antenna for SSB radio

[nopollution]

Dear all,

I have just purchased a second hand SSB radio which has an authomatic antenna tuner built-in it. Now my question: is it possible that the radio cable to the antenna is a coax one? I was expecting a gto-15 as usually written in any of the descriptions about SSB radio, but looking at the manual of the radio I saw that a coax one is expected. Is there any expert who can explain it to me?

Cheers,
Remo

[Paul Elliott]

It's going to depend on the radio/tuner. I've got a portable ham radio (Icom IC703+) with a built-in tuner that is designed for a coax output. In this case the tuner's tuning-range is fairly small, and it is designed to compensate for antennas that are slightly out of tune. This is useful if you are putting up quick dipole and don't want to trim it in.

On the other hand, my boat radio and tuner do indeed work with an unshielded wire feeding the backstay.

[DeepFrz]

A built in tuner is not the type you want for a long wire type of antenna. You need a tuner like the SGC 230 mounted close to the end of the antenna. The tuner would be fed by the coax from the radio and the antenna would then be fed with gto-15.

SGC, Inc. by dxzone.com

[nopollution]

As far as you know, is it possible to connect an authomatica tuner as the SGC 230 to a SSB radio which has already an authomatic tuner bult-in? (my radio is a kenwood ts-440s)?

Thanks again

[DeepFrz]

You should be able to bypass the internal tuner. I had a Kenwood at one time and seem to remember that there was a switch that allowed me to bypass it. Either a switch or a different coax output connector. Can't quite remember.