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Equipment question, Tuners, amps and ft450d.

Mudduckmobile

Mudduckmobile

Well-Known Member
Oct 5, 2015
641
341
73
S.W. Washington Coast
Question:
Can I run my FT450D into my amp (DX500), into an Auto tuner to antenna.
What I would like to know is can I ues my Ft450d tuner to tune to the Amp, and then the Atu to tune to the antenna?
Thank you.
 

Which auto tuner after the amp?
(answer is yes)
Make sure the ATU after the amp will handle the output .
 
Last edited:
mfj 986 is a KW all week long unless feeding a half wave radiator. The voltages present when feeding a Half wave anything are huge.
I don't know where they get 3KW from but I do know it will hold a KW nearly forever.
You may have to fiddle with jumper lengths on some bands/frequencies/antennas as the two tuners in close proximity may start talking to each other. Doesn't happen often but I thought I'd mention it so if it does come up it isn't a surprise.
 
kopcicle said:
mfj 986 is a KW all week long unless feeding a half wave radiator. The voltages present when feeding a Half wave anything are huge.
I don't know where they get 3KW from but I do know it will hold a KW nearly forever.
You may have to fiddle with jumper lengths on some bands/frequencies/antennas as the two tuners in close proximity may start talking to each other. Doesn't happen often but I thought I'd mention it so if it does come up it isn't a surprise.
Click to expand...
I was just going to put about 35-40w pep from the ft450d into the 4 Toshiba Trans. (2sc2879). and call it good, maybe even drop the input power to 25-30w pep. and just float along. as clean as pos.
 
What frequencies are you planning to transmit on?

..and yeah ~30 watts is probably a better input. I run about 20-25 into a 4xSD1446 to get 300-320 out.

ETA - don't the TS amps use a frequency specific crystal ?
 
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tba02 said:
What frequencies are you planning to transmit on?

..and yeah ~30 watts is probably a better input. I run about 20-25 into a 4xSD1446 to get 300-320 out.

ETA - don't the TS amps use a frequency specific crystal ?
Click to expand...
11 meters for now. and the Amp has an in put pad (just in case, and to keep me from over doing it...),
and I can safely put 100 watts pep. But why.
 
I don't know that you would need to tune the radio to the amp unless you had a really bad mis-match, but otherwise it should work.

I run an IC-736 into a 4xSD1446 out to a gainmaster on 10m w/o a problem.
 
tba02 said:
I don't know that you would need to tune the radio to the amp unless you had a really bad mis-match, but otherwise it should work.

I run an IC-736 into a 4xSD1446 out to a gainmaster on 10m w/o a problem.
Click to expand...
Amp to radio is fine, just a thought that came to mind. To me it would work and I wanted to ask as I could not find anything on the web looking quick.
 
Most likely even if you used the FT-450 tuner it would bypass since it sees a match. But yeah, as long as you are within proper frequency range of the DX500 I don't see an issue - if there was I would have already experienced a problem.

Assuming you have a true peak meter, I'd be curious to hear how many watts input is required to hit 500 watts PEP output (FM mode?)
 
tba02 said:
Most likely even if you used the FT-450 tuner it would bypass since it sees a match. But yeah, as long as you are within proper frequency range of the DX500 I don't see an issue - if there was I would have already experienced a problem.

Assuming you have a true peak meter, I'd be curious to hear how many watts input is required to hit 500 watts PEP output (FM mode?)
Click to expand...
It will do that now with my Optima mk3 as it came from Yeticomnz a dead on 50w.
 
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kopcicle said:
mfj 986 is a KW all week long ...I don't know where they get 3KW from but I do know it will hold a KW nearly forever....
Click to expand...

All MFJ (and many other brands too) are rated as follows:

Understanding Power Ratings.

There are no standardized power rating systems for tuners. The names used (i.e. 3 kW Tuner) carry over from the time when amplifiers were rated by peak power input, and not the true RF power output. For example, the one thousand watt Johnson Matchbox was rated to handle a 1000 watt plate modulated AM transmitter (four kilowatts PEP transmitter input and 3000 watts PEP RF output). The Heathkit SB-220 was called a two kilowatt amplifier, and the rated CW output was approximately 600 watts. Matching tuners were called 2 kilowatt tuners, and these tuners safely handled 600 watts of CW power and 1200 watts PEP SSB.
 
Road Squawker said:
All MFJ (and many other brands too) are rated as follows:

Understanding Power Ratings.

There are no standardized power rating systems for tuners. The names used (i.e. 3 kW Tuner) carry over from the time when amplifiers were rated by peak power input, and not the true RF power output. For example, the one thousand watt Johnson Matchbox was rated to handle a 1000 watt plate modulated AM transmitter (four kilowatts PEP transmitter input and 3000 watts PEP RF output). The Heathkit SB-220 was called a two kilowatt amplifier, and the rated CW output was approximately 600 watts. Matching tuners were called 2 kilowatt tuners, and these tuners safely handled 600 watts of CW power and 1200 watts PEP SSB.
Click to expand...
Yup , clear as mud ....
 
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Road Squawker said:
All MFJ (and many other brands too) are rated as follows:

Understanding Power Ratings.

There are no standardized power rating systems for tuners. The names used (i.e. 3 kW Tuner) carry over from the time when amplifiers were rated by peak power input, and not the true RF power output. For example, the one thousand watt Johnson Matchbox was rated to handle a 1000 watt plate modulated AM transmitter (four kilowatts PEP transmitter input and 3000 watts PEP RF output). The Heathkit SB-220 was called a two kilowatt amplifier, and the rated CW output was approximately 600 watts. Matching tuners were called 2 kilowatt tuners, and these tuners safely handled 600 watts of CW power and 1200 watts PEP SSB.
Click to expand...
I have taken note of that, and read that on the MFJ site. After looking at the meany "tuners" out there I thought I'd try this one (MFJ 986).
 

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