You say you bought an antenna tuner, what you need is an antenna analyzer. With it, you can see the actual frequency that the antenna has the best SWR, which could be anywhere at this point, but it's the only way to tell.
Maybe you are not aware of how to use one, but the radio is not involved, and you never transmit into an antenna analyzer, it's a very sensitive instrument.
At this point, you may not even need a dummy load either, but they are useful for many things.......... most of the time as a paperweight.
Saying that there is no one in your area that can help you..... there are hams everywhere, you just have to know how to find them.
http://www.arrl.org/fcc/search ......is the first place to go. Fill in the blanks where it says "City", "State", "ZIP Code", "Any", "All", and lastly hit "Search". If at first, you don't succeed, use another nearby Zip Code.
Something should come up .... a name with an address nearby would be a start, and they might even help for free! Or give you the name of someone else.
It's just a simple antenna, not knowing what you are doing and having problems kind of makes you want to learn more. When I did my Penetrator 9 years ago I had my antenna 8 feet off the ground using a 3-foot jumper and my analyzer. But my matching and shorting rods were different than yours but shorter than the original long ones. I now have a Colossal which weighs 16 lbs, and the Penetrator is 9 lbs.
If "push comes to shove", try making the old-style "matching rod" out of solid
14-gauge wire, or something a little bit bigger Lowe's carries something that would probably work. Look at the drawing on the instructions, it can't be that hard, it's just a solid wire bent in a loop.
Hope you get it figured out.....................
