner with a
wider
matching range than the typical internal ATU's in late model rigs??

The Shadow usually knows. (;-)

Yes. Most tuners in radios are not much more than glorified
"line flatteners". They were never intended to match antenna
systems per say. They are intended to use with antennas that
are tuned, or in the "ballpark" so to speak.
The main purpose of the tuner is to provide a wider usable
bandwidth for the radios finals when using existing antennas.
IE: say you had a dipole that covered 3.7 to 3.9 mhz.
The tuner will let you run say 3.55 and keep the radio happy.
And the losses with such a setup are still fairly low.
The tuners were never intended to run "all band" antennas
where the Z can be from very low to very high.
For that, you really need a outboard tuner made for that job.
And if you go that far, might as well ditch all the G5RV
"junk" and just run ladder line all the way from the tuner
and the antenna.
You could tune the feedline to get a decent match, but
then you have to rig the same for all the other bands..
IE: the Cecil method..
MK



I have, quite serendipitously, found a radio with a built-in auto tuner that
will match my Van Gordon All Bander with its twinlead feedline and a 4:1
balun. So far, I haven't discovered anywhere that it won't tune, but I don't
use 160 meters...

The rig is the Yaesu FT-890AT from ten or fifteen years ago. I was blown
away after trying it just for a lark and finding it operable everyone I
chose to operate.

Ed, NM2K