When Steve originally designed the ATS series of rigs he also produced a matching tuner kit. These were produced for a while by Hendricks but then they ‘updated’ it and it’s not an “Altoids” kit any more.
The good news is that Ondra OK1CDJ at Hamshop.cz produced a kit for the design and after being out of stock for a while they are now available again.
You can either buy the complete kit (apart from the Altoids Tin) or just the pcb (although the bare pcb is still showing as zero stock).
The shop is priced in CZK and accepts PayPal, the kit works out to just over 16 quid incl p&p
I ordered a tuner kit from Ondra last year. I would say that yes the kit is cheap, but not quite as polished as other kits out there.
I’ve had to file the pcb in places to get it to fit in an Altoids tin. The supplied switch was the wrong size, so I had to trim the leads to fit.
What I’m saying is the kit is quite laborious to put together. I still haven’t finished building the kit, I lost interest! The board is finished it just needs wiring into the Altoids tin.
I ordered a tuner kit from Ondra last year. I would say that yes the
kit is cheap, but not quite as polished as other kits out there.
I will have to wait and see.
I’ve had to file the pcb in places to get it to fit in an Altoids tin.
The supplied switch was the wrong size, so I had to trim the leads to
fit.
These are a new batch of kits so maybe the problems are fixed.
What I’m saying is the kit is quite laborious to put together.
It is quite complicated for a tuner, I’ll be interested to see how it works out. I’ve already got an EFHW tuner (the kit from http://betterqrp.com/
by KI6J) but it doesn’t have switchable inductance, just variable capacitance so it suffers sometimes when the wire isn’t out in the clear.
I ordered a tuner kit from Ondra last year. I would say that yes the
kit is cheap, but not quite as polished as other kits out there.
I will have to wait and see.
I bought one of those kits over a year ago and it has served me well on the summits. http://dadedaditdadadeda.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/altoids-l-tuner.html
It has well over 1500 QSO’s under it’s belt.
It doesn’t fair to well on 15m (too much capacitance)but 60 -17 is perfect.
You can’t beat an EFHW IMHO!
When I tried an EFHW I followed Steve Yates AA5TB design ideas and it worked FB. I made mine with a 5m radiator for 10m. It would tune up on 12m and 15m with the 5m radiator. I used an unknown polyvaricon (just one section) and an 8:1 transformer on a T50-6 toroid. It didn’t have enough C to match the short antenna on 17m. I did havea 10m radiator for 20m which would match on 17m as well. I left it on top of Torlum Hill ISTR.
The important fact is I did what Steve said on his website and it “just worked”.
In reply to G8TMV:
Hi all…I ordered a Altoids L Tuner kit from hamshop.cz and received it here in Alberta Canada quite quickly. The PCB fits into my Altoids tin without trimming…but the slide switch will need a modification to mount onto the PCB as noted in an earlier post. A question…no build instructions are included in this kit…are the QRPKits instructions the best/only ones available?
The PCB fits into my Altoids tin without trimming…
Yes, mine fit nicely too.
but the slide switch will need a modification
to mount onto the PCB as noted in an earlier post.
Yes, although it’s not difficult.
A question…no build instructions are included in this kit…are the QRPKits
instructions the best/only ones available?
There are various sets of instructions on the web. I did use the QRPKits ones, the only differences are that all the wire is the same colour and that the orientation of the LED on the board is different. Refer to the circuit diagram and make sure you get the correct side of the LED to ground.
Mine is now built and works a treat. I fitted a flying lead for the input (with a BNC connector) rather than the supplied phono/RCA socket.
In reply to G8TMV:
Thanks Colin! I am looking forward to the build…overall it looks like a nice kit for the price. I already use KI6J Stu’s EFHW tuner but thought this tuner may have a bit more tuning variation. The KI6J EFHW Tuner only uses a 2-3 foot counterpoise…I noticed the QRPKits operating hints say to use a 16 foot counterpoise. What are you using?
thought this tuner may have a bit more tuning variation.
I have one of those too.
The KI6J EFHW Tuner only uses a 2-3 foot counterpoise…I noticed the QRPKits
operating hints say to use a 16 foot counterpoise. What are you using?
I’ve got a bit of random wire I use as the counterpoise, it’s probably about 10 feet long. In the past I’ve used it without one, I guess the feeder acts as a short counterpoise in that case.
In reply to VA6FUN:
I use no counterpoise when using an end-fed halfwave and five watts. none. I have tried, and find no difference of any kind, no change in signal strength, no change in tuning whatsoever. A random wire will need a counterpoise (or perhaps better named a radial) but this tuner won’t tune a random wire as it is designed specifically for the very high impedance encountered with an end-fed halfwave.
