Hi all,
Want an antenna system with low SWR from DC to daylight? Here is how to
do it.
Buy yourself a quality 50 ohm 6 dB attenuator. It must be rated for the
power level your transmitter can generate, and with a frequency rating
as high as you want to use the system. Put the attenuator in your
feedline inside the shack. Run the coax to a dipole of any length you
like, or any antenna you like, or to nothing at all. You will never have
an SWR higher than 2:1 with this setup. If the antenna you hook the
feedline to is reasonably efficient on a band or two, you'll be able to
work stations just as though you were using a transmitter of about 1/4
the power of the one you are using. And you won't have to fiddle with
those annoying tuner settings. You'll be able to spin the VFO knob (or
channel selector) to anywhere you like with no need to adjust a tuner.
You can buy a quality 100 watt 6dB attenuator that is good all the way
up to 3 GHz for about $300. This is about the same price as a 100 watt
antenna tuner from Mississippi, although they will call it a 1.5 kW
tuner. And it works over a greater frequency range, and may even have
less loss on some of the bands the Mississippi tuner is supposed to work
on.
DE N6KB
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