Ideas on an auto tuner for the wifes Yaesu 857D

[TonyV225]

Kims spoiled with her HF radio setup in her work car a Kenwood TS-50 with the super fast matching AT-50 auto tuner. I need to find a auto tuner to put on her Yaesu 857D in her minivan I was looking at the LDG tuners but have no experience in these LDG products and need some input.

All I know is the woman needs a tuner on that 857D or we are limited to one band unless we change out the stinger on the antenna which is just pointless.

 

[190]

i bought a ldg z100 auto tuner for my icom 706mk2g and it works great. i bought it from a guy who had lost his job. it was brand new with the icom interface cables. plug and play. just hit the auto tuner button on the radio and it tunes up fast. great little rig. its rated at 125 watts. the new version of this tuner is the z 100 plus. you can see them on universal radios web page.these are for the icom i beleive. they make them just for the yaesu to.

 

[TonyV225]

Ill check that out and Im guessing the difference in the tuners for diffrerent radios is just the interface cables.

 

[190]

i would guess so to tony. ldg does make some fancier models to.

 

[Moleculo]

Tony, what antenna are you using with the 857d? There are some limitations on what can be loaded up in a mobile environment with an auto tuner. BTW, that LDG Z-100 has the interface cable for your 857d, but you still will need to have the tuner within reach to hit the tune button.

I have the LDG 897 model that mounts on the Yaesu 897d...it works well, but it did have some problems from the factory. I sent it back under warranty and they fixed it, but it did take quite a while.

 

[TonyV225]

Well Kims van at present has a Wilson 5000 but we are going with a multiband Im still researching and trying to decide. I figured for now we can use 10-11 depending on DX when talking hme to vehicle with her and I or the little hamsters of ours when were out and about.

Her wilson is tuned prfect for 11 meters but thats also with the stinger set all the way down and I figured a tuner would help with getting us through 10 11 and 12 meters until I get an outbacker or something simular but as I said thats the next project.

Her work car with the Kenwood TS-50 / AT-50 setup works great on 10-11 meters with the tuner I talk allover with that little wilson 500 on that vehicle it surprised me to see that tuner even tunes the 3.913.0 gang in just for listening when were out and about late afternoons

 

[W5LZ]

Tuners are handy little devils but they do have to have something to work with if they are going to do any good. If you are going to be staying with 10/11 meters, what you have now will probably do just fine. If you plan to go any lower, then I'd definitely start looking for something else. The only thing I would recommend in general is to stay away from those 'OutBackers'. You just do not get what you think you will get considering the price of the things. Put a couple hundred with they're typical going price and get an antenna that doesn't require a tuner and will cover all but 160 meters. There are several of them around, but they are NOT cheap.
I've heard good things about 'LDG's tuners. Not owning one, I have no idea how 'good' they might be. There are quite a few of them around so they can't be too bad?
Good luck.
- 'Doc

 

[Moleculo]

Tony, another option you can consider is one of the SGC auto couplers. Many hams use those with a 102" whip, so it should work pretty good with the Wilson 5000. They're not cheap, however. You do nee a whole bunch of wire between the coupler and the antenna, though. Off the top of my head, I believe it would be simplest to just cut the PL-259 off of the coax, ground the braid, and solder the center conductor to the cable. Don't take that advice as absolute install instructions, though...you'll need to read the manual.

 

[W5LZ]

And one last thing. All mobile antennas are not very efficient. The lower you go in frequency the lower that efficiency. Somewhere around 20 meters, +/- a bit, things start getting more efficient as the freq gets higher. That's because the 'size' of that antenna is getting closer to 'reasonable'. Doesn't matter what tuner is used, or how the thing is tuned, that's typically how it works. No idea what the actual figures are for those higher than 20 meter antennas of some particular size, in efficiency but I would guess something around 10 - 20 % if you are very lucky. I can say from experience that the lower bands, 80 and 40 meters, that efficiency goes waaay down. Something like maybe 1 - 2% on 80, maybe 4 - 6% on 40 meters.
The thing with those SGC tuners and a 102" whip is a pretty good example. From around 10 meters where that whip can be expected to give nice results, down to around 20 meters (+/- some), things really start to fall apart. Any lower than about 20 meters and you'd be better off just forgetting the whole thing. That tuner just doesn't have enough to work with.
Screwdriver antennas are sort of the same thing. There's more variation available so they tend to do better than a fixed length whip and a tuner. It's still a matter of something to work with though, and efficiency suffers.
Enough 'doom-n-gloom'! Mobile HF is still fun, certainly possible, just be realistic about it.
Big-n-ugly always works better than slim-sleek-streamlined. That's -THE- unwritten rule of mobile antennas.
- 'Doc

 

[Captain Kilowatt]

FWIW I use the 857 with a homebrew antenna tuned for 15m. I feed it thru a Yaesu FC-40 auto tuner and have good results. The antenna is a little over 9 feet long and works well down to 20m.On 40m it "works" but not great at all.For 80m I replace it with a Hamstick.