radiomancanada
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What type of antenna tuner should I use for a 130 feet multiband dipole
Antenna tuner
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ka3jjz
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This being a receive-only forum, questions about power output (and RMS won't really get involved here anyway) aren't really pertinent.
To answer the question you likely won't need a 'tuner' of any kind. You didn't say anything about what receiver you are using (in particular, if it's a SDR), but there is a chance you might experience overloading, especially at night.
Mike
To answer the question you likely won't need a 'tuner' of any kind. You didn't say anything about what receiver you are using (in particular, if it's a SDR), but there is a chance you might experience overloading, especially at night.
Mike
I believe he is referring to receive antennas. I use an old Lake tuner I got from eBay. You can use about any broadband tuner, such as the MFJ 900, and similar. You don't need a fancy tuner with meter and other extra features. These are designed for hams for transmitting. The simple matchers have just two knobs. You can also use a tuner with a built in preselector. I have one made by MFJ, but I found out in my situation, my simple Lake tuner with band switch worked better. There is also a ton of schematics and construction details online, if you want to roll your own. To use, just tune for maximum signal on freq. You want to hear. If tuning through a band, just tune for maximum background noise. If you can find one, the Lake tuners were designed for SWL, but they were made in the UK, and are hard to find on this side of the pond.
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ka3jjz
Wiki Admin Emeritus
Antenna tuners - more correctly, a transmatch, as was discussed in another thread - are quite useful when you are trying to squeeze that last bit of energy out of an antenna or structure that would otherwise not work well, but a 130 foot antenna is going to be pretty good receive-wise across the HF spectrum. It does often depend, though, on what the OP is using for a receiver.
If the OP is using a G5RV (the 130 foot length is difficult to be sure, but it does suggest this...) into a SDR, then a transmatch may be helpful in cutting down spurs as you suggest. If he's going into a good desktop (R75, Drake R8, Alinco, etc.) or even a ham transceiver - which has a general coverage receiver built in - the benefits would likely be negligible.
Mike
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