| N4ST |
Rating:  |
2023-03-24 | |
| LDG AT-PRO II Autotuner Works as Advertised |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| Moved to the New Mexico high desert and wanted to get on the air fast with a 33' vertical. Unit basically works as advertised. An issue I saw was that my K3S SWR meter does not always agree with the indicated value on the LDG, but then again, the LDG SWR has a fairly coarse resolution. One other issue is that setting the LDG to achieve a minimum SWR resulted in it trying to sporadically retune between elements on 40M CW. Setting the LDG SWR goal to 2:1 fixed that. I wrote a macro for my K3S that allowed it to transmit at 20W for 2 seconds then go back to receive and set the power out to 100W. This made it convenient when switching bands. This prevented the HIGH SWR error on the K3S when switching bands and just blasting away at full power. |
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| 4Z4DR |
Rating: |
2022-08-27 | |
| Perfect for my needs |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
My modest setup is an IC7300 and hamstick dipole combo (CHA spider) sitting on a concrete rebar balcony, with a 50ft cable snaking from the shack around the living room furniture.
I chose the AT-200 for the following reasons:
1. Rated for 250W (and 100W digital)
2. Wanted an external SWR/Power meter
3. Wanted a 2nd antenna connector for a dummy load
Default is the dummy load and a single button press puts the antenna inline when ready to play.
The AT-200 works well - I have pairs of sticks for 40, 20 and 10 meters, and the tuner lets me work 30, 17, 15 & 12 meters with SWR under 1:1.5 anywhere I tune. I do need to actively re-tune when switching bands, and when QSYing too far. But that is a good habit to have anyway.
Short answer - well recommended. (I also own two other LDG tuners - AT11 and Z817, and I am very happy with them as well). |
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| K6KBE |
Rating: |
2022-04-16 | |
| Display in not useable on bypass |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I received the unit and in three days tested it completely. It has one terrible flaw. In the bypass configuration, the SWR display is locked at 1.7:1 into a dummy load regardless of frequency. They said send it back which I did. Factory was no help, even when I described the bench setup of TX to AT200PROII to bird watt meter to 50 ohm Bird dummy load. When Tx keyed at 50 watts the Tx power is properly displayed and the SWR lights up the LEDs to 1.7:1. They did not see that. BUT on the return, I duplicated the test and took a picture of the faulty display and sent it to them. NO response. NONE. The bird watt meter shows no reflected power. The factory does not have any AT200PROII available for exchange, they are backordered. NO ETA from the source..... That was over a month ago. Past the time to return it to GiGaPARTS FOR EXCHANGE. |
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| KA9WDX |
Rating: |
2021-03-16 | |
| This Auto-Tuner Works Great With The SE HF X-80 Vertical |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I ordered this a very short time ago and received it earlier today.
When I tried it with my dipole, it worked great on all bands down to 75 Meters, where it "worked" a while longer to find a match, but it eventually found one, and I have the Automatic Tune SWR Threshold set to its lowest setting of 1:1.7:1.
However, after I unkeyed, and keyed up again, it cycled through another tuning cycle, so if I use my dipole, then after the auto tune up procedure, in order to stay at the current setting without auto tuning again each key up, I'd need to place it out of Auto Tune, and it wouldn't tune on 160 at all.
However, my dipole wasn't made for 160 Meters, so maybe if I made a 160-Meter DP, maybe then it would work well on all bands.
However, using it with the Sigma Euro-Comm SE HF X-80 Vertical, the AT-200Pro II worked great on all bands, even 160 Meters, even though the Sigma Euro-Comm SE HF X-80 Antenna supposedly won't work on 160 Meters, and in fact, I receive the highest signal strengths that I've ever received on 160 Meters and I have it mounted on an extendable mast extended to about 25 feet up or so...and I didn't add the optional ground radial kit to it.
The AT-200Pro II seems to work better than the MFJ-939 Auto-Tuner when being used with the Alinco DX-SR8T, even when using the MFJ control cable with the Alinco DX-SR8T.
I was wondering whether the MFJ control cable for the DX-SR8T, would work with the LDG AT-200Pro II or not, but so far, the use of a control cable doesn't seem to be necessary.
I tested the AT-200Pro II every 500 Kcs across all of the portions of each band that my class of license allows me to use, so now when I go to wherever I want to transmit, it only takes a second or so for the tuner to go to the right SWR setting...
So far it works 100% to my satisfaction...
I wish that I had the room for a 160 Meter DP, as then it would probably work well on 75 Meters, and probably would work well on 160 Meters as well, since it's currently a 40-Meter DP, but at least I can use the vertical on 75 and 160 Meters.
I just found out that after the Automatic tuning is finished, that you can press the L UP, L DN, C Up and/or C DN to adjust the SWR slightly down if you want to do so, or for those people who want a SWR better than the 1:1.7:1, or the 1:1.5:1, as the SWR will change even in the Automatic mode, but of course, if it changes up instead of down, you could cause it to go into another Automatic Tuning cycle.
How I monitor the SWR is not only with the LDG AT-200Pro II, but I also have inline between the Transceiver and the tuner, a MFJ-849 digital Power/SWR meter, so I can see a more precise SWR reading, but I'm actually satisfied with using just the AT-200Pro II with its Auto-Tune mode.
Oh yes, forgot to mention, I like the fact that you can have two antennas connected to the AT-200Pro II, as the MJF-939 only has one antenna connection. |
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| AI0C |
Rating: |
2019-10-13 | |
| Doesn't Find The Best Match |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
I use my AT-200Pro II with my Icom IC-7300 with an LDG IC-PAC-6 connecting cable.
It was easy enough to set it up, but I noticed right off that the AT-200Pro II frequently couldn't find a match better than 1.5:1.
So I did some testing on frequencies that my IC-7300 could match to. The IC-7300 ATU would match 1.1:1 or 1:1. On the same frequencies, the AT-200Pro II would match 1.5:1 to 1.7:1.
That being the case, I decided that on those frequencies where the IC-7300 ATU provided a better match I'd put the AT-200Pro II in Bypass mode. But that didn't work because the IC-7300 still sees the AT-200Pro II and so the IC-7300 ATU is disabled.
No problem, I'll just power off the AT-200Pro II. But that didn't work either. Even when the AT-200Pro II is powered off, the IC-7300 still sees the AT-200Pro II and so the IC-7300 ATU is disabled.
I ended up building a small external box that goes in the CI-V CAT line and switches the the AT-200Pro II in or out using a 3PST toggle switch. Now when I don't want to use the AT-200Pro II, I power it off and flip open the 3PST switch to "disconnect" the CI-V CAT line.
I decided to ask LDG support about the IC-7300 still seeing the AT-200Pro II even when it's powered off, but a week later there's been no response from them. I tried signing up for the LDG support forum, but the registration never asked for a password and when I tried to do a password reset it displays an error message.
My bottom line is that while the LDG AT-200Pro II is able to match to my sometimes highly-mismatched vertical, it doesn't appear to give the best possible match in all cases. And support isn't very responsive. I'm keeping it, but it only gets three stars. |
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| MM0XXW |
Rating: |
2019-01-12 | |
| Works well for me .... |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
... but if one were to rely solely on the numbers stated here then you simply wouldn't buy one!
However I did buy one (brand new) despite the 'numbers' and paired it with my Icom 7300 as the internal tuner was having issues tuning my 138' OCF Windom to acceptable levels on 30m.
Out of the box it looks a decent piece of kit and feels quite robust. If I was to complain about anything it would be the downloaded & printed instructions, I could have taken care of that myself!
Now granted it's a bit rattly-noisy while tuning but let it do it's thing and, once locked into the memory, it's a breeze on the next time round.
I have a multi-band vertical (10m ProWhip ground-mounted) and a 138' OCF Windom (9m asl) and neither antenna have given it much problem from 80-6m.
Obviously as it's brand new I can't comment on the internal build however it has performed exactly as I've asked it and I can't fault it so far so no issues here (touch wood!!!!). |
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| IW2CXJ |
Rating: |
2019-01-03 | |
| Great automatic tuner! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I have been using this tuner for more than a year with both Kenwood 480 HX and IC 7100 I am very satisfied it keeps 200 watts perfectly even in RTTY, I also had in LDG 1000 pro II but it did not seem to me so reliable, great job LDG! |
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| KT4WO |
Rating: |
2017-06-22 | |
| So Far- Good |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have had this AMU for about 6 months now and have waited to review till now. Having own/ed 6 other LDG
AMU's I know what to expect. --So far--It works as well as the others(Z-11P2 (2),Z-100 (2)).
I read many reviews on LDG "Tuners" and see statements like "I tried it on an antenna that was already 1.5:1 and it would not tune"
And it seems that new and old alike hams have said this. I recommend reading up on L-Network tuners(Auto or Manual) so you understand that an L-net tuner will not tune an already "good" load.(And why would you need to tune it if it's already 1.5:1 ?!?!?! NO L-net tuner will match the loads a T-net will, but the ones it will , will put more power to the antenna(normally).
Also I think many of the other reported issues are due to RFI. Are they perfect?,,, No...But having 3 in-service right now, with no issues, says something.
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| W4LTX |
Rating: |
2017-05-10 | |
| Not as good as std |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I have both the standard AT-200 Pro and the ProII. The original will match more antennas and do it much quicker than the AT-200 ProII |
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| N5OFQ |
Rating: |
2016-10-25 | |
| Nice tuner |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I've had the older Z-11 Pro for 6 years and even mounted it remote for a while. I didn't treat it well and finally burned something. It still tunes fairly well manually. I decided on the higher power AT-200 since I run lots of digital modes and may have a 200w transceiver in the future. The AT-200 doesn't seem louder than the Z-11. So far, it tunes my 80m multi-band loop on all bands 80-6. I looked at several MFJ tuners but really wanted a 6m tuner and was happy with previous service from my Z-11. I don't understand why this tuner isn't rated higher. |
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