Not sure about the Antenna Tuner I picked up.

[TNFrank]

Seems to work, tuned the antenna to 1.4-5 SWR but Zero contacts with it attached. I could hear a lot of traffic but every time I tried to make a QSO NOTHING. I removed it and got 2 QSO's right away. Not sure how it's suppose to work but I'm not sure my signal is getting out with the tuner in place.  I may try again with then without it to see but my antenna seems to be a decent 1:2 without the tuner in place set up as an inverted V. If anyone is on today keep a listen for KM7BVY and let me know if you hear me or now. 73 and Happy New Year.

[SteveShannon]

50 minutes ago, TNFrank said:

Seems to work, tuned the antenna to 1.4-5 SWR but Zero contacts with it attached. I could hear a lot of traffic but every time I tried to make a QSO NOTHING. I removed it and got 2 QSO's right away. Not sure how it's suppose to work but I'm not sure my signal is getting out with the tuner in place.  I may try again with then without it to see but my antenna seems to be a decent 1:2 without the tuner in place set up as an inverted V. If anyone is on today keep a listen for KM7BVY and let me know if you hear me or now. 73 and Happy New Year.

Leave it in place and press the bypass button (mine has one; I assume yours does too) while talking to someone. Ask them if the signal strength is better or worse when the tuner is in or out. 

[marcspaz]

It may be coincidence.  I only have my mobile setup right now.  I can reach out there NP with the base but the mobile isn't likely due to the short antenna.  I can go fish the monoband antenna out and see if it can make the trip.  Just need to find it first.  LOL

 

[WRYZ926]

@TNFrank if your SWR is 1.2:1 then I would not even bother with the tuner. Most tuners won't even attempt to tune when the SWR is that low. None of my tuners, built in or external, will tune when the SWR is that low.

A dipole is wide banded enough that you should have good SWR across the technician portion of the band. I would say handing your dipole as an inverted v is working just fine for you.

[SteveShannon]

3 minutes ago, WRYZ926 said:

@TNFrank if your SWR is 1.2:1 then I would not even bother with the tuner. Most tuners won't even attempt to tune when the SWR is that low. None of my tuners, built in or external, will tune when the SWR is that low.

A dipole is wide banded enough that you should have good SWR across the technician portion of the band. I would say handing your dipole as an inverted v is working just fine for you.

I agree with you but I think he said it’s 1:2, which I presume means 2.0:1, without the tuner. Personally with good and short cable I wouldn’t worry too much about 2.0:1 SWR but many people do. 
Since he has such a narrow bandwidth to use currently it would be easy enough to break the bandwidth into ten or so different evenly distributed across the allowable bandwidth and chart it. That might be enough to indicate where he is on the SWR curve. 
Unfortunately only an antenna analyzer or nanoVNA can tell him where the antenna is resonant. An SWR meter doesn’t. 

[WRYZ926]

Maybe I misunderstood and he meant his SWR is 2:1. If that is the case, the tuner should tune that with no problems and he should be getting out just fine.

A 2:1 SWR will cause the radio to cut back on the transmit power levels depending on the radio. I know my IC-7300 starts cutting power back once the SWR gets above 1.7:1

I agree that an antenna analyzer or NanoVNA is needed to see the exact point where the antenna is resonant. Using a SWR meter leaves you guessing.

Either way, he should still be getting out and be heard when using the tuner. There could be a number of issues going on.

• defective tuner
• faulty connectors on the tuner
• a bad coax jumper
• bad connectors on the jumper

I say this since he stated that he gets out fine when the tuner is not connected to the radio. I agree that he needs to try with the tuner inline but in bypass mode. 

[WRYZ926]

@TNFrank here is what I suggest for trouble shooting

1. reconnect the tuner and try it in bypass mode. If you can make contacts with the tuner in bypass mode then something is wrong with the tuner internally.
2. If step 1 didn't work, try a different coax jumper. 

You stated everything works fine with the antenna connected directly to the radio. So that rules out the coax from the antenna. I am suspecting either a junk tuner or a bad coax jumper at this point.

Try reconnecting the tuner but run it in bypass mode and let us know please.

[WRYS709]

See if you can hear yourself on either or both of these WebSDRs:

Half Moon Bay, CA: http://websdr1.kfsdr.com:8901

Northern Utah: http://www.sdrutah.org

My Antuner AT-100M Pro works like a charm for me!

[TNFrank]

Ok, so I didn't put the SWR number in correctly, it should be 2:1. With the tuner in place it drops it to 1.4:1 to 1.5:1. Hardly worth the nearly $100 bucks I spent for it. Also, made a contact in Indiana today, with the tunner in place I was reported to be 5/2-3. Without the tuner my signal was 5/4-5 so it was actually better without the tuner. I'm going to return it and use the refund money to try and get a better antenna. I think that'd be my best next move. 

Coax jumper is the same RD8x I'm using for my feed line to the antenna and is only 1 foot in length so I'm sure there's no signal loss with it in place. 

[WRYS709]

1 hour ago, TNFrank said:

Also, made a contact in Indiana today, with the tunner in place I was reported to be 5/2-3. Without the tuner my signal was 5/4-5 so it was actually better without the tuner.

 

You sure you had each of the pl259's in the correct port and not reversed?

[SteveShannon]

1 hour ago, TNFrank said:

Ok, so I didn't put the SWR number in correctly, it should be 2:1. With the tuner in place it drops it to 1.4:1 to 1.5:1. Hardly worth the nearly $100 bucks I spent for it.

A horizontal dipole, at its lowest SWR, will be 1.5:1 SWR. That’s because the dipole has a natural impedance of 73 ohms. Folding it into an inverted V improves the impedance somewhat. You’ll never be able to tell the difference between that and 1.0:1. 
The ATU-100 has a finite number of fixed capacitive and inductive elements to switch in to offset the natural reactance of the antenna at any given frequency. It’s simply not possible or even desirable to keep hunting for a better SWR once the tuner gets to 1.4 or 1.5.

Now a manual tuner with a roller inductor and variable capacitor might be able to tune better, but again, it’s not worth it.

[TNFrank]

52 minutes ago, WRYS709 said:

You sure you had each of the pl259's in the correct port and not reversed?

Really, you're going to ask me that question. YES, I had it hooked up right. It'd be hard to hook it up wrong with the connections being clearly marked. 

[TNFrank]

42 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

A horizontal dipole, at its lowest SWR, will be 1.5:1 SWR. That’s because the dipole has a natural impedance of 73 ohms. Folding it into an inverted V improves the impedance somewhat. You’ll never be able to tell the difference between that and 1.0:1. 
The ATU-100 has a finite number of fixed capacitive and inductive elements to switch in to offset the natural reactance of the antenna at any given frequency. It’s simply not possible or even desirable to keep hunting for a better SWR once the tuner gets to 1.4 or 1.5.

Now a manual tuner with a roller inductor and variable capacitor might be able to tune better, but again, it’s not worth it.

Since I went to the Inverted "V" at close to a 90 deg. angle the SWR is much better than when I had it Horizontal. It came down from 6 or 7 to right at 2 now with the new, longer wires. There's only 3 inches difference between the older wires and the new ones so I don't know if it'd be worth cutting off a bit of the longer ones or not.  I made a contact in Alaska so I know I'm getting out.

[SteveShannon]

1 hour ago, TNFrank said:

Since I went to the Inverted "V" at close to a 90 deg. angle the SWR is much better than when I had it Horizontal. It came down from 6 or 7 to right at 2 now with the new, longer wires. There's only 3 inches difference between the older wires and the new ones so I don't know if it'd be worth cutting off a bit of the longer ones or not.  I made a contact in Alaska so I know I'm getting out.

The way I look at it every antenna is an experiment. Learn whatever you can from it and apply that to the next one.

[TNFrank]

Nice thing about a wire antenna is that it only costs a bit of wire to experiment with and the 1:1 Balun is fairly inexpensive.

[WRQC527]

It appears from the picture that your inverted V antenna is about a foot away from your house. Embedded in all that stucco is a whole lot of chicken wire. While the inverted V is somewhat more omnidirectional than a standard "flat-top" dipole, a lot of your transmitted signal is probably getting eaten up by the house, and it's also affecting your SWR and wreaking havoc on the radiation pattern. If you can get it out in the open, you might have better luck. Just my two cents, which when adjusted for inflation, is down to just over a penny. 

[TNFrank]

I was going to try mounting it on the tripod I'd set up for a yagi antenna I have but it wouldn't have been any higher. I know that the wave pattern to the South is probably very compromised. North seems to be decent though because I've made some contacts with Canada and even got one today from Alaska. I think I will try moving it out though just to test it if nothing else. 

The way I have it now was just for convenience more than any thing just so I could get on the air. Now I can start tweaking things to see what will work better.

[WRYS709]

4 hours ago, TNFrank said:

Really, you're going to ask me that question. YES, I had it hooked up right. It'd be hard to hook it up wrong with the connections being clearly marked. 

Wait until you are about 20 years younger than I am and then you will discover that question is not so far-fetched! 

My newer, upgraded version of your portable tuner, the Antuner AT-100M Pro ($78 AliExpress slow boat from China) consistently gets 1:1 on some of the bands at certain frequencies, so I know it is possible and achievable.

[SteveShannon]

6 minutes ago, TNFrank said:

I was going to try mounting it on the tripod I'd set up for a yagi antenna I have but it wouldn't have been any higher. I know that the wave pattern to the South is probably very compromised. North seems to be decent though because I've made some contacts with Canada and even got one today from Alaska. I think I will try moving it out though just to test it if nothing else. 

The way I have it now was just for convenience more than any thing just so I could get on the air. Now I can start tweaking things to see what will work better.

Once you are ready to try digital modes you’ll be able to generate beacons in WSPR (weak signal propagation reporter).  Then you’ll be able to graphically see where your signal is being heard and on which bands:

[TNFrank]

4 minutes ago, WRYS709 said:

Wait until you are about 20 years younger than I am and then you will discover that question is not so far-fetched! 

How old/young do you think I am because I can tell you, I'm not that young.

I got my Electronics Technician Degree in '83 if that lets you know I'm no "spring chicken". 

[WRYS709]

1 minute ago, TNFrank said:

How old/young do you think I am because I can tell you, I'm not that young.

I got my Electronics Technician Degree in '83 if that lets you know I'm no "spring chicken". 

As Einstein once said: "It's all relative!"

I took my first course in FORTRAN in 1965; one year before they invented BASIC...

[TNFrank]

1 hour ago, WRYS709 said:

As Einstein once said: "It's all relative!"

All things are relative. All Relatives are things. My Relatives took all my things.   

[WRYT601]

Sometimes, when tuners struggle to achieve a good match, it is because the impedance seen looking into the coax is in a place that is difficult to reach with the specific network design of the tuner.  To get around this, you can add a short piece of coax between an eight and a quarter wavelength (anything under a half is worth a try).  This will rotate the impedance around the smith chart following the constant SWR circle (neglecting loss of course) and put the impedance somewhere that might be easier for the tuner to match to.

[TNFrank]

Moving the antenna out away from the house and having it up maybe another 6 to 8 inches has made a real difference. According to the meter on the radio my SWR is less than 1.5:1.  I was hearing a lot of folks, some very strong but didn't get a QSO from any of them. On the other hand, some 5/4 signals were coming in for POTA that I made contact with. I helped to activate 3 POTA QSO's and got them in my QRZ log.  I also got some video footage that I'm going to try and cut together into a YouTube video. 

 

[SteveShannon]

45 minutes ago, TNFrank said:

Moving the antenna out away from the house and having it up maybe another 6 to 8 inches has made a real difference. According to the meter on the radio my SWR is less than 1.5:1.  I was hearing a lot of folks, some very strong but didn't get a QSO from any of them. On the other hand, some 5/4 signals were coming in for POTA that I made contact with. I helped to activate 3 POTA QSO's and got them in my QRZ log.  I also got some video footage that I'm going to try and cut together into a YouTube video. 

 

Way to go!!!

That gives proof to the saying about antennas ”Everything affects everything!”