antenna for 80 and 160

[Robert E. Seastrom]

"Michael O'Dell" <mo at ccr.org> writes:

> i've been noodling over whether i'd have enough
> room at the new house for a horizontal loop
> antenna that could go all the way down to 160.
> doing so would need a remote *balanced* tuner
> so i've been looking around the net for those.

I have been very pleased with the SGCs (237 and 239 - including one
that I have here that has been borrowed far too long and needs to go
back) for Field Day and SRD use...  once I figured out a couple of
tricks to running them.

They claim to auto-tune "just transmit into them" but what they
*really* want is an SSB signal or 10 watts till they're tuned.
Switching to RTTY and hitting the PTT button on the 706 did not have
the desired effect.  There's a company that sells a gizmo that goes on
the back of your rig to trick it into thinking it's plugged into an
icom tuner and sending out 10 watts when you hit the tune button...
and there's also a "makes it look exactly like an icom tuner" box out
there too.  I have both, both work, the magic box requires more
cables...

Also, though they don't draw a whole lot of current when in standby,
they want a couple of amps on tap when they're chattering the relays.
Kludging together a crappy connection out of cross connect wire that
you grabbed as you went out the door is, as the kids say today, "made
of fail".

-r