Best tuning of an antenna

[nfsus]

I know we had a conversation about if resonance was your best preforming adjustment of an antenna. And swr has been beat to death too. But let me see if I can twist it some more. It’s too chilly for me to be interested in trying this right now but I’ve been curious about trying this out to see if it makes any difference.

I run a tarheel 2 with a 60” stinger on a ball mount with a 6” spring in my mobile and I have an inline swr meter. The antenna mount is about 24” of coax from the radio after it loops through the remote swr sending unit.

Pick a frequency. Pick a qso. Tune the antenna to the max S meter reading. Now check the swr. The swr is always higher. If you tune to swr the rx S meter is always lower. If tx follows rx? If rx is peaked does it follow that tx is peaked as well or does rx suffer?

The question I have is where is best? I’ve not tried it yet in a proper method of tuning transmitting and hooking up the van to see if there’s a difference and where for tuning in transmit ability. Dx won’t matter I’m sure but local com might. If it did I don’t know how much.

 

[The DB]

If rx is peaked does it follow that tx is peaked as well or does rx suffer?

There is an older term that I haven't come across in radio lately when referring to the relationship between TX and RX when it comes to tuning an antenna. That term is reciprocity. It states that anything that affects TX or RX will effect the other equally and in the same way.

This is limited to the antenna system. This does not apply to the radio itself, which often has various circuits these days that filter/amplify the RX signal in various ways.


The DB

 

[nfsus]

There is an older term that I haven't come across in radio lately when referring to the relationship between TX and RX when it comes to tuning an antenna. That term is reciprocity. It states that anything that affects TX or RX will effect the other equally and in the same way.

This is limited to the antenna system. This does not apply to the radio itself, which often has various circuits these days that filter/amplify the RX signal in various ways.


The DB

Right. Like you said the old terms. My old arrl handbooks from way back talk about that but the new stuff don’t. We’ve lost too much by not keeping the older books. But i think by reason that it would.

I wonder though if any improvement is due to just efficiency or if it’s radiation pattern changes

 

[fourstringburn]

Weird, unless you're SWR meter is off. Before I went to screwdriver auto-tuners I would tune each band by ear by listening to when the static came up. Many times I was right on or close enough.

 

[nfsus]

Weird, unless you're SWR meter is off. Before I went to screwdriver auto-tuners I would tune each band by ear by listening to when the static came up. Many times I was right on or close enough.

No it’s close enough. I just find it’s off a bit. I’m not talking like and additional 2 or 3 or anything. But one lags behind the other. I usually listen to static. Then fine tune it with the meter