Hey Dick,
Thanks for the Christmas greetings. Sorry to be so scarce. Still have the
SB-200. (The fellow in Georgia wasn't home when we went by Atlanta on our
boat buying trip.) I took the Centuar back to Ten Tec (fan noise way in
excess of that from the SB-200), so the Heathkit is back in use here and is
still for sale...
I use the 238 as my tuner here. I got it as a demo from the factory about
three years ago. It has always worked flawlessly except that the string
pulled inductor position sometimes lags and then jumps a bit near the end of
its travel. Restringing the indicator would no doubt fix that, but it works
well enough to prevent me going in after something 'what ain't broke'. It
lets me match the OMNI V to my ladder-line fed eighty meter horizontal loop
on all bands including 160 meters. I use antenna switch position 1 for my
Heath 50 ohm cantenna dummy load, position 2 for the
dipole, 3 empty (reserved for the tribander when I get my tower up) and 4
for the loop. More antennas could be accomodated with good quality cavity
A/B switches.
When I saw you, you asked about ladder line into the shack and I don't
remember commenting on it. I bring it in through the bottom of a vinyl clad
wooden casement
window immediately behind the 238 tunner. The station is only a few feet
above ground and is grounded below that window (through a hole in the wall)
via heavy tinned copper woven strap to 8' copper clad rod driven into the
soil. Everything ties to the ground braid. I have never had rf in the
shack (that I know of) with this setup. I did have a bit of trouble with rf
over home where my shack was on the second floor and the lead-in portion of
the ladder line was 25 to 30 ft through attic under a metal roof, then down
through the ceiling to the tuner. Even there it wasn't really bad.
Several of us took a tower down a couple of weeks ago for the materials. I
got the 50 ohm hard-line from it. That'll go on my tower when it goes up
this spring. Spring! What a wait...
Keep warm & 73,
Paul - Wv3j
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