Manager


Manager - NA4M
Manager Notes

Reviews For: Palstar AT5K

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

eMail Subscription

Registered users are allowed to subscribe to specific review topics and receive eMail notifications when new reviews are posted.
Review Summary For : Palstar AT5K
Reviews: 41MSRP: 1195
Description:
The AT5K takes power handling to the next level coming in with a rating of 3500 watts single tone continuous performance with low losses & wide Z range. Bands 160m to 15m with limited Z range on 10m. The AT5K provides balanced OUTPUT with high power 5kW TEFLON cable balun at the INPUT of the tuner circuit for excellent balanced feed antenna operation.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.palstar.com/en/at5k.php
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00414.4
W9BB Rating: 2021-02-13
I'm surprised Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I'm surprised about the bad reviews I have owned 7 different Palstar's and have not a bad experience with one yet , I presently own 2 at5k's and they work flawless . I guess I'm lucky ..happy Palstar owner 73
WA8EBM Rating: 2019-03-31
Mixed feelings Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Bought it new 13 years ago. It never met my expectations. I mainly used it for 80 thru 30 meters. It would not tune any antenna higher than that. I used it cautiously on 160 with my 132 foot dipole with 3 1/2in open wire feeders and outside mounted 4:1, 5KW balun with 10 foot coax lead into the shack. Heath 2060A tuned 160 thru 10 with this antenna. Had to take down my 3el Steppir so called Paul at Palstar on how to upgrade the AT5K to be current. He told me it was obsolete and no upgrades. Looks almost identical inside to newest model. That will be my last Palstar contact.
Proceeded with upgrade myself. I removed the large input balun and fed the input directly into the T-network as is done with the AT5K HP. I removed the ridiculous huge Omron 30 amp open frame relay that had to be energized constantly if you were not running open wire feeders. I ran a half inch copper strap from the output cap to ground and got rid of all the long inductive wiring in the output circuitry.
My AT5K and antenna system will now tune between 1500khz and 51.5mhz with under 1.1:1 thru 10mtrs and less than 1.3:1 on 6 meters. I have run a KW on 160 and 400w on 6 with no arcing, spitting or obvious heat related SWR swings. I easily installed a new Output 5KW 4:1 voltage balun inside the tuner should I ever decide to run open wire feeders direct. Obsolete, I think not!

correction on last
I ran the 1/2 inch copper strap from the cold end of the roller inductor to ground not the output cap.
WL7UP Rating: 2019-01-12
Very nice Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
After reading some of these reviews I must say I was not sure if I wanted this tuner. I did have a 2k palstar and it worked fine for 14 years with not one problem and knowing stuff happens I opted to give this tuner a go. My two buddies both have the 4K and love them so my decision really wasn`t that hard in the end. Well the po dropped it and bent the case, even as well as the tuner was boxed. I got this from dx engineering and they were great and I bent the case back in shape and put 1500 through it and no problem. I contacted palstar and got a new knob that was cracked and they sent it free when they heard what happened. I`ve had it for a while and it`s a tank and the meter is much better than mt old 2k was. I can only write what I know and I would recommend this tuner to anyone.....
N4MIT Rating: 2018-10-11
Not worth the money Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
a little background I have a Yaesu FTDX5000 and a Yaesu Quadra amp (1200w max) and a 43ft vertical for all bands 160-10 tuned with this AT5K.

Well I have had mine less than 1 yr and the first thing the went was the (balanced/coax) relay. I was on 10m and it was tuned for 1:1 and under 1kw.

Next I was tuning up on 80m with 50w and something arced inside. I removed the cover and applied the 50w again and a nice arc had developed between the screws that hold the roller on and the end of the inductor form. I removed the inductor to find a nice burn in the fiberglass on the end of the inductor. I have cleaned off the burnt track with a dremel tool and then covered the entire end with a layer of clear silicone. I ground down the end of the screws and covered them with silicone also.

For a 3500w tuner it's a $1200 piece of trash. My old MFJ 986 tunes better and never arcs like this POS does. I wish that I had never bought it.

I will never make that mistake again. I wouldn't recommend the AT5K Palstar to anyone.
WT4P Rating: 2017-02-18
Just OK Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had mine for almost two years. I've had to have it repaired twice. First the internal balun went kaput. Then last November, something popped while transmitting under a kilowatt of power. The palstar's meter was showing a good match at the time. So, I had it repaired. It's been ok for a few weeks now. I have kept it clean and followed the directions in the user manual for the AT5K to the T. Go figure. I hope it's fixed for good now.
M0RDW Rating: 2016-02-15
OK while it lasted. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I’ve owned an AT5K for 8 years and its always had some issues from new. On 10m with 100w input it will peg the meter off the scale on the 300w setting and will usually read 1KW on the 3KW scale sometimes a good bang on the case will sort it out but as I don’t use 10m very often, its never been a problem.

I used the tuner over the years with different aerials and loads and other than the 10m issue this tuner has tuned the lot although 35W on 160m will arc the tuner like a plasma ball although I am fully aware of the silly load presented to the tuner.

I have come to use the tuner today and the meter is telling lies, big lies! The power needle is reading low, way low. 150W is reading 25W when it has always read 150W and the SWR is reading way high, I have a 5KW dummy load connected to the bypass so I can tune up my amplifier at full power once in a while, the SWR today is reading 4:1. I have double checked on a spare meter and can see 1500W with a SWR of 1:1 however the AT5K reads 300W with a SWR of 4:1 all meters agree with each other i.e. amplifier and radio apart from the Palstar.

I have taken the lid off to find the tuner in immaculate dust free condition with absolutely no signs of arcing or burning anywhere in the unit, even behind the screening panels for the meter board and measurement board.

Now for a 5KW pep (3500W single tone) yes thats what it says in my manual although the Palstar site says 3.5KW pep. I find it strange that the power meter is only rated at 2KW, yet has full scale deflection of 3KW??? Likewise how does a tuner that is rated for 3.5KW continuous only have a full scale deflection meter that reads 3KW. I think Palstar are lying to themselves and everybody about what their products will and will not do!

I'm not going to go into details, but many emails and Facebook messages and posts on the Palstar page, I HAVE HAD NO RESPONSE WHATSOEVER, im left with a built like a tank paperweight with no customer support to fix it. So I can only give this tuner a big fat 0.

Do not buy this tuner, one day you could be left with a £1200 paperweight too.

Previous comments about glowing customer service must be lies as I cannot get a response from a manufacturer that prides itself on glowing customer service.

I would have rated the tuner a 4 out of 5 until this issue, but as my tuner is now useless and I cannot get the manufacturer to respond in any way shape or form, I have no other choice to give it a big fat 0.

You're reading this to get an honest opinion and review of this item just like I did. Do not take any notice of what has been said before, do not fall into the same false sense of security. Do yourself a favour and steer clear of this company and do not make the same mistake that I did.

NEVER AGAIN!

PALSTAR YOU SUCK!!!
K8AC Rating: 2015-01-05
A very heavy duty tuner Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
If you need a general purpose heavy duty tuner that will handle the legal limit on difficult loads, then this may be exactly what you need. But if you're looking for one tuner that will cover 160 through 10, then you may find it a bit lacking. Here's the way I see it:

Pros:
1. Power handling - the components used in this tuner are high-end and usually found in only the finest homebrew tuners where cost is no object.
2. Resetability - the capacitor adjustments use Jackson ball drive verniers and the scale is graduated in units from 1 to 100. The inductor counter is 5 digits, with the last digit reading out the position in tenths of a turn. The result is that you can reset the controls accurately without having to apply a signal to adjust the tuner when you change bands or frequency within a band.
3. The antennas connected to the coax inputs can use the tuner or you can bypass the tuner circuitry just by turning the switch.
4. The tuner includes a muffin fan that can be turned on to cool the rotary inductor.
5. The wattmeter is reasonably accurate.
6. Palstar goes out of the way with details such as the use of nylon washers under the external cabinet screws, to prevent damaging the painted finish when installing/removing the screws.

Cons:
1. The tuner is LARGE with a cabinet depth of 18" (larger than my old Alpha 86 amplifier).
2. The port to port isolation may not be what you'd like when using one of the bypass ports for a dummy load. For example, when receiving an S9 + 20 dB signal on a balanced line antenna on 40M, the same signal dropped to S3 when the AT5K was switched to the dummy load on Coax1(bypass mode).
3. I use the tuner on an 80 meter dipole fed with ladder line on 80 through 10 meters. I can't get the SWR down above the CW band on 10 but Palstar properly warns about the limited matching range on 10 meters. I think the basic problem is that the tuning capacitors have too high a minimum value. Palstar's tuner made for balanced lines only has a two section capacitor that can be switched between high and low from the front panel and it would be nice to have that capacitor on this tuner.
4. I put this one in the "nit picking" category, but when I unwrapped the tuner (bought it second hand) my wife said it appeared the cabinet had been repainted. A close inspection indicated it had not been - she was just noticing the irregular appearance of the finish owing to the powder-coat paint.

In summary, this is a fine high power tuner that uses the best components in a solid T-match design. But, it may not satisfy you if you want a single tuner to cover all bands from 160 through 10 due to the limited matching range on 10 meters. I'll be keeping my MFJ-989D around for use on 10 meters where it matches my ladder-line fed antenna across the band just fine. In all other ways, the MFJ is the inferior tuner of course.
5B4AJG Rating: 2014-09-09
Stunning! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I expect this'll be my last atu. Unless my shack should be hit by a nuclear missile......BUT then I'm tempted to believe the AT-5K would survive.
Top notch quality.
No more JUNK will enter my shack.
K6YE Rating: 2013-09-17
AWESOME Time Owned: more than 12 months.
It is nearly as large as my Alpha 91B and sits on the amplifier rack. The quality is A-1 in every respect. It matches everything that I have tried. Prior to this, I had a Nye-Viking MB-IV but it did not like my Alpha-Delta Sloper on 160 or 80 meters. I have run all four amplifiers (Alpha 91B, Kenwood TL-922, Drake L4-B, and Heathkit SB-220) at 1.5KW without any problems. IMHO, you cannot buy a more robust manual tuner than the AT5K.

Semper Fi,

Tommy - K6YE
DX IS and CW RULES
WD1V Rating: 2013-06-26
First Rate Support Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I most likely got the same unit in the previous review where the forward reading watt meter didn't work and the ground screw inside the chassis had come loose. I called the factory and spoke with Paul. He encouraged me to look inside, found loose wire that I re-soldered, tightened ground screw and done. I think UPS was the shock test that loosened it up - at 25 pounds its got some serious mass. Took pictures - elegant construction! Tuner tunes all of 160 meters smooth as silk with Alpha 9500 and K3/P3 driving it.