I'd get a SGC or ICOM remote tuner and put it at the base of your antenna if you want to work multiple bands. 100' of coax is much too long for a non-resonant antenna.

SOLVED

I posted how to get it to work in the FT-450 Yahoo group.

In a nutshell, you have to increase the hidden menu settings for HF1SWR, HF2SWR, and HF3SWR.

I just bought a new FT-450 without the internal tuner. I'm trying to use it with a used AH-4 I recently acquired with the BetterRF Yaesu tune control without success. I made the FT-450 mod (connect two pins) to the interface per the BetterRF instructions and set the FT-450 to external tuner.

When I press and hold the FT-450 tune button, I hear a click then nothing happens. I don't think the radio is putting out a carrier to tune on.

So is anyone here using this setup (or with a FT-950, or a FT-450 with any Icom tuner with a 4 wire control cable) successfully? I'd like to compare notes.

Are you sure it's the modem? My Uverse modem (RG) is not bad. The set top boxes, however, are awful. Or more specifically, it's the switching power supplies that they use with the STBs. The radiate hash that is picked up by the coax shield and the coax then acts like an antenna.

I found that wrapping the power supplies in grounded aluminum foil, as well as the AC and DC lines, quiet them down significantly.

I had this problem. My Uverse is all coax, none of the set top boxes (STBs) are connected with ethernet cables.

The solution that worked for me was to get mini RG6 television coax. The mini coax is made by Monster Cable and G.E. and comes 25' lengths. I used one on the STB input from the RG and another between the STB and the TV. On both I added ferrite toroids to each coax and put as many turns as could fit (that's why you want the mini coax, regular coax is too thick). I kept adding toroids until I stopped hearing "Hey! The cable's out again!" from the kids.

I haven't tried it but I've heard connecting the STB's with shielded ethernet instead of coax is more resistant to RFI.

Check out this link:

http://home.frognet.net/~mcfadden/wd8rif/field-antennas.htm

Like KB9CRY said, use a land line telephone or VoIP. Ham communication at that distance is not cheap nor easy at that distance. What I mean by that is that both sides will have to pass the Tech and General exam and you'll need rigs that are probably going to cost $500+ after you've totaled up everything. Then you'll have to deal with variable band conditions that might make conversations difficult especially late at night.

If you are looking for something for your mom, something easy where she can press the power button and start talking, its not for her. If it's for your dad or brother and they like learning, like tinkering, like challenges, then maybe this can work.

>>I seem to remember a parable about someone coming for everyone else's and no one fought for them, and then they came for me and there was no one left to fight. <<

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

Pastor Martin Niemöller (1946)

I should add that I had the dipole was hung in free air between two fiber glass poles and the balun was connected to the back of the tuner, that is, I didn't use coax but instead had the balanced feed line run all the way to the tuner.

The balun should work. A month ago I was using that balun with a LDG Z11 connected to a temporary dipole cut for 40m with a 300 ohm twin lead feed line.  I don't remember the untuned SWR and my recollection was that I didn't have any problem tuning up 40m and 20m.

I have had problems with Uverse on 80m, 40m, and 20m. My configuration is 1 RG connecting 4 set top boxes (STBs) with RG6  coax. The STBs are Motorolas. After quite a bit detective work, I determined that the Motorola STB power bricks were very noisy at about 60kHz intervals. The noise was being coupled to the out shield of the coax. The long coax then was radiating RFI all over the place. I defeated it through a combination of changing coax lengths, coax common mode chokes at the STB, and trying different brands of power supplies.

I was also having problems with Uverse connection dropping when I transmitted more than 30 Watts on 20 meters. Common mode chokes on the coax and power lines at the STBs solved this problem.

I believe installations that use quality ethernet cabling don't have this problem.

The previous post was meant for Roger.

Maybe you could paint the walls with conductive paint and turn the room into a big Faraday cage...

K0CBA,

Is the Uverse yours or is a neighbor's installation that is causing problems? I have Uverse and it was awful but I've managed to defeat it. You can email me if you want to compare notes.

>>If you think the posts by N5LRZ are inappropriate for eham you can contact the site administrator.

I've done that after he went on a tirade when I asked a question here. I've never received a reply from the admin. The only thing that's changed since then is that LRZ has gotten more belligerent. QRZ is a better place to discuss stealth and antenna restrictions.  At least some of the other forums here are useful.