For the past few months I have been debating on putting my “unused” AT-180 into service. I have no excuse as to why it was not being used before. Well maybe two little ones anyway. My only two excuses I can think of are:
1. It was tucked away in the motor home waiting on a trip and the use of the vertical antenna that will supply coax to the tuner.
2. It is only good for a coax feed antenna.
I bought that unit with the Icom 706MKIIG way back in ????? You know I couldn’t remember just when I bought that unit. It had to be before 2005 as It was in the old motorhome. In fact I bought it specifically for that purpose with a backup to also be used in the house. Problem was in that house I didn’t have a coax fed antenna. I had always used a tuned feeder to a tuner setup for HF at home on an inverted V dipole. I know I could have gotten or made a balun to go from the tuned feeder to coax or could have actually put up dipoles fed with coax but that just never happened. Thinking hard, as all thinking is hard for me these days, it had to be around 2002 or 2003 that I bought the radio with the tuner in a package deal. Seems that there was a special going one winter that if you bought the 706 you could get the at180 for half price or maybe 30% off or something so I jumped and bought a package deal but just never put that tuner into real use.
With that all said, I did use it but only limited in the motorhome on extended trips. I had a vertical on the back of the motor home that, with the tuner, I didn’t have to make too many changes to. I also experimented with a “grass snake” antenna.
Note: if you’re interested in the Grass Snake and it appears a bit harder to find on Google… check these two articles I have saved. One from way back that I was going on to start and one more recent that wants you got get rid of the received signals to long coax runs…
I don’t know why it was not the first thing I moved in when I put up the new Carolina Windom 160. I mean that was the perfect setup for the tuner. A coax feed antenna for all bands. What was I thinking about? Well actually like I said before, probably not thinking was the clue. I finally made the move and pulled from it’s hiding spot in the motorhome, placed it on the bench and looked at it. I had forgot how to hook it up. Hell, how hard can it be? But to keep from making another high dollar mistake, I pulled up the IC-706 manual that I have conveniently saved on my Ham computer, found the page marker and went to that page and ???? Only one page on how to hook it up? I guess I forgot how simple it was paired with the ICOM radios…
It doesn’t even require any external power, that comes from the radio. All I could do was mumble to myself – stupid, stupid, stupid….
Once hooked up I did have to remember to pull the plug… the tuner plug that I have for the 706 to put it into “tune mode’ for the old style tuning on the MFJ 989. You know, twist the inductor to the previously marked number , twist the first knob, twist the second, tweak the two of them several times while hitting the tune button several times as you are too slow to get it set right in the few seconds it transmits…. DUH!… I then had to go into SET MODE setup (had to re-read the manual but I already had that open… and set number 27 to “ON” so it would work the AT180… when all that was done, it was like “POOF” magic happened and it happened fast. I had to hit the tune button a few times after I turned on the tune mode on each band but once set I was good to go on any band at any time… in fact I even caught myself switching from 10 to 40 to 80 to 15 meters to “just check it out”… I am still amazing myself on how lazy or how adverse to change I get at times. I have some great toys and tools but seldom use all the potential available. This time I am really enjoying an old toy that should have been used a lot more. I was even thinking that I needed to buy one of those new fangled auto-tuners. Well I may still need a new one that can handle more than 180 watts. That is when I figure out if I really need to get another amplifier or not. You see I sold my old one some time ago and a few months after I am thinking I need a new solid state amp for that once in a year time I get on 80 or 160 meters and have to fight the noise or “over-loaders”… I guess that will wait as I am having too much fun on 40 and above doing PSK with 35 watts.
My question from the title…. I wonder how many other hams are caught up in the same situations “Having great toys but not making full use of the capabilities?” – WD0AJG