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Reviews For: Palstar HF-AUTO

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : Palstar HF-AUTO
Reviews: 106MSRP: $1695. USD
Description:
* 1 Watt to 2500 watts....average, peak, and peak- hold
* Load into a 10:1 SWR from 1.8 to 54 Mhz
* NO CI-V cables required
* Tunes on SSB
* Digital Display...no analog metering
* Remotable... up to 400'!
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.palstar.com/en/hf-auto/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
64.51064.8
MW0ZZD Rating: 2012-06-03
Best yet Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I `ve tried most of the others but this beats everything in the market.
Excellent construction,built like a tank,or like a Palstar.
Matches my doublet and tunes down to 1.1 into my amp perfectly.
Had one query which was instantly resolved by Paul and Eva.
K1ESE Rating: 2012-02-07
Best Tuner Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've had the tuner for a couple of months now and of the 30+ tuners I have owned over the years, the HF-Auto is the best.

The matching range is better than any manual or auto tuner I have used thanks to Palstar's attention to minimizing stray capacitance and inductance. I can tune my center-fed zepps on all bands, especially the higher bands where tuning fails with other tuners. Auto tuning is nice, but basic matching ability is critical.

The auto tuning works well. Once set for an antenna, the tuning is quick and easy. By avoiding an operational computer interface and all the configuration problems of C-IV and RS232, the tuner works with everything. New rig or boat anchor, it just works.

The support from Paul and Palstar is excellent. As with any new product, there are tweeks early on to make it better. The firmware has been updated on a regular basis and issues have been resolved.

It's hard to beat great matching and easy auto tuning.

73 de K1ESE
John
KC4YLX Rating: 2012-02-06
This tuner works great! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
When I received my HF-AUTO it had 1.06 software installed. I just upgraded the firmware to the current 1.11 and wow, what a difference that made. The tuner now operates much better and it did good before. The quality of the inside is top notch. The ease of operation is, well, easy. The instruction book is lacking in meat, but there is just not that much that needed to be said so I am not going to lower my review because of that. The antennas are left open and not ground when power is off so you much power the tuner up in order to receive anything. I called Palstar before buying with the intent of asking questions only, not buying one. After spending a fair amount of time on the phone with Paul, I felt that buying this tuner would be a good idea for me even since I have the Alpha 4040 tuner on pre-order at this time. I will compare the two products after I receive the Alpha tuner in a few months. I am very pleased with the quality construction and operation of the Palstar HF-AUTO tuner. Some folks report having noise being generated by the tuner electronics and Paul released a very simple easy to complete fix today. I have not performed that fix but moving one wire, is not going to be hard when I get time to do so. I cannot imagine that anyone would not be happy with this unit.
N3LK Rating: 2011-12-24
Mona Lisa, Minus Few Brush Strokes Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The HF-Auto is a Work-of-Art, for most demanding antenna tuner needs, but Palstar still has a few bush strokes to finish. My comments are based on testing/using this tuner for about 2 week (has only been shipping for few months), 40+ years as a Ham, owned many tuners, including the MFJ 998 Auto, and spend most of my work career in High-tech manufacturing.

WHAT I LIKED:

BUILD QUALITY: Opening up the HT-Auto struck me as a marriage between Alpha Amplifier electronics with Palstar’s 4KW “Rock crusher” tuner! Components were top quality, very heavy duty, and professional workmanship in assembly and finish.

DESIGN FOR SWR ACCURACY: Unlike most auto tuner on the market which searches by selecting discrete L/C pairs, the HF-Auto is a linear turning design: tunes like a human (but, faster and more accurate) adjusting heavy duty L & C devices with stepper motors. My results were 1:1.0 SWR about 95% of the time, with worst case 1:1.2. Discrete L/C Tuners (MFJ 998, Tokyo HP) normally get no closer than 1:1.2 -1:1.6 SWR.

FUTURE UPGRADES: The HF-Auto is firmware based, and can easily be upgraded via Internet and serial port. My unit is on version 1.6.

POWER SURVABILITY: Due to the possible range of dumb things Ham operators (including ME) can do to a Tuner, the “official” rating seems to be 1,500 watts, but the design should be able to handle all legal US amplifiers (including 2,500 watt SSB peaks). Mine easily perform at 2,450 PEP into a dummy load!

WHAT I DID NOT LIKE:

DOCUMENTATION: The Manual that came with my HF-Auto was only 8 pages long and completely inadequate for such a ssophisticated product that needed to operate in many different configurations. Palstar indicated to me they are working hard on a new manual!

ADVANCED AMP CONFIGURATIONS: HF-Auto works fine with amplifiers supporting QSK and/or RF sensing (e.g., ACOM, Alpha, MFJ/QSK), but because of poor documentation on how to hook-up these amps with the tuner and transceivers, I managed to trip my QSK protection circuits! DO NOT connect the Amp-Relay line from the XMTR thru the Tuner; instead connect Amp-Relay directly to the Amplifier. (NOTE for non-QSK or RF sensing amps, run the Amp relay thru the tuner).

LEARNING CURVE: HF-Auto is a complex product that does not work like either typical Auto or manual tuners. Linear tuning requires it to physically move the L/C components – even for memorized freq/antenna pairs. This produces perfect SWR match, but is not instantaneous like other discrete L/C auto tuners when returning to a memorized frequency. You can take advantage of the RF-Sensing feature to trigger low-level adjustments by just saying a single word into the mic, no need to touch anything!

Bottom Line: If you need high power tuning, top build quality, want very accurate SWR adjustments, willing to pay $1,500, and can wait for better documentation . . . the HF-Auto is a Work-of-Art that could hang nicely in your ham shack!
NV7E Rating: 2011-11-17
Excellent high power auto tuner Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I am an owner of the AT-AUTO, which Palstar used to produce. The AT-AUTO is a great tuner, but Palstar no longer makes it or supports it. I wanted to have a backup for the AT-AUTO in case it ever failed. Fortunately, the AT-AUTO is now supported and will be updated by that model's original designer, Don Kessler of Kessler Engineering (see review listing for AT-AUTO).

I am fortunate also now to have the new HF-AUTO, the Palstar successor the AT-AUTO. It is hard for me to review the HF-AUTO without mentioning the other tuner.

When you first see the HF-AUTO, you notice a distinct similarity in appearance to the AT-AUTO. The buttons and knob are the same and the painted labeling is from the same font. One tuner fits exactly on top of the other one. The HF-AUTO is about an inch taller.

The most important improvement on the outside of the HF-AUTO over its predecessor is that it has three SO-239 antenna coaxial cable outputs instead of one, although the AT-AUTO has a balanced line output for ladder line that the HF-AUTO lacks. I have never used ladder line so that is not an issue for me personally.

The menu on the LCD display is almost intuitive and can be learned in about five minutes. For this reason the HF-AUTO instruction manual is only eight pages long.

Like the AT-AUTO, the HF-AUTO tunes simply upon application of an RF signal from a transceiver with no need for a band changing cord from the exciter. This continues an ongoing industry trend to automatic band changing on equipment like the Alpha 9500 and Elecraft KPA-500 linear amplifiers. Happily, one problem that the HF-AUTO avoids is unexpected retuning if you move up or down the same sub-band.

The automatic tuning is fast, a little faster than on my AT-AUTO. This capability is a big plus in a contest like the CQWW when you need to change bands quickly.

According to the SWR readings on the HF-AUTO's LCD display, you get lower SWR results, often a flat 1.00 to 1 or 1.01 to 1. I think the highest reading I have had thus far after tuning is 1.13 to 1.

The feature I don't see but would like to see included in a future firmware upgrade is for the HF-AUTO to select automatically the correct antenna output for a band it has already tuned. As it is, I still have to remember to select manually Antenna 1 for my Traffie Hex-Beam for 20m through 10 meters and Antenna 2 for the 43 foot vertical I use for 160m through 30 meters. I guess I will have the Antenna 3 output ready for six meters if that band becomes available in Kenya, my current QTH.

At $1495, the HF-AUTO is a lot more expensive than other high power auto tuners on the market, but Palstar quality and reliability always command a premium. I have several other Palstar tuners and am always satisfied with them. I recommend the HF-AUTO without reservation.

5Z4EE
K4IW Rating: 2011-10-30
Nice Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This post is mostly so that the hf-auto category appears in the antenna tuner reviews.
Just hooked up hf-auto tuner ...Menu is very straight forward and with just a few minutes use it seems to work as advertised. I intend to give a complete and comprehensive review in the near future.