When I could not tune out the ground impedance bumps, I installed a cheap
manual antenna tuner in the ground circuit leg. Then I got perfect
impedance matches at all frequencies into a long ground wire. This was in
addition to the normal automatic antenna tuner for the antenna. Tuning
was simple. Just adjust the ground tuner until the SWR was down to the
lowest you could get.

Larry DeMers



Bruce in Alaska wrote:

In article ,
"Tom Dacon" wrote:

I don't believe there's any need for an
electrical bond, since induction should do the job nicely.

The above doesn't take into account that we are dealing with
impedance in the frequency domain. By not having an good
electrial bond, you induce capacative coupling to additional
surface area for your RF Ground, That means that this coupling is
frequency sensative, and then the RF Grounding System will react
significantly different depending on the frequency being transmitted.
Autotune Antenna Couples have very specific tuning firmware, and this
code doesn't react very well to a highly variable Rg Ground impedance.
They are designed to operate against a FLAT RF Ground Impedance,
and the more bumps in the RF Gropund impedance the harder the tuner
has to work to tune the antenna, and the more phantom, and quirky
Low SWR points that the tuner will find, and lock on to.

Bruce in alaska
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add a 2 before @

In article , Larry Demers
wrote:

When I could not tune out the ground impedance bumps, I installed a cheap
manual antenna tuner in the ground circuit leg. Then I got perfect
impedance matches at all frequencies into a long ground wire. This was in
addition to the normal automatic antenna tuner for the antenna. Tuning
was simple. Just adjust the ground tuner until the SWR was down to the
lowest you could get.

Larry DeMers

If your going to use a manual tuner in the ground system, and have to
readjust it for every large frequency change, why would you not just put
the manual tuner on the antenna and just do manual tuning??? Kind of
redudndent isn't it. The whole point of a autotuner is so that the
operator doen't have to know or understand what the tuner is doing.
That, and so appliance operators could install their own SSB Radio's
systems and cut the Marine Electronics Tech's out of their Installation
Money. Same thing, as when the FCC changed the rules for Radar
Installations, by users, only with many more consequencies.

Bruce in alaska
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add a 2 before @