The End-Fed Half-Wave tuner we built at yesterday’s lecture and lab really does work! I disconnected the tuner from my base rig and cut some wires to the “30 meter” length printed on the PCB. The half-wave wire was tied to an old railroad spike that I threw up into a pecan tree. The counterpoise is sort of lying on the back deck.
The results? At least one contact! The tuning is very narrow, but the LED indicator works very well. 5W isn’t going to bust any pile-ups, but on JT65 it does work.
One caveat: at a steady five watts, the tuner got HOT. I could feel it. The tuning is also very narrow, even if the LED makes it easy to find the sweet spot. But what else can I say? I had fun, I got to hang out with ham operators, and the thing I built really does work. That’s at least three “wins.”
Thanks for the write up on this! I was unable to come to the lecture and lab, but I think I will have to build one of these, and your comments about it tipped the balance. Looking forward to hearing more about JT65 at the August meeting, as well.