Measurement was made with 50W input. Output current was measured with my homemade RF current meter.
Palstar S-Match
| Band | %Left | %Right | %Left | %Right | |
| 80 | 60 | 60 | 45 | 35 | |
| 60 | 25 | 30 | 30 | 10 | |
| 40 | 50 | 40 | 40 | 30 | |
| 30 | 50 | 45 | 40 | 30 | |
| 20 | 80 | 70 | 70 | 60 | |
| 17 | 45 | 45 | 40 | 30 | |
| 15 | 70 | 70 | 70 | 60 |
Not surprisingly the S-match does not perform as good as the Palstar with 1:1 balun. I think this is because of the used components in the tuners. The Palstar has bigger capacitors and a huge variable coil. The S-match has small capacitors with a switchable coil, this coil is made of wire that is only 1/4 of the size the Palstar coil is made of. Besides that the S-match has a lot of additional wiring because it is a converted T-match and components are not in the ideal place. However, the S-match is advertised as doing a great job in balancing, in this it does a good job....but the Palstar T-match design with 1:1 balun outside the tuner does at least the same job in balancing.
My conclusion is that if you want to use a doublet as your antenna and think you need a special (balanced) tuner for it to feed the open line this is simply not necessary. If you have a simple T-match tuner or even a automatic tuner that has enough capacity, with a good 1:1 current balun outside the tuner it will do the job.
Past experiments:
Nice kit and interesting results non the less. 73 have fun de Simon M0YKS
ReplyDeleteTnx Simon, it is a interesting comparisation. In the end the S-match conversion would not have been needed. A simple quality 1:1 current balun at the output had done the trick just as well. 73, Bas
DeleteThanks Bas. Very interesting work. Two points that I think also relevant: (1) the MFJ is considerably cheaper than the Palstar and (2) it is considerably lighter. Even if the MFJ had proved to be not so good, the price and/or weight issue could, itself, tip the 'balance' (bad joke!)
ReplyDeleteTrue John, it is not a fair comparisation. On the other hand I alsop wanted to show that you don't need a special tuner to feed a doublet or open line.
DeleteBy the way I doubt you'll notice the difference on air. As a sidenote this is not very scientific, it's a practical test. This is the outcome but it could be that measuring the RF current has nothing to say about the effeciency of both tuners. Unfortunately I haven't got the knowledge of everything. Any comments on this topic are most welcome. 73, Bas