EA5XQ Radio Shack - Pictures of the rebuilt ZMATCH

This tuner has a long story. I bought it to "a colleague" by 6500 pts (39,06 €) with the promise that it worked perfectly. Well, when I received it by mail it has the conditions that you can see in the pictures ... and obviously it did not work at all ... ADVICE: Never buy anything to anybody even though you really need it unless you check it out before.

THAT IS BEFORE .....

AND THAT IS AFTER WORKING A LOT WITH IT .... AND IT WORKS FINE!!!

The rebuilt of the former tuner took me to the consideration of reviewing the design (due to the fact that the real one was completely different from the one sent by email), therefore I started to look for in internet designs of ZMATCH and SWR Bridges.

I found one really interesting in New Jersey QRP Club, on design that is shown in the following picture and I modified the SWR Bridge too following a design of KD1JV known as STOCKON.

Where

C1 and C2 are 250pf (even though it was recommended 330pf or greater)

L1: 22 turns enameled wire on T-157-6 tapped at 5 (ground) and 11 from the bottom(if you have T-130-6 or T-200-6 they are 24 turns and tapped at 6 and 12 from the bottom)

L2 High Impedance Link: 10 turns enameled wire interwound between the turns of L1 taking in mind that 5 turns should be on each side of the ground tap on L1.

L3 Low Impedance Link: 4 turns enameled wire interwound between the turns of L1 taking in mind that 2 turns should be on each side of the ground on L1 C1 as well as C2 must be floating above ground. It makes more difficult the construction of the tumer.