K9ZW Shack Reconfigured - Expert Amp and Palstar AT-Auto Tuner

Have been doing some reconfiguration in the K9ZW Shack.

To keep all the bits talking to each other I’ve started running DDUtil

This Utility allows for “passive listening” devices doing frequency following of a transceiver’s VFO and will control or read the Array Systems PowerMaster SWR Meter, the Green Heron Rotor Control, the Expert 1K Amp, the Palstar AT-Auto Tuner and of course the Flex-Radio Flex-5000A Transceiver.

Here is a sample of what my dual screen set up looks like. The blue window behind MixW is Flex Radio’s monitor, as I was debugging at the time.

The SPE Expert 1KW Amp is doing very well! I quite enjoy its instant-on feature, and how it syncs with the Flex-5000A through DDUtil.

I am a bit less convinced about the Palstar AT-Auto Antenna Tuner. I only need a tuner on 80m and 160m, as all other bands tune 1:1.15 or better barefoot. This particular tuner is a bit of an orphan due to some legal wrangling that has left Palstar unable to service the unit, and the successor a complete unknown. It is also pretty slow tuning between bands.

Here is a close-up of the Right Hand Screen – the Business Screen.

Power SDR is running at the bottom, then clockwise the DDUtil SPE Expert Amp Panel Control, next to it the DDUtil Rotor Control Program, above that the Map Display from MixW, next to it (smallest item) is MixW Frequency Output, the MixW DX Cluster is running top center and then to the right the main DDUtil Program.

I am still tweaking this setup, and hope to have the bugs worked out soon.

73

Steve
K9ZW

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