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Reviews For: LDG RT-11

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : LDG RT-11
Reviews: 28MSRP: 209.00
Description:
hf/6 meter antenna tunner
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.ldgelectronics.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00284.5
N3MG Rating: 2002-03-04
Very cool toy! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I purchased the RT-11 based on the reviews here on www.eham.com. The LDG folks are very nice and shipping was timely. The kit documentation is also very good.

The kit is easy to build and of high quality. Worked first time no problem both in the mobile and in the shack. I put a Bird 43 wattmeter in line and watched the RT-11 do its business- slick!

A few suggestions. If you are mounting the unit outside, I would replace the hardware with stainless steel. Also, I drilled out the other (2) mounting holes on each of the SO-239's, especially since the gaskets were prepunched for (4) screws. A little silicone grease on the gaskets won't hurt either.

I also cut a piece of 2" thick foam rubber and stuffed it inside the box to reduce the relay chatter...though the noise is not that bad to begin with...and I am not sure that it helped.
N6VUJ Rating: 2002-02-28
Works Great and Fun to Build! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This unit works great, and was a lot of fun to build.
K0KAV Rating: 2002-02-19
Great! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Just like all the other LDG tuners I have owned. It works as advertised. Excellent support from the people at LDG if needed. A real plus now days. I use it mostly mobile (occasional portable) with various antenna configurations. A good investment.
KR4GS Rating: 2002-01-01
Very Pleased!! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I needed a auto tuner for my Icom 706MK11 and was ready to buy the AH-4 Icom tuner. I walked into Lentini
Communications and spoke to Alex and he make the suggestion on the RT-11. I am Pleased that he did, it works great. I use it
with a 102' stainless whip and it performs excellent on 6 through 20 meters and adequately on 40 meters. I even worked a Costa Rica station on six ssb with it and broke through on the first try. I was impressed with the customer service as I had a question on the tuner and it was a Sunday Morning and I e-mailed them and later that day I had a repliy. Now that's service! I bought the RT-IC interface cable and all I have to do is push the tune button on the rig and within 3 seconds the antenna is tuned. What a Product! keep up the great work LDG.
WB7OSE Rating: 2001-12-09
Excellent remote tuner! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
After several manual antenna tuners, I wanted to take advantage of the IC-706mkIIG tune button. I tend to change bands frequently so an automatic antenna tuner is a blessing! The RT-11 tunes fast and reliably on my 135ft. long wire 20ft high. I have 50ft of coax to the remote attic-mounted RT11 and 2 more feet to the BA-1 balun then the 135ft of wire out to the trees. Works on 160-6M with a better than 2.0:1 match on all bands, less than 1.5:1 typical.

I built a control head for use with any radio. I am currently using an FT-847 which needs a tuner so I connected the RT-11 with the LDG DWM-4 Digital Wattmeter to automatically retune if SWR exceeds any user set threshold, else the tuner will retune automatically at 3:1. I set my threshold to 1.9:1 which works on all bands for me. This works well for any radio not having a built in tuner and gives the next best thing to a built-in antenna tuner feature.

Wish List: A serial interface or built in freq counter option to recall memorized settings for each frequency (sounds like a good winter project)!Still it does tune fast on band changes. While I am wishing, how about a built-in antenna switch with memorized settings per band per antenna (I was spoiled by the Elecraft K2 and other big rig built-in tuners).

Excellent value for the money. Service is good too. I fried a control input to the CPU poking 13VDC where it did not belong one day and a new CPU chip was on the way ASAP. Thanks LDG!
W4WB Rating: 2001-08-21
Excellent Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I recently received the LDG Electronics RT-11 autotuner from the new production run. In short, I really like it.

I have tried it on various antennas including long wires and several verticals. It tune up a 4BTV nicely everywhere including the WARC were it hates to work (of course). On 160 m using a GAP Titan (it isn't intended to work there either), the RT-11 matched it right up and I made several contacts. Of course, it worked fine everywhere else including over 6 m with the GAP Titan.

The little remote head is nice and does the job well. Of course, you can integrate it into your station in many ways since you have direct access to the control line through the DB-9 connector.

I intend soon to located the RT-11 truly remote and in an exposed location. From the way it appears to be built and sealed, I have positive expectations that it will hold up well (given that I seal around the mating connectors myself).

Performance seems as fast as the AT-11MP and the Z-11. So far, no reservations.
K5AF Rating: 2001-04-19
High marks to LDG! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
While I received a unit that did not perform to expectations, I give Dwayne and the folks at LDG high marks for customer service. They have responded to my calls and emails very quickly and professionally. The unit itself was beautifully crafted, but did not consistently tune to a low SWR. In some cases, it would zoom right past the low SWR point and fix at a high SWR value, like 3:1. I checked all my cables with a dummy load to ensure I wasn't "fooling" the tuner with some strange input impedance. I own two AT-11s, so I'm sold on the company. I told Dwayne I ready to buy an RT-11 again once they discover what the problem is. (Apparently, most others in the field are performing fine.)

Paul, K5AF
N1EDF Rating: 2001-03-31
fair Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This product did not work out like LDG states. It work on 40,20,15 using the Comet CA-UHV antenna. What I disliked is on 10 meter and 6 meter. It would not tune the antenna on 10 meter fm and on 6 meter, my antenna's swr was 1.2 on 53.31. When I put this unit in-line the swr went off the scale and the tunner would not tune the antenna. I call LDG and told them the problem and all they said was to return it and we would refund your money. So I did...