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Reviews For: LDG AT-11MP Autotuner

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : LDG AT-11MP Autotuner
Reviews: 99MSRP: 239
Description:
Automatic antenna tuner kit
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.ldgelectronics.com/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
15994.7
N6MMM Rating: 2001-04-18
Works as advertised, price reasonable! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I ordered an assembled AT-11 back in October 2000 and sat on the delivered box until this past March (work, family, life, etc.).

Got on the air with it in time for the CQ WPX phone contest and with my old Icom IC-725 and an 80 meter loop antenna, the AT-11 did not have a problem in tuning and retuning after each band switch (from 10m to 20m, to 15, back to 20, etc.).

Ditto on other comments about the initial chatter you hear on the tune. You do (or at least I do) get used to it.

At a price less than its competitors, it sure beats dialing up a manual tuner.
W0NZV Rating: 2001-04-10
An excellent tuner. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The AT-11MP is a great auto tuner. I've had mine over a year and love it. Relay's took a little getting used to at first but otherwise it's super. I've had to tweek the final tuning a couple times and it works well manually. The service is exemplary and the staff is very accomodating.
K5AF Rating: 2001-03-25
Wow, small and efficient! Time Owned: N.A.
I bought a used AT-11 to test it and see if it could replace my homebrew antenna tuners. When I looked at the size of the unit and the components used, I must admit I was skeptical.

Once on-the-air, though, it became a whole different story. This little tuner tunes my double zepp to nearly 1:1 SWR on all bands, and seems to be highly efficient. My average RST over the first 20 QSOs has been 589, so I know its working.

The noise of the relays will startle you at first, but once used to it, it becomes only a minor annoyance.

This unit is about one fifth the size of my existing tuners, and can be remoted. I plan on getting two RT-11s (this is their new tuner in a weather-proof box) and put them out in the yard and utilize buried coax to feed them.

This is a nifty little unit!
WB8NUT Rating: 2001-01-27
Great Tuner! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Just like the Z11 QRP tuner, this one is also great. Using it with the Ten Tec Omni 6+. These are real quality products. Bought mine assembled.
N4EKV Rating: 2001-01-26
Well-built little autotuner Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I bought the factory assembled AT-11MP for use with my Ten Tec Corsair II and my double extended zepp dipole. It works as advertised, magically lowering SWRs to 1.5:1 or below on 80-10, albeit with a clatter of relays. I had some trouble with the automatic setting on a few bands. The tuner would sporadically re-tune mid-QSO. Not a good thing when I'm running 100W thru a unit that is designed to tune at low power levels. Now I run the unit only in manual mode, which necessitates a single button push each time I change freqs. Still, much better than spinning an inductor and two variable caps in a manual tuner. Unlike others, I have never been able to improve on the unit's "suggested" tune by tweaking the Cap or Ind toggles. But since the unit consistently produces 1:1 to 1.5:1 SWRs, this is not a big problem.
KK7JO Rating: 2001-01-18
Works but needs FT-100 interface Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
The tuner I have works and works well. I was startled by the clickity clackity sound the first time I used it, but it soon became a fun noise to listen to.

My biggest complaint, however, is the lack of an interface to the ever so popular FT-100. I cannot understand why LDG would ignore that radio when so many people have them.

Good service as long as it is a missing part or something they have dealt with for years. That's why I only give it a three.
W8OB Rating: 2000-12-20
EXCELLANT PERFORMER Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
i have had my at-11mp for several months now and find its a very reliable unit. the only change i would like to see is to add a memory feature so the tuner would remember various band settings so one does not have to retune during each band change or when power is removed otherwise keep up the good work

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Earlier 5-star review posted by W8OB on 2000-08-27

i just purchased the at-11mp tuner kit took about 3.5 hours to build it all went without a
snag, works great and with the ba-1 balun kit i can load anything up. all parts are easy to
id, the circuit board is great quality. would do it again in a minute
MM5DOG Rating: 2000-12-19
works well Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Ok i have to agree with everyone else on this one ...fun to build ..and works better than i could have imagined..i built mine nearly 2 yrs ago so its the old style with led swr indicators ...and i agree the newer model looks better with the meter but the convenience of keying the mic...listening to the rrrrrrrrrt of the solenoids and then talking ...no matter which band.(i dont use top band) ..i tested it in a friends shack against some built in tuners...it may be a little noiser and the box aint as pretty but it sure works great.
KB9UEZ Rating: 2000-10-01
Nice piece of gear! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This is a good piece of gear. But first, a little background to help those of you considering buying an AT-11 to make a good informed decision.
I've been a ham for about 1.5 years, a 13 wpm general. I have never, ever put something like this together before. I'm OK with a soldering iron,
but an expert would be horrified by my work. I am not an electrician or EE major, but I did suffer through a couple of semesters of electrical engineering
at the Naval Academy, so I have a good theoretical base and I can tell the difference between common electrical components, like capacitors, resistors,
diodes, transistors, ect. by sight. The only other item I have built was a PSK 31 interface to go between my laptop and my radio, and while I was challenged
by that at the time, it was less than child's play compared to building the AT-11 kit. I recieved my AT-11 kit on Friday and started building it that evening.
You get bags of parts, a couple of boards, the chassis to hold it all, and some instructions that, while good, assume you have some basic
knowledge of electonics--like, this is a diode, and I need to solder it to these points. Also you need to have a multimeter and be able to make basic
measurements with it. It is now Sunday night, and I have a terrific new antenna tuner in my shack. I had to take the whole thing apart and troubleshoot
5 or 6 times. What did I fix? Poor soldering. I learned a lot about soldering putting this thing together. There was also one little problem where a
component seemed to be missing, but I called them up, on Saturday morning even, and after a couple of rings a guy answered and gave me the scoop.
Turns out that component was deliberately left out, it's not needed, & the directions just haven't caught up to the mod yet. So while I was just a bit
bothered by the missing component at first, the terrific and responsive service that actually resolved the problem left me feeling very good. Good people
at LDG. Oh, another thing--you have to wind a few toroids--a first for me--don't worry, it's easy.
The tuner tunes everything I have tried from 80m to 10m. I also got good results on 6m, which is a nice bonus. I could not tune anything on 160m,
but I didn't expect to be able to, and I just tried out of curiousity. My station, by the way, consists of a Yaesu FT-847 running barefoot to a twinlead-fed
doublet about 140 feet long and 30 feet high. That's the only HF antenna I have.
So, if you are tired of the chore of manually tuning up each time you change freqs like I was, and you have very basic knowledge of electronics,
and you like an educational challenge, I very highly recommend buying the AT-11 kit from LDG--it's been a very rewarding experience. Advice---take
your time. Take your time. Take your time!!! Solder carefully. Solder carefully. Solder carefully!!! If you are a
complete novice in such matters, and have never put anything like this together, then you really should practice with one or two simpler kits first.
You really must be able to solder decently and have a basic grasp of electronic components or this kit will frustrate you to no end! Another option
is to just buy a preassembled tuner from them---it's a super gadget! Nice work, LDG!

KB9UEZ
Travis Zach
tradzz@sltic.com
KF4EBC Rating: 2000-09-09
Great tuner at a good price. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Just bought an assembled AT-11MP. Basically, it works! So far, it will achieve an acceptable match (<1.5:1) anywhere, 80M-10M, in less than 3 seconds, something I have never had any other autotuner do (nor most manual tuners, for that matter). Also, unlike every other auto tuner that I've looked at, it has two momentary contact toggle switches on the front to "fine tune" inductance and capacitance. After it got 1.5:1 on 3.995, I "bumped" the capacitance switch 2-3 times and got 1:1. I have NEVER gotten that before, with any tuner. It has a cross-needle meter on the tuner which seems to agree with the SWR meter on the Kenwood TS-690 and makes fine tuning a lot easier than trying to adjust the tuner while looking at the radio. Construction is very nice, with a Ten-Tec case that makes it look sort of like "commercial homebrew", probably because it is also available as a kit (but I know my limitations).

So far, the only downsides seem to be two. One, you must supply external power or it don't work. Other manual tuners only need power for the light on the meter and some autotuners draw power from the radio; not this one. Two, when it is tuning, it sounds kind of like a rock polisher! That only lasts for a couple of seconds and may quieten down with use.

Of course, it isn't as convenient nor as "aesthetically appealing" as an internal tuner, but frankly it works better than any internal tuner that I've ever seen on a Kenwood (Yaesu is in a class by itself there). You might think of this as a "semi-auto tuner". Left to itself, it will give you an acceptable match without any intervention on your part, but a little "tweaking" will frequently (not always) give you an even better match. Even with tweaking, tuneup is usually less than 5 seconds and I've never been that fast with a manual tuner.

Frankly, fellows, if you know anyone looking for an auto tuner for any rig (or several), I'd tell them to seriously consider this one. By the way, an interface cable for the Icom 706 or the Alinco DX77 is only $5 (different cables) and there is a small remote head option if you need to mount the tuner somewhere else, like the trunk of a car.