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Reviews For: DU 3000

Category: Antenna Tuners/Matching Networks

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Review Summary For : DU 3000
Reviews: 5MSRP: 580 USD
Description:
DU 3000, high quality antenna tuner
Product is in production
More Info: http://ha8du.ham.hu/du_3000_eng.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0055
K9IUQ Rating: 2019-11-03
A Beast Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I feel out of place here being the only USA ham with a review on this beast of a tuner. Not surprising as this tuner is made in Hungary and seems popular in the EU but relatively unknown in the USA. My tuner was bought at Dx Engineering USA. I have the Du-3000TB model, the one with the balun.

As a long time ham of 57 years I have had many tuners. Good ones and bad ones unfortunately. Since the 1970's I have owned various amps, so I need a tuner that can handle Big Power like 1500 watts. I have many antennas but the ones that need a tuner are my 160 mtr Inverted L and my open wire fed 130 ft doublet. The 160 Inv L has always been a problem for my tuners. I smoked my Ten-tec 238B tuner in a contest last winter. So I needed a new tuner that would handle my antennas without failing. I was going to get a Ameritron ATR-30 which seems to be a good high power tuner. I have owned a couple of Palstars in the past but was less than satisfied with them.

Initially I was reluctant to buy a tuner made outside of the USA. Dx Engineering assured me it had a 2 yr warranty that they would honor. So I bought one even though I thought it was a little too expensive. I am very happy I did. The first thing I did after receiving it was pop the top. Had to see what it was made of, even though I had seen many pictures of the tuner on the web.

I was impressed by what I saw. High quality construction with very high quality components. This thing is a Real Beast of a Tuner. How does it play? Perfectly. The first tuner I have ever owned that does not choke on 160 mtrs. My only nitpick is the tuner does not have lighting on the meter or Inductor dial. The Inductor dial is hard to read at certain angles because of lack of lighting. I could not fairly deduct a star for this however as I knew before I bought the unit , it had no lights.

This tuner will tune everything I believe and should last your lifetime.

Stan K9IUQ
F4HNL Rating: 2019-06-23
great tuner ! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have the balun version (guanella type balun inside). Built with lots of overkill. Big tuner that accepts big power.
Thus it needs some power to see the needles moving, so tune with 30 watt or a more. Also the read-out window of the roller inductor could be bigger.
Can connect two antennas, and has a symmetrical output. All components are simple but very heavy duty. It misses some of the ultra-smoothness of japanese or german gear. For the price (it is about 725 euros in this version) i do not think i could find anything that comes close to its power handling, sturdyness and versatility.
DK7BY Rating: 2018-01-08
Great Tuner Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This Tuner is a real tank, very robust design. I own the Tuner with the 4:1 Balun which works real nice. Pictures on my homepage www.dk7by.de
PE1DFT Rating: 2011-09-02
Best I have seen sofar Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
After the purchase of a TL922 PA I was in search for a new tuner. I run a 33 mtr end-feed longwire with a 1:9 unun (Balun Designs, Denton Tx). I looked at some of the "obvious choices" like MFJ and Palstar AT2K before I got informed about the tuner line from HA8DU, a radioamateur from Hungary doing some small scale manufacturing (see bigdesigns.com) Looked at the DU1500(L) and DU3000 and was struck by the level of craftmanship. Big, heavy ceramic switches (aforementioned tunes are a laugh compared in this respect), large Roller Coaster and HQ varco's, all ceramic. And all this put together in a real nice aluminium enclosure. Tuning my wire on 40 and 80 appeared to be very simple, the built-in PWR/SWR meter being quite accurate (compared to the Bird)...Built for 3KW, and looking at the construction I believe must be really capable of doing so, especially when compared to others who claim 2KW!

Leonard NL PE1DFT
IZ5MOQ Rating: 2010-10-25
perfect choice Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I was thinking and looking all around for a tuner, to provide me a bit, only on 80 and 160 with some wire antenna. I am active on that bands, expecially during the contests, all segments/modes, and < in some circumstances > the tuner is useful to provide me with the "the small touch-up". I was a little undecided, I did not know which product to buy. Thanks to some friends, I meet the DU 3000 by HA8DU and my doubts are gone: Purchased product! The translations were perfect, Accuracy and reliability by HA8DU, high-power tested, 160/10, multi-antenna switch, bypassing and so on. The watt/SWR-crossmeter, is well calibrated. Very quick delivery times.