Application Note #5

Subject: Hamstick out a Window?

I live in a housing development that does not permit outside antennas. Would the Rainbow Tuner work with a Hamstick that I can sneak out of a second story window?

Joe N2CX responds ...

I think you may have been mis-informed about the Rainbow Tuner. Unfortunately it is not a general purpose tuner, but one intended for a specific type of antenna. General purpose (read: expensive!) tuners can be used to match a number of different type of antennas to 50 ohm coax. The Rainbow Tuner, on the other hand was designed for a specific type of antenna: the end-fed half-wave.

By designing for only one type of antennas we were able to significantly simply the circuitry.

On the other hand, the SWR bridge part of the Rainbow is quite usable by itself with any HF antenna or antenna tuner fed with 50 ohm coax cable.

72/73,

Joe E., N2CX
from Southern New Jersey, y'all
home: n2cx@voicenet.com