So, as I’ve reported, I’ve put up a Cobra antenna, which is a version of the non-resonant doublet antenna, and am tuning it with an old Johnson Matchbox antenna tuner. The procedure for adjusting the tuner is to first set the band switch to the appropriate band (the Matchbox only has positions for 80m, 40m, 20m, 15m, and 10m). Next, you adjust the Tuning control and the Matching control for minimum SWR.
These two controls interact with one another. So, while you first adjust the Tuning control for a minimum SWR reading and then adjust the Matching control, you may have to actually detune the Tuning control to get the lowest overall SWR.
I’m adjusting the tuner by connecting the output to my antenna analyzer, and the lowest SWR that I can currently obtain on 80m is 1.5:1.
Here’s question #1. A 1.5:1 SWR results from a number of different resistance (R) and reactance (X) combinations. The question is should I maximize R or minimize X when adjusting the tuner? I’ve been minimizing X. Do you think that’s the right thing to do?
The Icom IC-746PRO that I’m driving this with has an internal antenna tuner. Question #2 is whether I should engage this internal tuner to tune out that final bit of SWR so that the rig sees a 1:1 SWR. My guess is that it probably doesn’t matter that much, but I thought I’d ask.
WATSA, OMs?