On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:00:33 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

Of course, we will beat this one to death.

ROTFL!!!

And in the end you will be left to sort out the theoretical from the
practical from the total BS and the folklore.

If, and this is a big *if*, the impeadance of the antenna, feed line
(coax) and the radio all match up correctly, the length of the coax
makes *no* difference at all, and no tuner is necessary or even
desirable.

It is a good idea to have the SWR checked periodically, maybe once a
season, and especially if you seem to have trouble being heard by
others. In practice I have never done that and my radios seem to work
fine. When they don't I usually start by replacing the coax with the
best high quality, low loss product I can get, and that has always
solved the problem. Any problems with impeadance mismatch will be
greatly exacerbated by low quality or aging coax.