I don't know about the KAT500 specifically, but if a tuner is specified at 10:1 SWR worst case, that means it should meet that spec for load impedances of any phase angle, 0-360 degrees. I expect it will do much better than 10:1 at some phase angles.
Years ago when I was working at R. L. Drake, I designed the MN2700 antenna tuner. It was specified for 5:1 SWR. On some bands it barely made 10 ohms at the low end but it would typically do much better than that at other phase angles. For example, it would match much greater than 250 ohms resistive on most bands. Alan N1AL On Sat, 2011-12-31 at 12:33 -0800, Phil Hystad wrote: > Did I read right that the forthcoming KAT500 would be able to match up to a > 10:1 SWR? > > So, this should mean that the impedance range of the tuner is anywhere from 5 > to 500 ohms (absolute value of Z). > > I currently use an AT1KM tuner with impedance range of 20 to 1500 ohms. I > use this with a horizontal delta loop and I am able to match all of my > important bands that I operate on this antenna which are 80, 40, 30. I use a > 5-band hex beam for the other bands. > > But, I can easily get a good match well under 1.5:1 using the AT1KM. But, I > also measured the impedance and SWR at the point that the coax hooks into the > AT1KM. These measures are then of the raw, un-tuned, antenna system (coax > and delta loop) made with my MFJ-259B. According to these measurements, the > raw impedances I need to match are more then 10:1 for some of the bands. > Indeed, I am close to 24:1 for the low part of 80 but I operate fine in this > region using the AT1KM. > > Should I then assume that the KAT500 will not work for me with my current > antenna system? I also noticed that other auto-tuners have similar wider > ranges. For example, MFJ-998 supports a matching range of 12 to 1600; and, > the old Palstar AT-Auto supports a matching range of 15 to 1500 (now Kessler > Engineering). Apparently, the new the new Palstar HF-Auto is reported as > 10:1 SWR which may be the same as KAT500. > > Therefore, can someone (Wayne, Eric or others in the know) confirm that with > my current antenna configuration, I will probably NOT be able to use the > KAT500 for 80 meters (at least). My options I suppose are not to use the > KAT500 at all, not use it for 80, or reconfigure my delta loop (although, my > degrees of freedom for this are small). > > 73, phil, K7PEH > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:[email protected] > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
