What tuner will auto tune

joelcop1

I have a flex 6600.
What kilowatt plus tuners will auto tune with my flex. (other than the tuner genius of course)
Joel KN4TC

joelcop1

Thanks to all who answered.

Joel KN4TC

awinger

I’ve had good luck with the Elecraft kat500 and kpa500 combo. Flex cables make it easy to be up and running

73

Al

W1NGA

KD0RC

Hi Joel, The TGXL will provide the tightest integration to your Flex with the least extra wiring. I can't think of any auto tuner that won't work with the Flex. The number and sequence of button pushes may vary among the available tuners, but any should work.

I currently have an Elecraft KAT500 tuner that integrates very well with the Flex. To initiate a tuning sequence, I put my KPA500 amp in standby mode, click the Tune button in SmartSDR and then push the physical TUNE button on the tuner. When it finds a match I click the SmartSDR Tune button again and put the amp in operate mode. I had an LDG tuner at one time that worked essentially the same way.

The KAT500 has a USB cable to the PC running SmartSDR so that I can control it remotely using TeamViewer and DDUtil. It can also be plugged directly into one of the USB ports on the back of the Flex.

It takes much longer to describe the tuning process than to do it. The level of automation that you are looking for will influence the tuner(s) that you will be happy with.

joelcop1

That level of automation is not too bad if I can avoid spending $2500 for the tuner genius. I am trying to avoid total manual control.
Does anyone know if the mfj 998 is semi automated like the elecraft?

Rick N4RZ

Using the W1TR programs the Palstar HF-Auto will follow the radio and auto-tune just fine. Because it uses a roller inductor it takes a few seconds longer to tune than the Tuner Genius. The biggest advantage of the Tuner Genius is the ease of setup due to using the ethernet connection.

David Decoons, wo2x

In addition to the W1TR program the PalStar HF Auto needs another program to take the Flex frequency and send UDP XML formatted packets to W1TR.

Dave DeCoons wo2x

Flex Presale Support

Rick N4RZ

Dave is correct, but there are two W1TR programs. One controls the HF-Auto while the other sends it the frequency from the radio. I believe the second was designed for the Kenwood TS-2000, but since Flex accepts their control codes it works for Flex Radios as well.

K1DBO

The Broadcast feature in Slice Master can be used to send frequency data to the HF-Auto App to get it to follow along.

Slice Master can also provide "one touch tuning" of the KAT-500 or HF-Auto. Simply press the TUNE button in SSDR and Slice Master will put the tuner into auto mode then watch the tuner for SWR changes. Once the SWR stablizes, Slice Master will disable the SSDR TUNE button.

If you really want to get fancy, Slice Master will control a relay (via a USB bit cable plugged into the back of the radio) to interrupt the keyline to the amp during tuning. This feature requires about $30 in parts from Amazon and few minutes with a soldering iron or screwdriver.

Most of this is lightly tested but falls neatly into the 'works for me' category.

--Don

K9YK

I use an MFJ 998 remote tuner located at the base of my 80m doublet. It works great and tunes 160-10m. All I have to do is click the tune button in SmartSDR when I change bands, wait for a second for the SWR to settle, click the tune button again to turn off the tune RF, and then I’m ready to operate. That’s it.

joelcop1

> @K9YK said:
> I use an MFJ 998 remote tuner located at the base of my 80m doublet. It works great and tunes 160-10m. All I have to do is click the tune button in SmartSDR when I change bands, wait for a second for the SWR to settle, click the tune button again to turn off the tune RF, and then I’m ready to operate. That’s it.

Just to clarify: the mfj 998 puts amp in bypass, sends a low power carrier and then tunes?
How is tuner connected to flex/which cable?

Joel

Jeff AA0ST

https://community.flexradio.com/discussion/comment/20603926#Comment_20603926

No. It just accepts an RF signal from the radio/amp and then marches the antenna. I suppose you could set the "tune" power on the FlexRadio to 1 or 2 watts and see if your amp will produce a power rating within the MFJ 998 tune limits of 5 to 20 watts.

I have one and it has worked for most antenna projects I have played with (loop, short verticals, non-resonant end fed wire, G5RV type doublet), and it has performed well.

I just make sure the amp is off during tuning.

Hope that helps

Jeff