A few days ago I built something called the Tuna Tunah. What on earth is that you ask. In order to understand where the name comes from you have to know a little bit about upper New England (US) accents. In Maine, pronunciation of words ending in “r” often come out sounding like “a.” Think President Kennedy, his Cape Code accent had a similar sound.
The Tuna Tunah should actually be spelled “Tuna Tuner,” but due to the above mentioned dialect, comes out with an “ah” at the end, rather than an “r.” The tuner in question here is a kit that is made by a small company in Maine, QRPME.com and it is a nice little unit that has a circuit board that mounts on a tuna fish can, hence the “Tuna Tunah.”
When I hiked the Appalachian Trail I had a homemade, or “homebrewed” (ham jargon for homemade) tuner that I carried so my ham radio would work with the rather simple antenna wire that I would throw up in a tree to communicate with other “hams.” The wire was about 51 feet (15.5 m) long and to work properly on all of the ham short wave bands I had to use a “tuner” to match things up properly. The tuner I carried on that hike was delicate, the new Tuna Tunah is much more rugged and fits nicely in the box I carry the radio equipment in. I’ve included a few photos of the equipment.
Like most “hams” I modified the original design of the Tuna Tunah. We just can’t seem to leave things alone. In my case I used different coils than the original unit used. I wound some toroid coils, which look like little doughnuts. The original coils were made on a machine and sealed in a plastic case. My concern is that if one of them were to burn out, or break from all the bouncing on the trail, I would not be able to easily repair them. The toroids are more rugged and if the wire breaks, I can just rewind them with more wire. The toroid itself can even be glued back together if it cracks.
The radio gear is ready for the Camino de Santiago, hiking gear is ready, now the question remains: is the hiker ready? We’ll see…
Dennis “K1” Blanchard
