I built a very nice L/Pi-L tuner and used it for years to tune my end fed piece of wire in the backyard. I fed the wire with...coax.
 Hardly optimal but it worked great 160, 80, 40, and 20. I tuned from the shack side of the coax...FAIL

I decided I wanted the higher bands as well as higher efficiency so I got an AH-4 and put it at the feedpoint of my 90ish foot piece
of wire. Ground is a radial system that is...extensive. It is 60 feet from the shack so I bought some Belden 18ga 4 wire with shield
to extend the silly short Icom 16 foot control line. I grounded the shield at the wall pass-thru to the ground on the PL-259 bushing
which goes to ground via #4 THHN stranded wire. I really hoped to tune 160 meters...Nope.
But now 80 meters thru 6 meters tune perfectly. Efficiency is obviously better on 40 meters and up. Noise is lower too which is fantastic.
 I worked Vermont on 40 and had a nice long ragchew with a station in FL on 40 too. I worked Nevada on 40 last night and 80M seems to be
working well too but the ARRL contest made conditions a bit insane. I worked Delaware and PA with 59+ reports easily on 75...but I did so with the old setup as well.  

My old setup was manual tune and a bit slow in use. Pressing the tune button and quickly getting a match is epic. I also like that tuning now
radiates much less than my old system, so much less lid moment operation! Band changes are fast too. I used to move jumpers and spin my inductor
a lot so the convenience is great. For 160 I strapped on some big commie caps from QRO Parts and used big amounts of my roller inductor to get a match.
Even so the Caribbean and Midwest were easy to work with good reports and everyone was amazed I was barefoot. I will miss that.

As it is, I can recommend the AH-4. Hope you can solder though. You must solder a couple of PL259 connectors to install it. No problem for me.
 The included connector quality is not as high as the Amphenol connectors of yore.

 Icom AH-4...excellent tuner. Especially if you don't want to use an amp. I just use my transceiver so it is a good fit for me.

I had one years ago with my IC706mkiig

It worked well.

I had it mounted in the rear of a Ford Ranger, and later a TJ Jeep

when I bought this house, I zipp-tied it to my tree, tossed up a longwire, jabbed an extra large screwdriver into the earth ground and was on my back porch working 20m SSB

wife brought out dinner and a beer, and I thought....it's good to have a house again.

Epic! I just worked south africa on 7156. 5x9 both ways. Nice.
The DX was giving accurate reports too. I heard him give a guy a 4x7. He has strong static from
storms on his end.

It is nice. I wish I had more land. But the QTH is nice for VHF/UHF as well as HF.

I just worked HA8RM. Peter in Hungary on 3795. Not bad for barefoot. He is 5x5 to 5x9 here and I got
a report of 5x5. 4984 miles away on 75. I am pleased.

I like the tripod mount with the mast. That looks great and simple to set up.

That's really cool. How long/tall a wire is that?

I have some wire. And a tripod just like that. And an SCG-239. Hmmm...

Sweet portable rig!

Nice job. Great setup.

The AH-4 is a pretty good tuner.

I use one on a 43' DXE vertical but I used it on a longwire before that and it was pretty good.

IIRC it would tune 160 meters on the long wire but the best I can get is 80 on the vertical.

This has really got me intrigued. I'm thinking a couple of 30ft Jackite poles and you could do a single pole vertical for 40M and up, and with two poles a very nice, 60ft long (give or take, total length) inverted L for 80M. For vehicular portable, fab up a tire stand or a hitch mount.

You can do delta loops too. Then one pole and a couple of tent stakes and some paracord you are ready to go. The AH-4 is ideal for fast deployed
capable HF installations. Using a loop configuration eliminates the need for an efficient counterpoise as well.
  The better the radial/counterpoise the better the single random wire will work...and it reduces the problems with RF on the radio too.
A few snap on chokes are a good idea close to the tuner and the radio on the control line. The included tuner control line is unshielded.

You can't do an 80M delta loop with a 30ft mast, and for 40M might as well stick with the vertical. But an L is easy and will have a low radiation angle.

I run one of these on my land cruiser using a icom 7000 and a regular ole 108” stainless whip...tunes to 80m...

That is true. A tall tree would work!

I already have antennas in tall trees, including an L. I'm intrigued by the portable, lightweight, mast idea.

Anybody know what the velocity factor of a 1/2" wide, steel tape measure might be? I'm thinking that if I strapped a steel tape measure to the bottom of a Jackite pole that would make for a super-convenient antenna setup. If the steel tape was attached so that 3 or 4 feet of tape extended above the top of the 31 foot pole, that would get you to exactly 1/4 wave on 40M. 35 foot tape measures are super common. It would be convenient for making it resonant, too, so if you didn't want the tuner you could just adjust the height as required. Use four YoYo Tenna reels for ground radials.

Velocity factor would be the same as a wire. Wind might make the upper tape piece fold so perhaps a small collapsible
fishing pole could help get it higher without the wind concern. Even some thin pvc pipe would work too.

I use some wire spooled onto an old fly fishing reel for a portable vertical. I want to make a custom reel so that the spool bolts directly to the unun / tuner like the SteppIR portable vertical. As it is I use an alligator clip to attach the unun.

That is really cool. I used a reel once on a device with a wrist rocket to launch a leader over a tall pine. Then we pulled up the paracord
and the giant sloper for 80m. This was for field day at a VA hospital. The powerline hash was overwhelming unfortunately. I never forgot
how well the wrist rocket/ reel combo worked though. It was epic.

I use exactly that combo to setup portable when I find a handy tree branch.  a 2oz. sinker weight acts as the projectile tied to the fishing line to get up and over, then I tie dacron cord to the fishing line and reel it back so the cord can be used to hoist and secure the antenna wire.

I've done a similar thing with a long wire when I needed a bit more efficiency from my mobile, screwdriver antenna. I removed the whip and connected a long wire instead. The wire was up in the trees in "inverted L" configuration. It was quite easy to get the whole thing resonant on 80 meters by just moving the coil with the manual switch.  Got great signal reports.
I've also experimented with a long "inverted L" with a counterpoise wire. A variable capacitor at the antenna feed point was used to electrically shorten the antenna to make it resonant on a chosen frequency. Good results too. Got a sketch of the antenna somewhere if anyone is interested.

I worked Barcelona Spain today on 3800kc. At 7 PM EST!!!! Just ridiculous, that is my earliest transatlantic
on 75 phone I have ever worked. He was using a Yagi. WOW! I got a 59+10 over report from him as well.
Normal this time of year at midnight, not normal for me at 7PM.

Since I installed the tuner at the feedpoint of the wire results have been great. I am having a blast!

Update: I really missed having 160 meters so I put a homebrew coil between the tuner and antenna. I can
now tune 160m anywhere in the band. I worked NJ, VA, and other areas 59+.  When the coil is in place it
is only tunable on 160 but I am fine with that. I pulled the coil back out of line and worked some DX on 80 and 40.

 So 160-6 meters. Excellent!

Your next order of business is to build a remote switch for the coil so you can switch it in and out from the comfort of your shack.

What type or relay would one use for that remote switch?

I built a 160m coil for under my WindRiver coil in my truck that goes to a wire through the fiberglass cap that goes to a 7 foot whip on the luggage rack. from bed to top was about 12 feet.

I worked 160m mobile for a while 100 watts. Of course 100 watts on 160 is kind of light, but it worked and I checked into a 160m regional net with no problem. Those guys know me so they humored me even though they usually don't talk to anybody less than 10 over.

I took it out because it was a pain to put in line and take out to use the other bands. I had trouble finding a relay for RF for up to 600 watts because I was planning on getting a mobile amp because I figured I was radiating about 1 watt.  At 600 watts it would be over a 6 db gain to 6 watts.!

@cistercian
Try a coil as an end load but leave 4-5 feet of wire beyond the coil for tuning and for some capacitive effect. It may work well and you won't have to remove it for the higher frequencies. End loading is more efficient too.
73,
Rob

I used these relays in my KK1L 2x6 remote switch unit. It runs just fine at 500W. I've heard that they will run just fine at 1500W, but I wouldn't hot switch them.

I could use a switch but I am unwilling to run another 65 foot control line. Where the coil is is also a HV RF place
 on some bands. I really only wanted 160 for the time that contests are running there and occasional use. I don't
mind the manual method at all! Where I install the coil is where there is a break to disconnect the tuner for thunderstorms.
 There is no switch I trust for that task so manual operation is baked into the cake.

The far side of the wire needs a bucket truck to fool with as the tree grew around the support cable...which is steel CATV
 main transmission line messenger cable which is in a heavy plastic insulation/weather proof jacket. I can hang from the antenna
and could not break it free or break the copperweld! Stealth is important here as well. No cage antennas! Also...it ices here.
That and high winds dictate strength above almost any other quality. I have lost the tops of trees but the antenna has never come down.



 I posted the 160m info because lots of people cannot put enough wire in the air for 160 and find that the AH-4 tunes all other
bands fine. I have never seen another case where a series inductor was used with an AH-4 to do so. I am amazed it works so well.
The only other wire I will be adding in the yard will be even more radials...and those will be invisible to the XYL!

Sounds like a plan!
73,
Rob