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write your own review of the ICOM AH-4 auto tuner.
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N6KIA
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Rating: 5/5
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Jul 1, 2008 19:02
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One of the Best
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Owned mine since 2004. Never a problem. It's fast quiet,and very efficient. Tunes a 517ft end feed long wire 6m thru 160m at 1.2 or less on every band. A 6 foot stainless steel whip on the mobile is no problem either. All in all worth every penny. Would definitely buy one again if I had the Need, and I recommend one for anybody new to HF that dosen't want a lot of headaches.
I wish it would handle a KW though.
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K4LHA
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Rating: 5/5
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Apr 7, 2008 22:08
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It put me back on the air!!!
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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When I had a severe antenna problem, a friend of mine told me to go get one and he would hook it up. We got it up and running. We fed it with a G5RV, he just cut the feedpoint off and we were of and running. Now I can tune from 160 to 6 meter on one antenna. This made getting back on the air alot more enjoyble. I now have better recive and more ease of use. Just a great product.
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G0WSP
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Rating: 5/5
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Mar 28, 2008 00:00
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EXCELLENT !
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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160-10 mhz - IMHO this tuner takes some beating.
Any problem with this unit would make me ask further questions.
It aint what you do - its the way that you do it !!!
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N0FPE
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Rating: 5/5
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Mar 27, 2008 16:45
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Works fine for me
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I have used on on my truck for almost 3 years with NO problems. I would buy one again for mobile installation. I have no experience using it as a base tuner but since it is a long wire tuner GROUNDING would be a high priority just as it is in mobile use.
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M0EDY
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Rating: 0/5
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Mar 27, 2008 12:17
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chap do not buy
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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still a very bad tuner
all i got from this tuner was tvi /rf feed back
into the radio and near by tvs. tried allsorts to stop rf
feedback and tvi.i consider it the most awful thing icom make.
would advise NOT TO BUY one. after three weeks i put it on ebay.
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NV2A
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Rating: 5/5
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Mar 27, 2008 10:10
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The answer for many an antenna/real estate problems !!
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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Im going to take M0EDYs advice and not buy one. I'm going to buy two based on my previous expeniance with one in my Dodge Minivan with a CB whip on a ball mount. I worked a lot of great dx with that antenna using a 746pro. I'd park the car in the drive way, fling a 30 foot piece of stranded wire into the trees with heavy washers on one end and an aligator clip on the other end. I would pull down the 102" whip and attach the aligator clip to it. What a thrill to work some of the dx I did with it. you can see my setup at qrz.com by searching out nv2a. It's a fantastic piece of equipment, I'can't belive Icome doesn't redo it for other makes? Maybe this sends a lot of business to their 746-756 and 706 lines. I'm getting back into ham radio afer a 10 year leave and will be hanging a AH4 of the back of a new 756 ProIII. Want one AH4 for the house and one for the travel trailer. I never expected it to compete with a beam but I never felt I was wasting my time using it. 73's all de nv2a
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W7OZ
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 27, 2008 23:40
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Works like a charm
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I just got a ICOM 756ProIII and AH-4 and wanted to try them out. So I picked up a 40' length of 12 gauge romex cable, stripped in apart into 3 conductors, connected them in series to form a loop and connected one end to the AH-4 antenna output and the other end to the AH-4 ground connection. Minutes later I was making contacts on 80m and 10m. I tried tuning on other bands and got a match in every case. This was such a relief as I had agonized for days over what antenna I would get that would match the 3:1 VSWR limitation of the built-in tuner of the PROIII. The final answer was to not invest in an antenna but to use the wire I had on hand with the AH-4.
The loop is only 14' off the ground (located in the attic over my shop) so I have lots of room for improvement when I enlarge it and move it outside and up but the ease with which the AH-4 tuned this small loop was impressive. To reach up into the attic, I extended the provided control cable with 45' of some 4-conductor cable I had kicking around. Since tuning is done with only low power, I had no trouble with RF pick up on the extend control cable.
I cannot yet work all stations I hear but I think this is because they are using KW amps with 6db gain antennas at 100' vs my 100W with the loop at only 14'. The 16db+ difference leaves me in the noise with current band conditions. My next step will be to enlarge the loop (turn it into a rhombic perhaps) and get it up much higher or put a Yagi up at a decent height.
The AH-4 exceeded my expectations even after reading all the reviews on eham.net. Definitely a 5 given its seamless integration with the ProIII and its successful tuning on all bands with my little loop.
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KV8KV
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Rating: 1/5
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Dec 31, 2007 18:48
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tuner good, service bad
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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When the AH-4 is working, it is a super piece of equipment. It will tune down to 1/10 watt with the IC-703. It tunes just about any length or wire and can be hidden very well. I agree with the two previous complaints that the wiring should be longer and easier to install. They would only have to make a better weather adapter to allow a coax with PL-259 to be fitted directly to the input circuit.
My COMPLAINT however is that my unit leaked water from the top (output) terminal even though I installed a drip loop and used the little weather bootie provided by Icom. The unit was only outdoors for 9 months before it was trashed by the water leak. Icom not only will not repair/replace it, they won't even answer my e-mails or return my phone calls about it. One service lady on the phone actually told me that the unit was not designed to be used out-of-doors! I am deciding if I will buy another one. The performance is amazing, but I will have to mount it indoors as I can't afford to continually replace it. A simple plastic liner inside to protect the circuit board from any drips from the output terminal would avoid water damage. (A weep hole would have to be added also)
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KA4DPO
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 27, 2007 10:31
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Well Done
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I just received a brand new AH4. One thing that I found odd was that I had to install the cables. It's not difficult but seems like ICOM could have done that. So far the unit works very well with a couple of wire antennas that I threw together. One is a 27 foot end fed wire and it loaded on 40 through 6 as advertised. The other is an off center fed Windom antenna and it will load on 80 CW no problem. I find that keeping the CW output at about 60 watts keeps the tuner cooler I don't think it can handle 100 watts CW for very long periods.
I bought the AH4 because I'm moving to Las Vegas and our new home has CC&R restrictions on antennas. After reading about W7DVB's experience I was sold. Since I've only had this tuner a short time I can't make any difinitive statements about reliability or performance other than it does what it's supposed to do right now. I'll do an update in a year and see if it's still living up to my expectations.
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VA2VYZ
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Rating: 5/5
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Oct 6, 2007 12:53
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Great add-on !
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I bought the AH-4 because I was unable to do the entire band on 80m with my DX-CC.
I took some time to figure it out how much wire I will put at the end, because I consider working as many band that I can.
I finnaly choose a 100 feet #14 awg wire. The AH-4 is installed at 45 feet on top of my tower. The 100 feet wire lay at about 12 feet above the ground and from a L pattern around my estate.
I grounded the AH-4 on my tower and I can now tune everyband, even the 160m !
The RX perfromance is amazing, some time as good as my DX-CC. The TX depends on wich band and frequency and if you are near or not or 1/2 lambda.
I think that the AH-4 is a good «second antenna» option when you leave in urban area and with narrow estate.
Extremely satisfied !!!
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