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Reviews For: Kenwood AT250

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : Kenwood AT250
Reviews: 7MSRP: 400.00
Description:
AT 250 Auto atu
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0074.6
K3CAP Rating: 2013-02-13
Great Tuner Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
bought a used at250 and I can honestly say it is the best auto tuner that I ever had, and I had a few of them. If you can pick one up I highly reccomend buying it.
VK4KX Rating: 2012-12-22
Great Tuner Time Owned: more than 12 months.
In 1991 I bought my AT-250 second hand and I drove several hundred kilometers round trip to get it.
It's been one of the best auto tuners I've had and like most AT-250 owners, I did the bridge wire trick on the rear socket as the patch lead was missing & to use it on different radios. At the moment it's hooked up to a TS-480HX. I love it and I'm keeping it, I've actually been offered more than it's worth to sell it.
One little thing that I dislike is that if the antenna is close to resonance & the SWR is 2:1 it sometimes won't tune out the SWR, I've noticed this when going from the 10m SSB band up to the FM repeater band.

I2QHY Rating: 2009-06-29
Missing original cables Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Got a used AT 250 w/out cables. Finally saw this suggestion to ground pin 3. Great idea. Actually had little troubles as in reading the Manual I was led to think that pin 3 was at 3 o'clock and instead it is at 9 o'clock (looking at the rear panel). Now is working side by side my old Kenwood 680. Thanks.
ZR4LP Rating: 2008-11-22
LOVE IT Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
EASY TO USE . Will tune after u connect pin 3 to ground , pin 3 is the 3 rd pin to the left hand side.
Don't need to open it , just plug a wire into the socket at the back and ground it.

Does not tune a 80 mtr dipole on 160 but then if u connect only live it tunes it in 3 seconds.
Tunes my 80/40/20 dipoles on 10 mtrs

its my first AUTO tuner i own ,had a yaesu FC 707 also great but its manual.

this one is not leaving the shack,

Johan
ZR4LP
KE7GGZ Rating: 2008-06-05
Gr8t antenna tuner Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought this tuner to use with my kenwood TS-440Sat. Yes, the 440 has the antenna tuner in it, but it will not tune on the 160 meter band...The AT-250 will...I have the cable connected to the 440, but I found that I have to use the band switch also to tune the different bands. The auto tune does not seem to work with the 440...I think if I go into the connector inside the radio and rewire it, it would then work, but the heck with it...I did test the 250 to see if it would tune my butternut for the 160 meter band and it did, suprisingly without the proper coil on the antenna! I am going to purchase the coil next, so the antenna is resonant on the 160 meter band....Gr8t piece of equipment that blows MFJ into the junk pile!
WA6FXL Rating: 2005-02-22
Limited to use with Kenwood rigs??? Time Owned: more than 12 months.
My Kenwood TS-430S needs to see the rig doctor. But I would like to use the AT-250 with my new rig. Is this possible? Can it tune without communication with the rig? The interface cable is different than that which my Yaesu FT-847 uses. I purchased the FC-20, whimpy ATU that it is and would like to have something more robust. The FC-20 has no meter, so I have no indication as to the SWR. The TS-430 served me well as did the AT-250. But it has been some time since I used either. No complaints. I would give it a 5 but I don't remember if there were any problems. I intend on getting my TS-430 back in service and hope to use the pair again.
Wayne WA6FXL
wa6fxl@earthlink.net
M3RDX Rating: 2003-07-23
great tuner Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
the AT250 auto atu is a great tuner it tunes my G5RV multiband dipole on all bands 40m to 10m it has provision for 4 antenna's to be connected also a built in swr meter power meter and is good upto 200 watts it is fully automatic or bands can be switched manually if required I have it connected to my TS130s but it is good on many of the older Kenwoods TS530,ts830s,TS140s etc, a very well built piece of kit reliable and well made should be good for many years yet !!!!
73 Ian m3rdx