The Signal Report | Operator Stories, Antenna Physics, Field Reports | Greyline

A perfect 1:1 match proves your power left the radio. It does not prove it left as signal. Maxwell and Zavrel on the difference, the dummy-load thought experiment, and the one question to ask any antenna maker who says the word efficient.

A good tuner, a clean match, and the SWR wandering from 17 meters down. The tuner is fine; the antenna is moving. The three usual suspects, the physics of why low bands suffer first, and the free fix to try before you buy anything.

The common-mode choke goes on the radio side of the tuner, on the matched line. Between the antenna and the tuner it only makes work for your ATU. The published physics of W7EL, K9YC, W2DU, and W7SX, plus three real stations from one week of Greyline mail.

A current balun forces equal currents; a voltage balun forces equal voltages -- and on any real antenna, only one of those keeps the feedline out of the antenna. Including the voltage balun's one legitimate job.

A 4:1 balun often makes the SWR meter happier without making your signal stronger. Real analyzer plots from N3EQF show why -- and where the match should actually live.

Ground is three different jobs wearing one word: lightning protection, the RF return, and bonding. Here is the untangling, with the bookshelf open -- N0AX, N6LF, and K9YC.

Ask ten operators where the ATU belongs and you start a decades-old fight. Both camps are right -- for their own stations. Three architectures the published physics supports, the one combination it does not, and the free calculator that settles your case.

A customer on a Maine waterfront called the letter he received "the finest business letter I have ever received" and printed it out for his grandson graduating in naval architecture. Here's the story of what happened, why it happened, and what it means for every Greyline customer going forward.