Very happy with the antenna tuner, although I never owned one before and I have nothing to compare it to, it seems to work good. Experimenting on the 11 meter band (with a magnet mount antenna on a washing machine), I have the " transmitter " and " antenna " capacitors adjusted to a fixed position, I can swing the inductor dial from the 11 o'clock position (channel 1) clockwise to the 9 o'clock position (channel 40) and have a flat match (according to the meter on the tuner) on every channel, I can also achieve maximum output power (according to the meter on the tuner) on every channel as well, however, I only have one jumper cable so I am unable to connect another meter to verify these readings.
Odd thing is, with this adjustment the output meter on the radio (TRC-490) also peaks to near maximum ( 80% of scale), however, with different settings of the capacitors and the inductor I can have a flat SWR, according to the meter on the antenna tuner, and a high power output, according to the meter on the antenna tuner, but the output meter on the radio will only read about 40% of scale ?
Have been busy working extra hours to pay for all of this stuff so I have not had a chance to do the antenna build, yet, but so far I have a good feeling about this working well. Ordered some Browning BR-8X jumper cables to interconnect the radio and tuner and an external power/modulation/SWR meter purchased off Ebay, price of this project really jumped up quick.
