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Reviews For: SGC SG-239 Smartuner

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : SGC SG-239 Smartuner
Reviews: 44MSRP: 199.95
Description:
Very small SG-239 Smartuner automatic microprocessor antenna coupler with 68HC711 microprocessor. Coupler can be used within its' power rating with any SSB in range of 1.8-30 MHz. Designed for base station, marine, mobile and ladder feed antenna applications. For antenna types 100ft or longer base or marine whip for full frequency range operation. Housed in an aluminum case.
• Number of channels: unlimited
• Frequency range: Minimum length of 9 feet (7-30 MHz @ 100W), 40 feet (3-30 MHz @ 200W) or 100 feet (1.8-30 MHz @ 100W).
• Power rating: 200 watts* PEP maximum: 12VDC. operation
• SWR: Less than 2:1
• Minimum tune power: 1.5 watts typical
• Supplied with manual.
• Over all dimensions 7.5 x 6 x 1.85 inches
• Under 2 pounds
* For antennas 100 feet or longer.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.sgcworld.com/products/239/239.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00444.4
N0UA Rating: 2006-07-13
Excellent & Good Support Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had the 239 for two years in my attic tuning a loop with a length of 60 feet. Works well. Several months ago the tuner stopped working. Upon opening the unit I found a badly burned matching capacitor. Called SGC and told them about the cap AND my amp. They sent me a full set of caps at NO CHARGE. Replaced cap - tuner works as original.. I do have an amp (Alpha 78) in the shack and there is a very good chance that I inadvertently placed the amp in-line with the 239! The shack has been rewired so the amp can no longer be in-line with the tuner....
K7NNG Rating: 2006-06-25
EXCELLENT TUNER Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
PURCHASED MINE ABOUT A MONTH AGO. USED IN MY CAR WITH HAM STICKS, WITH EXCELLENT RESULTS....IMMEDIATE TUNING, GOOD REPORTS FROM MY 706MK2G.
NOW INSTALLED IN SHACK WITH A 126 FOOT DIPOLE.
TUNES ACROSS THE BOARD WITH NO PROBLEMS.
TO BEGIN WITH, YOU MUST BE PATIENT FOR ABOUT 30 SECONDS, AFTERWARDS IT TUNES LIKE MAD...
TUNES IN MILLISECONDS..FAST IN MY BOOK
K9YEQ Rating: 2006-04-05
Works on random L with elevated ground plane fed with ladder Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I remotely mounted in a plastic elecrical box and ran the power to the unit from the shack. I can tune my antenna on 160-6 meters. When watching the swr while oporating the swr does move... makes sense as the antenna is wire strung in trees. I have on a couple of ocassions removed power to "reset" if rain, snow or wind have occurred. I am very pleased. For this installation and price I rate this a 5. It was buried in snow in the winter and worked just as well. Ice on the antenna, perhaps a reset and back in business. I have had other SGC tuners and so far, I like this the best. It has found a permanent home.
N5ZC Rating: 2006-01-22
Works Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I installed the SGC-239 in a fiberglass box I picked up on Ebay. The tuner is installed on my south west corner post of my fence. Also attached to the fence is a 29' vertical. I made the vertical out of aluminum I picked up from Texas Towers and a couple mounts from DX Engineering.

The tuner tunes up the vertical very easily on 15 through 40 meters including warc. It takes some time on 10 meters as well as 80/75 meters. I would guess that the length has something to do with the tuning problem on those bands. The vertical used to be a quarter wave on 30 meters and the tuner could not get an swr below 2.0 : 1. Again, it had to do with the length. When I changed the length from 23' to 29' it tuned up great on 30 meters.

Since I'm working on my DXCC totals on 30m and 40m I left the vertical at 29'.

The tuner handles the 200 watts from my Mark V with no problems. Its neat to be able to hit my key and have the tuner tune the vertical very quickly. Within a second or two the antenna is all tuned up.

KI4FIA Rating: 2005-09-01
It Broke and no luck with Tech Support. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought this unit about 6 weeks ago. I bought based on the advertisements saying that I could mount the SG-239 at the feedpoint of the antenna. I have an 80 meter fullwave loop. I�ve been using the 80 meter fullwave loop with an MFJ Manual antenna tuner with great results on all bands.

When I first installed the SG239 at the feedpoint it seemed to work very well. Fast tuning, was able to work 160 mtr � 10 mtrs. After about 2 weeks things started to get a little funny, it would find a low SWR but in the middle of a QSO the tuner would start retuning, especially on 80 & 40 meters. A week later when it thought it needed to return in 40 meters it would take over 60 seconds to find its match. It seems as if the performance of the SG239 was going downhill however no changes were ever made to the antenna.

When the first problems started happening I called SGC. Asked for tech support, was told someone would have to call back. They never did. 4 weeks went by, problems getting worse. I called SGC tech support a second time, again was told someone would call back. When I call a companies tech support I don�t want to have to wait around for call backs! After waiting around my phone for about 3 hours I did get a callback. I was told I was probably getting RF into the CPU of the SG239 and I needed to run some ladder line between the tuner and the feedpoint. This was easier said than done due to fact I had the loop antenna wire installed based on where the turner would be mounted. After over an hour of moving things around and installing the 5� of ladder line I still had the same problems. So I thought I would move the turner into the shack and using ladder line to feed the antenna which was about a 30� run. Still same problems.

On my third and final call to SGC again was told someone would have to call back! I said sorry I just want a refund as SGC NEVER offered to accept the turner for repair. Well SGC wouldn�t refund, I have to send it back to the dealer I purchased it from.

In summary, when calling SGC you never can directly talk with tech support, you have to wait for callbacks (waited 4 weeks the first time). Since my antenna system never changed from when it worked well to my first problem to me that would mean something happened to the turner, especially since it was new. SGC never offered to take it back for repair. I am in Florida peak of Hurricane Season, not a time to be messing with antenna problems! I called HRO and they will take back the defective unit and are replacing it with an MFJ Intellituner.
K3CLT Rating: 2005-08-31
OK Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I tried the 239 in a mobile application also. I could not get it to work very well. I called SGC and they suggested that the 239 was a poor choice for mobile HF.
They recommended the 237 which is in a waterproof box. It comes with 9' of coax with a pl-259 on it and the power leads for the unit.
Mobile applications need grounds, grounds and more grounds.
They should be flat braided cable.
I run the 237 in a F-150 pick-up. I have it working about 95% of the time now.
I have moved the 9' whip to the rear corner of the bed of the truck and mounted the box on the sidewall of the bed.
I run a braided cable from the box to the floor of the bed.
I have a braided cable running from the ground point for my radios under the front seat to the frame.
I run a ground from the bed to the frame.
I run a ground from the toolbox to the frame.
I noticed now that I have picked up some additional ignition noise since moving the antenna to the rear.
I think it may be solved by installing a braid from the exhaust to the frame.
Performance is very hard to tell at this point in time due to the very poor band conditions.
If you have problems that you are trying ti solve, don't hesitate calling SGC for some very good tech support.
They were very helpful dealing with HRO and arranging a tradeup to the 237 tuner.
W8JJI Rating: 2005-08-31
still no luck Time Owned: more than 12 months.
After a failed attempt to use this device for hf mobile (terribly unstable, it went nuts trying to find good swr with a 9 ft whip) I tried to put it to use tuning up a simple dipole that I could use on 40 and 75 meters.

It would find a good swr some of the time. Sometimes 1.2 sometimes 2.4 .

When it would land a good swr (1.2) I would then begin to transmit and I would then watch the SWR CLIMB gradually. In about 20 seconds the swr would go from 1.2 to 2.5 then throw itself into retune and not be able to get anything better than a 2.0 which is unacceptable in my shack.

'nuff said.

----------------------
Earlier 2-star review posted by W8JJI on 2004-06-01

Sometimes It took about 90 seconds to tune up a 9 foot whip on 40 meters and an unusually long time to tune on most other higher bands. Yes everything was grounded very well , checked everything , and no metallic objects nearby.

It would often throw itself into retune mode for no reason, vehicle moving or not.

Once I had the 239 installed at the base set up and it just worked really funky. On the same antenna, my old AH-4 tuned everything GREAT 80 thru 6 meters til I blew it up.

Maybe I just got a bad 239.

KB0GU Rating: 2005-06-28
Best multiband mobile yet! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
It appears any earlier concers about this tuner are now fixed by newer versions which have corrected the issues. I received this tuner and a 102" Hustler stainless whip with mounting hardware for my early birthday present from my wife. I spent Field Day 2005 installing this stuff and my Kenwood TS130SE in my new Dakota pick up. I put the SG-239 under my back seat shallow storage area, ran RG8U coax from rig to tuner input, ran just enough RG8U from the output of the tuner through the cab rear wall and into the bed to reach the corner mount bracket with the whip on it. Zip tied a DC supply line along the coax to the radio and hooked it up with the power to the rig.
I then turned everything on, keyed the rig on low power CW on 80, listened to the clicking until it stopped and proceeded up every band repeating allowing the tuner to "find" its match.
Last night I found a local ham some miles away from me and we started on 80 and went up to 10 meters through all the SSB bands to check it out. He received me at S9+10 to 30db on all bands. 80 was a bit lower and it seemed both transmit and receive was better the higher in frequency we went. Understandable given it is only a 102 inch whip.
I have found in the few days of operating with this set up that occassionally the tuner will seek match but it does not take long to establish and it is off and QSO'ing again.
This is by far the most effective, convenient, and good looking install I have had on my vehicle. The stainless mount and whip match the chrome trim on the dark grey truck and it all looks as sharp as it is effective. I will update again after I have more time using this unit/setup.
KE4IZA Rating: 2005-05-22
Fantastic Coupler/Tuner Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
My new SG-239 arrived a few days ago. I sat down and read the manual and then set out to install the unit. My first impressions were a very well built tuner. Even though the tuner itself is not waterproof the terminals and screws are stainless steel. I had to open the case to be able to mount the tuner so I got a look inside. High quality all the way. I am using this tuner with my Yaesu FT-897 and it works like a charm. Takes anywhere from 5 to 15 seconds to tune. Most of the time it take around 5 seconds. Once the tune is found it is stored in one of the 170 memorys and retunes are instant and the tuning noise is very soft. When your QSO is over and you move freqencies, the tune will retune as you talk if the SWR is over 2:1 automatically. NICE! One finally note. It is always optimal to place the tune at the antenna feed point. My personal situation does not allow this. I am feeding the tuner with 12' of RG-8x mini and the feed to the antenna is 50' of the same. To facilitate this I have SO-239 connectors wired to the tuner terminals. Breaking the rules? Maybe! But it works well tuning my 40M hamstick dipole from 10M to 40M. At $179.95 it is the best bang for the buck. LDG tuners do not even come close to SGC quality and technology. IMHO of course.
VE3XDB Rating: 2004-10-09
A good product and great support! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Struggled with my 239 for about a year. After 2 trips back to the factory (first time capacitor burned up, and the second time there was a problem with sensing diodes). Through it all I tried several antenna configurations (loops are best, followed by dipoles, it struggled with my inverted L even with a proper ground system).

Now it's working great! The best part is the support. Terry and the folks at SGC worked with me, and were determined to have my antenna system work well.

I don't think one should expect that this will be a "plug and play" type of system. Will probably require some experimentation, based on your situation.

A low risk purchase at $179. I am very satisfied with my SGC-239.

Best regards,

Doug Behl VE3XDB