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Reviews For: Palstar AT1KM

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : Palstar AT1KM
Reviews: 56MSRP: $359.00
Description:
The AT1K comes in two models: the AT1KM meter display (pictured) and the AT1KD digital display.
Featuring differential capacitor tuning with 2 stators and 1 rotor. For ease of use the AT1K series utilize only 2 controls to operate for tuning with a precision ceramic body roller inductor and high power balun. As on all Palstar tuners the front panel and top cover are powdercoated.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.palstar.com/palmain.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00564.9
W4MY Rating: 2006-03-17
Great Value Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Solid piece of equipment, tunes my Radio Works Superloop 80 easily. I've had other tuners and this is right up there. I don't have any test equipment to prove it, but the signal energy is getting to the antenna and not ending up as heat in the tuner.

Good job Palstar! Suggestion: Ya may want to upgrade the manual to some sort of bound document. The stapled copies of the manual sheets are not quite up to the same standards as the hardware, but thats not going to make my score any less tha a "5"

73 Marty / W4MY
VE4MM Rating: 2006-02-24
GREAT PRODUCT Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Used for an ICOM IC-7800 into a Force-12 EF180S 80M antenna. Now I have full band coverage! Nice looking tuner as well.

73

Michael Mark, P.Eng., B.Sc.EE, Life Member ARRL
W6RCW Rating: 2006-01-07
THE BEST! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Just took the cover off my new AT1KM and the workmanship is SUPERB! The roller coil is very smooth two finger operation. The thing I found hard to believe was the meter, It's the first meter I've seen that matched exactly what my Bird 43 was showing. I've now removed the Bird.
RC W6RCW
VK2ATN Rating: 2005-12-28
Quality at no comprimise! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
First I would like to congradulate Paul and the Palstar team for such excellent products. If I needed a tuner for a DX-Pedition on some desert Island like FO0AAA with sand storms and temperatures reaching the high 40's, I would no-way hesitate on taking the AT1KM tuner. Yes it is built like I have never seen in a tuner in this class, and maybe for a bit of water/dust proofing, I would say it wouldn't be far of Mil-Spec classifications. The guage of the sheet metal chassis which is 11 ga or .090 is so thick, I don't think there is a Amateur Radio tuner which compares. Also the sheet metal fabrication is supplied by the R.L Drake Co, say no more. And all the H.Q components are designed and built by Palstar. Operating the 6:1 precision venier dual stator capacitor is a delight, and the steatite ceramic core roller inductor is as light and as smooth to crank which is only found on high end tuners. You could place a glass of water on the top of the tuner and you would be hard pressed to create any ripples when turning the roller inductors handle with just 1 hand, or to be precise, 2 fingers. I am yet to take the top cover off, but going by the photos on the internals, I wouldn't want to put it back on because it is A1 workmanship, and you can see that the QC employee is doing his job!

Anthony
VK2NEW.
AE9DX Rating: 2005-12-23
Absolutely Excellent!! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
After owning this fine tuner for almost a year now, I felt I had to write a follow-up to my previous review. It continues to perform flawlessly under all conditions. As for Palstar's customer service; recently I noticed that some of the lettering had come off the front of the tuner. I called Paul at Palstar and was informed that on some tuners a poor batch of ink had made it onto some units. He apologized, offered to replace the front panel at the factory or ship me a new one if I wanted to do it myself. I opted to do it and two days later the panel showed up at my door. How can you fault service like that? I'd recommend this tuner to anyone based on performance and customer service. Again, Hat's off to Palstar!!

----------------------
Earlier 5-star review posted by AE9DX on 2005-04-02

After reading as many reviews as possible on tuners, I purchased a Palstar AT1KM to replace a MFJ 989C that was absolutely useless. I spoke to the nice people at Palstar regarding the tuner's range and load capabilities, and found them very helpful. This tuner tuned a previously un-tunable antenna and brought it down to a 1.2 to 1 SWR. What a great, well made and easy to use piece of equipment. The product is very well made and solid, the manual is the easiest to read and understand that I have ever seen come with any piece of Ham equipment and the whole thing was packed very well for shipping. Hats off to Palstar.
KG4EDA Rating: 2005-11-22
Really Nice Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've only had it out of the box for a couple of hours but already it is obviously so much better than the MFJ 962D (which lasted only a couple of days).

The Palstar is very well constructed, and tuned my dipole flat (like it should), has a very nice vernier drive on the cap (which the MFJ 962D doesn't have) and a very different type of turns counter than the type used on the MFJ.

In pictures, the counters look similar, but the MFJ has a turns counter built like the odometer on a moped (and about as accurate) while the Palstar has a mechanical "digital" counter where each number snaps into position. The Palstar also comes with a power supply for the meter light (the MFJ doesn't). Not really necessary, but shows attention to detail.

Considering that the Palstar is only about $100 more, there is no question about which to buy.

BTW, the guys at HRO are really helpful and professional. A great company to do business with.

F5TIL Rating: 2005-11-16
PERFECT Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This Palstar AT1-KM is very good device.
Construction foreseen to last.
I use it for more than a year without problem, congratulation in Palstar.

73, F5TIL Stefan
ZS1AN Rating: 2005-10-31
Excellent tuner but balun needs redesign Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought the AT1KM to work with my Vee Beam (21m per leg, apex angle 60 degrees) fed with open-wire line, as well as various other antennas that I'm always building. I fed the Vee beam from the internal balun and experienced two problems:

1. It couldn't tune the Vee Beam to better than about 2:1 on some of the higher frequency bands.

2. When I attempted to tune up my linear on 80m, at about 200W output the SWR started fluctuating wildly. Inspection showed that the two balanced output wires of the balun touched where they crossed, and here the insulation had been burnt away and it was arcing. (Mechanical damage from where the wires crossed may have contributed by damaging the insulation).

Because I live in darkest Africa, it would have cost a fair amount to ship it back to Palstar for repair, so I elected to fix it myself, but this time to use Teflon tubing over the balun wire both to improve the insulation and to raise the characteristic impedance of the balun winding somewhat.

Before rewinding the balun, I measured the factory supplied balun using my Palstar ZM-30 impedance analyzer and found that it had a common-mode impedance of >600 ohms at 640 KHz, but that the impedance at 14 MHz was capacitive, indicating that the self-resonant frequency was somewhat below 14 MHz. I therefore elected to reduce the number of turns on the balun from 16 as supplied, to 10 turns in order to raise the self-resonant frequency to above 30 MHz. Calculations showed that this should still give sufficient common-mode impedance at 1.8 MHz to function effectively on the 160m band, although that's a bit academic for me as I don't currently work 160m.

I completed the job this evening, and am very happy with the result. I can now run 400W (our legal limit) CW on 80m with no sign of any problems, and I can tune all bands (including 15, 12 and 10m which had all been giving problems) to 1.1:1 or better.

Operating impressions are that the AT1KM is very easy to tune, and that once you've noted the setttings for a particular frequency, it reliably returns to those settings. Workmanship is first rate (with the sole exception of the crossed wires on the balun) and the unit looks and feels wonderful (especially with the room lights dimmed and the cross-needle meter lit up).

I'm sorry to dent the product's "perfect 5" score, but hopefully Paul will have a look at the balun design and fix what I think is the only fault.
VK3HGX Rating: 2005-10-29
FANTASTIC Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I WAS LOOKING TO BUY A MFJ -986 ANTENNA TUNER,BUT I HAVE HAD A BAD EXPERIENCE WITH ONE OF THEIR ANTENNA TUNERS. QUALITY WAS POOR. SO I LOOKED THROUGH EHAM ANTENNA TUNER REVIEWS. HERE I FOUND THE PALSTAR AT1KM 5/5 (GREAT REVIEWS)& $$$
AFTER BUYING MY AT1KM THROUGH BURGHARDT RADIO
"FANTASTIC SERVICE" ALL I CAN SAY IS (UNBELIEVABLE) WILL TUNE MY DIPOLE ANTS SO EASY.
THIS IS A QUALITY BUILT TUNER!!! # WELL DONE #PALSTAR,
N6XVO Rating: 2005-10-14
AWESOME TUNER Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I was searching for a antenna tuner to purchase and after reviewing the eham reviews I decided on the PalStar AT1KM. All I can say is it pay to do research. This is the nicest tuner I have every used. It's built tough and looks good too. My space is limited and I'm using a 20m dipole with a 40m dipole folded on the 20M dipole with a Balum and coax. The AT1KM tunes it perfect and believe it or not the antenna is very efficient on all bands from 40m to 10m. My next purchase from PalStar will be the ZM30 Antenna Analyzer. I have spoken with Paul at Palstar in the past regarding some questions and he is great to deal with and very helpful. I know the tech support is there if ever needed. Summary: Highly recommended. You will not be disappointed.