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Sunday, January 9, 2011

H.F frequency agile - finally

It's taken me 18 months, but I've finally gotten around to installing my Icom AH-3 automatic antenna tuning unit. I've had a useful 20 metre dipole in place for some time but I want to use 30, 40 and 80 metres too.

The AH3 I acquired second hand some time ago and fortunately it works. I've bolted it into position on the roof, supplied it with a good ground and am currently feeding about 10m of copper with it. I'll re-route the driven element later, it's currently a bit low.

The one-touch tuning on the IC-706 makes it pretty simple to use and my current bit of wire seems to tune just fine from 180-10m.

I'm not expecting great performance from it, but given my limited yard-space it's a compromise that I'm happy to make if it means getting me back on air on HF again.