yamanx1
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Icom AT-150 Antenna tuner
Just taken delivery of a second hand one of these.
Im going to try it out tonight, albeit I havent made the G5RV I intend to make for it yet, so I'tll have to go through the 11 meter dipole I have.
We'll see, I'm hoping to see if there is any Echo Charlie freebanding going on locally.
Not that I would ever use it 
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10/Oct/2007, 2:13 pm
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yamanx1
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Re: Icom AT-150 Antenna tuner
The tuner works exceptionally well on the amateur bands. It will automatically tune the G5RV in a couple of seconds to 1:1 vswr, without transmitting.
The problems start when you try and use it outside of the ham bands, a lot of fiddling around with adjustment to get it to work on the Echo Charlie bands, which it now does, but no matter what I do it doesnt like the 11 mb. Which is not too much of an issue as the SY-27 dipole I have seems to work fine for 11mb. I would have liked to try out the G5RV on 11 meters though.
My advice is to do more reseach on ATU's before buying one. Had I realised this I would have bought a manual tuner.
It may be possible to open up the range, but at the moment I cant find any information on this.
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15/Oct/2007, 9:04 am
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26fb139
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Re: Icom AT-150 Antenna tuner
manual tuner all the way dave,i've got a fv707 to match the ft707 radio in for repair?? nearly 30 years old brillant with a 150 pwr/swr meter & 150 dummy load.also use the EDX 1 to match the alinco dx70 iam using at mo ,looking to put a g5 or 1/2 wave dipole ,so i can SWL???? once i've sorted mast out for bottom of garden.
---
139 in any GOOD group??
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9/Jan/2008, 12:16 pm
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John193
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Re: Icom AT-150 Antenna tuner
I think its across the board on that issue Dave, some are slightly better than others but switched inductor/capacitor tuners have limitations. The device detects voltage reurn to trigger the next up or dwn sequence so it needs to see a return voltage to function properly, its the nature of the beast. The only auto's I'm aware of that will match anything are motorised roller inductor types, hence their use in military and aviation kit even now. In fairness though the AT 141 has proved me wrong so far, it's tuned everything i've thrown at it (even a couple of 40' iso containers! dont ask!).SG external or mastheads have a v good rep as well. Pricey though. John193 
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16/Apr/2009, 9:43 am
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mikefox whiskey
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Re: Icom AT-150 Antenna tuner
Hi Dave, I have an SGC 239 auto tuner and I had some problems also getting the SWR to stay low on a few bands with my doublet antenna, eventually I gave up, it's funny though that the external tuning unit in my TS850s transceiver tunes the antenna better, in saying that though I had to add quite a lot of 450 ohm feeder (90ft) to get the tuner to tune the ariel to a low SWR, I would suggest you try to extend the 300 ohm line on your G5RV and use a very short run of coax to avoid losses, experimenting with the feeder line length from your antenna may allow it to tune better.
I don't think you will miss to much with not having the G5RV tuning on 11m, from what I remember from my experience my G5RV was a very poor performer on 11m compared to the Imax vertical I had up at the time.
I would be interested to know where the fault was on your G5RV, anyway glad to here you got it sorted.
--- Patrick - MFW / 68 FB750
kenwood TS870s - Astatic 1104c Microphone - 54 meter long doublet - Multiband Delta Loop.
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16/Apr/2009, 2:23 pm
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John193
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Re: Icom AT-150 Antenna tuner
Trouble is patrick if you use the feeder to help match the antenna at the tuner then you are making the feeder radiate too (thats how its matching it)and thats a big cause of interference in a lot of people's setup, so we might get away with it, but others certainly will not if they are susceptable to RFI emissions. J193
Last edited by John193, 17/Apr/2009, 1:19 pm
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17/Apr/2009, 1:18 pm
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