On Tue, 11 Feb 2014 20:12:14 -0000, "gareth"
wrote:

With the onset of automatic ATUs, is the the final technical
skill that disambiguates the radio amateur from the CBer
being lost?

I'll assume that's a serious question, not another CB versus ham flame
bait. What problem are you trying to solve?

The legal CB band is roughly 400 KHz wide. There's no need for an
automatic antenna tuna to match an antenna with such a narrow
operating frequency range. The matching is either built into the
antenna, preset in an external box, or just ignored by tolerating the
mismatch. Tune or match it once, and forget it.

However, HF ham radio uses frequencies with many octaves of frequency
range. Building a single 50 ohm antenna to cover all that is rather
difficult. Therefore, one uses an antenna tuner (automatic or
manual).

However, you are correct that the ATU is a dying art. I've been
zapped by the high voltages produced by antenna tuners often enough to
suspect that dying might be involved in the tuning process. If it's
not science, it must be art.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558