Reviews Summary for LDG AT-7000 LDG AT-7000 Reviews: 6 Average rating: 2.0/5 MSRP: $169 Description: The AT-7000 is the ideal tuner for your shiny new IC-7000. First, it matches up to 10:1 SWR (3:1 on 6 meters), so just about anything you can feed with coax is good to go. The AT-7000 is just 6.5" long, 6.5" deep and 1.5" tall. It weighs only 1.5 pounds, and gets its DC power directly from the radio; no separate power supply needed. The AT-7000 works with any Icom radio that supports AH-3 or AH-4 Icom antennas. This currently includes the IC-7000, IC-706MkIIG, IC-703Plus, IC-718, IC-746 and IC-756ProIII. More info: http://www.ldgelectronics.com/at7000_description.html You can write your own review of the LDG AT-7000. G0LCC Rating: 2/5 Jun 27, 2006 05:41 Send this review to a friend fixed attenuator ! Time owned: 0 to 3 months I liked the size and ease of operation of this atu used with icom ic 706 mk2 At first had simular problems with tuning and loss of signal on receive to others who posted a summery on this peice of equipment. Any thing above 24Mhz and the signal plummited by 20db or so. I sent an e-male to Dwayne and becouse of the signal loss I included a remarked..... "have I purchased an attenuation unit by mistake?" I can only suppose Dwayne took exeption to this and told me not to use the at7000 if the antenna had a reasonable swr this was the entire content of dwayne's first retuning e-male not helpful and definatly not costomer support that you would expect from an established company. After a breif exchange of e-male it was soon established that untill I was nice and really apologetic to Dwayne he would try to help the reason for the recieve loss on signal seem to be due to the close proximity to the antenna (I use trap dipoles in the attic space above the shack) caulsing strong RF to effect the tuning via the coax. (strange as Im pumping 10w of cw right through the middle of it I thought) In short dwayne admitted that he did'nt know the solution to the problem so after an antenna ajusting session in the loft and checking connectors ,earths and moving a leg on the trap dipole 7'across the problem improved slightly the key factor in the solution was when I replaced the patch lead from the atu output socket to the two way antenna switch on the shack wall with a shorter lead the problem on HF went now the only band that gives any concern is 50 Mhz where any attenuation happens which doesnt bother me as this antenna is resonant now works as I would have expected on all hf bands summery 4/5 tuning 5/5 ease of operation/looks 1/5 after sales support 1/5 RF rejection K6USN Rating: 3/5 Jun 24, 2006 07:52 Send this review to a friend Puzzled Time owned: 0 to 3 months I am a huge fan of LDG. I've owned (and reviewed) nearly all of their line of great little tuners. I got the AT 7000 to match the IC 7000. Gave up a perfectly good (flawless) Z11 Pro. My problem is that it won't tune below 1:5 into a Mosley beam that the Z 11 could match perfectly. Worse, the SWR during transmit jumps all over the AT 7000 bar graph - showing a much higher reading than the 'tune' indication. If this has 2000 memories, how come it can't 'remember' any previously tuned setting? (I have to re tune constantly). Also, the manual says it tunes up at 10 W CW. My Astron SS 30 Amp meter shows it is peaking 12 amps on tune - much higher than a 10 watt CW signal would provide. I am going to send this back to Dwayne. I am still a believer in LDG, but perhaps this product was rushed into production to match the just released IC 7000? Allen K6USN K2WH Rating: 1/5 Jun 17, 2006 08:39 Send this review to a friend Junk Time owned: 0 to 3 months This tuner sucks. I just installed it in the car with a 17m hamstick, and no joy. While it can get the SWR down to a nice level, it seems to put in 20db of attenuation at the same time. Signals received without the tuner are worse when the AT-7000 does its thing and tunes to a very good low SWR! In other words, the AT-7000 will provide a low SWR, but then attenuates the signal. Can't figure that out and I don't care to. Compared to my previous ICOM AH-4, the AT-7000 is sorry to say worthless. The AH-4 let me tune the entire 80-6 meter band with only a 17m hamstick. No need to change the antenna! While the correct hamstick is always better, I found and received excellent results using only the 17m hamstick from 40 to 10 meters. My suggestion, steer clear of the LDG unit and get an AH-4. K2WH N6XA Rating: 4/5 Jun 11, 2006 09:43 Send this review to a friend Maybe just teething problems Time owned: 0 to 3 months This is my second post. My experience was also not good with the AT7000, see previous post. However, I am moving my rating up to a 4 because LDG is being great about it. They said I can retrun my AT7000 to them and they will exchange it for the model that has the fine tuning buttons. That should solve my problem of not getting the lowest SWR on 20 & 40 meters. I will continue to support any company with good customer relations such as LDG. Hopefully they just had a bad initial run and can solve the early problems. Know their other tuner get good reviews. KC0TIK Rating: 0/5 Jun 9, 2006 20:48 Send this review to a friend JUNK JUNK!!!! Time owned: 0 to 3 months The AT-7000 is not up to par. The radio has only seen it had a tuner for about 2 min then poof. Now the tuner is DEAF. can have a s9+20 sig and do the inside tune and it lowers to a S0 Rob KC0TIK KB9QPE Rating: 2/5 May 29, 2006 10:21 Send this review to a friend Wish it worked Time owned: 0 to 3 months I'm not sure if I'm having a radio problem or a tuner problem. Part of the difficulty is that the AT-7000 is a black box (literally and figuratively!). You plug it into the radio (an Icom 7000 in my case) utilizing the Icom tuner port and a coax. All of the control of the tuner is via the radio. When it works, it's great! However, when you have a problem, it's hard to know what's happening. There are no LEDs or anything on the AT-7000 to guide you in operating. (There is one on the main board but you have to open up the box). The first time I plugged in my AT-7000 I could not get the tune button to start the tuning process. I read the LDG manual several times, re-read the Icom manual several times and kept trying. Eventually something worked and it worked great. Now I'm back to where I started. A 'beep' when I press the tune button, but no tuning. When it was working, I was able to tune up a Buddistick antenna with an SWRs up to 2.8:1 without any problem. The initial tuning process is noisy but really pretty fast. When the proper match is obtained, the Tune status is displayed on the Icom LCD display. Subsequent re-tunes when QSY'ing within the same band are extremely quick. Overall, I would be pleased with the operation if I could just figure out why it's not working. I think a couple of externally visible LEDs on the face of the AT-7000 could make trouble-shooting much easier. I'll update this review if I can get this problem resolved. =============================================================================================== Doesn't anyone experiment anymore? Posted by: "Bill Gerhold" k2wh@optonline.net wa2aeh Date: Mon Jul 3, 2006 11:03 am (PDT) Marty, Yes you are flaming. What makes you think users of the AT-7000 or other tuners are not experimenting and trying to fix problems with defective poorly designed tuners? I have been trying various methods of coax lengths, tuner settings and antennas to no avail with the AT-7000. I would love to know what tuner you are using that you have had such great success with if you are using a tuner at all. BTW, a resonant dipole does not need a tuner. Comparing one tuner to the other is a time honored way of evaluating performance in real world conditions, disregarding all the hype from the manufacturer. There are many dissatisfied users of the AT-7000. Just go to Eham equipment reviews and read all about it. http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/5922 Other than that, try to help the members of this site instead of being part of the problem. K2WH A ham of 37 years; building, designing and using tuners. _____ From: Marty Sent: Sunday, July 02, 2006 7:40 PM To: LDG-auto-tuners@yahoogroups.com Subject: [LDG-auto-tuners] Doesn't anyone experiment anymore? Geesh: "My tuner doesn't work on 6" "my tuner doesn't work on 20" "my tuner doesn't work on 2 out 5 bands" "my tuner doesn't work as well as an AH-4" Couldn't hurt to experiment with different lengths of wire or use a 4:1 balun instead of a 1:1. Do all of you just buy a dipole off of Ebay and expect it to tune with an auto tuner? I am not trying to flame but geesh, lighten up. Get off your Bumms and do a little work. Marty KG6QKJ =============================================================================================== Using AT 7000 with the IC 7000 Posted by: "k6usn2002" k6usn@aol.com k6usn2002 Date: Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:07 pm (PDT) This is a follow up to a previous post. I've been using the LDG AT 7000 with the IC 7000 for 6 weeks now. At first I had some problems getting it tune quickly on familiar frequencies. Also had some questions about the power out during tune. I can report than the AT 7000 is working fine for me after extensive use. I shortened a coax jumper and perhaps this avoided a ground loop. I've noticed some of my other LDG tuners are suseptable to strong close RF fields, and perhaps this was the problem. Anyway, it works well for me now, and is a nice companion for the IC 7000 on my travels. I don't plan on replacing it. I'd be interested in hearing from other AT 7000 users. I think the e Ham reviews don't do it justice, and I don't like to see it get a bum rap with only 6 reviews to judge it by. Allen K6USN(ZK1USN) =============================================================================================== Using AT 7000 with the IC 7000 Posted by: "Rich Kelly" richpdc@centurytel.net richkelly66 Date: Thu Jul 13, 2006 9:37 am (PDT) I received my AT 7000 tuner 2 days before FD this year. Never used it before FD?.went to FD and it worked great, the IC 7000 played very well with it and it looked good sitting under the 7000! Took it home after FD and hooked it up to the 6m antenna, which is when the problems started. It wouldn?t tune correctly on 6m, the swr would say on the radio that the antenna was 1.5:1, but you couldn?t hear anything. It was like it was attenuated or the antenna wasn?t even hooked up. I would press the tune button momentarily to turn off the at7000 and for an instant, I could hear full receive again?.then it would go dead and the swr would be ?through the ceiling?. Tried to clear the at7000 of its memories and start over, called ldg, nothing worked. Had to send the tuner back to LDG for repairs. I?ve been without it since then. They received it on the 6th of July and couldn?t give me any kind of time-frame for repair. They were even very rude and sarcastic when I asked about it, maybe they are feeling stressed about this issue, because I have heard others with the same problem. So, now the tuner has cost me an extra $12.00 to ship it back to them for repair and I still have only used it once! Take this story for whatever it is worth to you?.. Rich Kelly KB9RNO =============================================================================================== Need help with AT-7000 and IC-7000 Posted by: "Bob Rinaldi w1cny" w1cny@comcast.net w1cny Date: Thu Aug 31, 2006 4:55 am (PDT) Thaks to all who have replied. It was a bad connector. Its working "as advertised" now ! 73, Bob W1CNY ----- Original Message ----- From: ly2ij To: ic7000@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 3:52 AM Subject: [IC-7000] Re: Need help with AT-7000 and IC-7000 Try to switch IC-700 off and then on after tuner is connected. Did work for me. --- In ic7000@yahoogroups.com, "Bob Rinaldi w1cny" wrote: > > Hello: I cannot get the "tune" indicator on the IC-7000 to come on. It will not activate the LDG AT-7000 tuner. The tuner has been checked out at LDG and it is working properly. I just can't get the IC- 7000 to "see" the tuner. > > Could someone help me with the proper menu settings on the IC-7000 which will activate the tuner, or with any advice that would help? > > Thanks !! > Bob > W1CNY > =============================================================================================== Need help with AT-7000 and IC-7000 Posted by: "Scott Schoemann" sschoemann@wi.rr.com n9tgw Date: Mon Aug 28, 2006 5:45 pm (PDT) Depending on how you want the tuner to operate you may need to change a soldered jumper in the radio, along with the menu settings. I don't recall the pages but it is in the manual. Just keep in mind what mode of operation the non-Icom tuner is emulating when you set everything up. Scott N9TGW =============================================================================================== Need help with AT-7000 and IC-7000 Posted by: "Rich Kelly" richpdc@centurytel.net richkelly66 Date: Mon Aug 28, 2006 7:43 pm (PDT) I’m using the at-7000 tuner with the ic-7000. I didn’t have to change any jumpers in the radio to make it work. Didn’t you get a setup manual with the at-7000? E-mail me off-list and I will try to help you. That tuner is made to work with the 7000 and it should be pretty easy to setup. Rich Kelly KB9RNO =============================================================================================== Need help with AT-7000 and IC-7000 Posted by: "Mike" cbr929rr@ameritech.net y2kplus1_cbr929rr Date: Tue Aug 29, 2006 2:40 pm (PDT) Make sure you press in the DIN connector all the way. Sometimes it feels like it is in but a little push and it goes in another 1/8 inch. Tuner will not operate properly unless this connecter is seated correctly. Something to try........ Mike _____ From: ic7000@yahoogroups.com [mailto:ic7000@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Bob Rinaldi w1cny Sent: Monday, August 28, 2006 3:21 PM To: IC-7000 Subject: [IC-7000] Need help with AT-7000 and IC-7000 Hello: I cannot get the "tune" indicator on the IC-7000 to come on. It will not activate the LDG AT-7000 tuner. The tuner has been checked out at LDG and it is working properly. I just can't get the IC-7000 to "see" the tuner. Could someone help me with the proper menu settings on the IC-7000 which will activate the tuner, or with any advice that would help? Thanks !! Bob W1CNY =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== ============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== ============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== =============================================================================================== ===============================================================================================