FT857 mobile 80m tuner?
 

I have an FT857 in the car and mainly use it with an ATAS120 on the
trunk lid. I'm very happy with that combination and find the one-button
tuning such an advantage that I don't mind the slightly lower performance
of the ATAS120 compared with a hamstick on 20m for example. I also have a
20m hamstick that I sometimes use when I want that bit more performance.
The 20m hamstick is wide enough to cover the whole band within the
FT857's acceptable SWR limits so I don't need a tuner to use it.

My problem/question is.... what tuner should I use with the FT857 to
"widen" the bandwidth of 40m and 80m hamsticks so that I can tune them
middle of the band(s) once by hand then let a tuner sort out the SWR
for using them across the whole band(s)? I don't need the tuner to work
miracles and make a whip cover multiple bands. I do want the tuner to
work with as little manual intervention as possible so that I can press a
button and know that it will work, like with the ATAS120, and keep my
eyes on the road. The button (if any) needs to be on the radio/mic as the
tuner will be in the trunk so out of reach.

I've tried an LDG RT-11 but don't think that will work for me long term
as the FT857 throttles back the power so much when it sees high SWR that
the RT-11 can't tune. The RT-11 can tune my 20m hamstick from 20m up
to 10m and in-between but can't tune an 80m hamstick across 80m.

I need to use about 2 feet of coax from the tuner to the base of the
whip as I'm limited in how I can get the cable from inside to outside.

Currently considering a) the FC-20 because it is Yaesu so should be able
tune without high SWR throttling the power back and causing problems
as it does with the RT-11 and b) the SGC-239 because I've read on the
SGC website that it works fine with recent Yaesu radios. I understand
that with either of these I'll need to wire the coax to the wire output
terminals and I am slightly concerned that might be too much of a bodge
and hurt performance.

Any ideas or comments would be welcome please. Has anyone else solved the
same problem, and if so how did you do it?

Thanks,

Mark.