No practical experience with the KAT500 but can tell you that, years
ago, while guest operation at a contest station, a 160 meter vertical
was strung up between a couple of the towers. The operator went in and
successfully tuned the antenna to a 1:1 match and then loaded the KW amp
to full output. He then went S&P to get warmed up but heard very little
and could not work any of the few stations he did hear. We went out and
discovered that the vertical wire had snagged on the ground rod! The
tuner was manual but imagine the same principal applies. Yes, you can
often get a "perfect" match but that may not count for much! Have often
wondered if the earth worm population in that area ever recovered.
Mike / W8DN
On 4/2/2017 12:42 PM, Phil Hystad wrote:
I got my second KAT500 tuner to use with my new backup rig and while setting up
and testing and tuning with my two different antennas I made a mistake.
I first observed the results displayed on the utility program operate page
where the tuned SWR was 1:1 and the bypass SWR was something like 54:1. I
immediately realized that something was not right and discovered that my coax
cable was not switched to the antenna but rather my dummy load but the cable to
the dummy load was disconnected (because I was moving things around).
OK, fixed that little problem but I was curious about the behavior when the
KAT500 tuner is faced with an impossible match. Does it give up? I assume it
gives up but then I didn’t see anything to indicate that the tuning operation
gave up. In fact, it seemed like it found a tuned LC solution but one that was
matched with a bypass of 54:1.
My first question: If KAT500 fails to find a valid solution does it report an
error. I ask this because at times I have had red LED lights flashing on a
failed tune but I did not have one this time. I am wondering if I missed the
error report on the utility program.
My second question: Is it possible that the KAT500 did resolve a tuned LC
solution with basically 6 feet of coaxial cable unconnected with anything?
Thanks,
73, phil, K7PEH
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