MAT-1F Auto ATU for Yaesu FTX-1 Field: How Well Does It Work?

VIDEO

The MAT-1F is a very small automatic antenna tuner made specifically for the Yaesu FTX-1 Field. It is lightweight, simple, and very clearly aimed at portable operating. More importantly, it fills an obvious gap, because the FTX-1 Field does not have an internal ATU.

That immediately makes it more than just another accessory. If you are using awkward portable antennas, end-fed wires, or any setup that is less than ideal, an external tuner can turn the radio from “limited by the antenna” into something far more flexible.

The real question is not whether the MAT-1F is neat or compact. It certainly is. The question is whether it actually works well enough to be a serious companion to the FTX-1 Field. After putting it through its paces on a deliberately imperfect antenna, the answer is encouraging.

The MAT-1F is a dedicated 10 watt automatic antenna tuner for the Yaesu FTX-1 Field. That 10 watt rating matters. It means this unit is intended for the Field version only and not for the higher power Optima setup.

• So if you are considering one, the first thing to remember is very simple:
  Use it with the FTX-1 Field
• Do not use it with the Optima
• It is designed around low-power portable operation

Within that role, it makes a great deal of sense. It is compact enough to disappear into a portable bag, and because it is powered by the radio, you do not have another battery or power lead to worry about.

Physically, the MAT-1F is straightforward. One end has the RF input BNC and the data connection that links the tuner to the radio. The other end gives you the antenna output options.
You have two basic ways to use it:    

• Coax-fed antenna system via the BNC output
• Wire antenna system via the red and black banana sockets 

That second option is especially useful for portable work. You can connect an end-fed wire to one terminal and a counterpoise or earth wire to the other. For anyone who likes operating with a simple wire in a tree and a basic counterpoise on the ground, that is a very practical arrangement.

In the box, you also get the necessary leads:

• A 1 metre RF lead with BNC connectors to connect the tuner back to the radio
• A 1 metre data cable that links the MAT-1F to the FTX-1 Field

Because both leads are 1 metre long, the tuner effectively needs to sit within about a metre of the radio.

The MAT-1F keeps things very simple. There is just one LED indicator:

• Green means it is online
• Red means it is tuning
• No light means it is offline

As soon as the tuner is connected and the FTX-1 Field is switched on, the LED comes to life. It is a small detail, but with portable equipment, simple feedback is always welcome.

Before the tuner will operate properly, the radio needs to be configured to expect an external ATU.

The setup process on the FTX-1 Field is:

1. Open the menu system
2. Go to Menu Section 3
3. Select Operation Settings
4. Scroll down to Options
5. At Antenna 1, set it to EXT

After that, make sure the antenna tune function is enabled. Once everything is connected correctly, tuning is impressively quick. In practice, once a match is found, the unit can tune in well under a second.

To find out how capable the MAT-1F really is, it was tested on an antenna system that is not exactly friendly.

The main test antenna was an end-fed wire with a 9:1 unun, using the coax back to the transceiver as the only effective counterpoise. It was roughly 70 feet long and, by any reasonable standard, not a particularly good match on the bands being used.

That is actually ideal for testing a tuner. A very efficient resonant antenna tells you very little about how wide the tuner’s matching range really is. An awkward compromise antenna tells you much more.

On this particular aerial:

• 40 metres is already challenging
• 80 metres has substantial reactance
• The internal tuner in the Optima struggles on 40 metres
• The Optima’s internal tuner will not match it on 80 metres at all

That makes the MAT-1F’s performance on 40 and 80 metres especially interesting.

There was also a quick outdoor test using an even simpler arrangement to simulate portable operation. 

The setup was a bit of a lash-up, but that was the point. It used:

• About 30 feet of wire
• About 25 feet of counterpoise wire laid on the ground
• Wire ends pushed directly into the tuner terminals

One wire ran along the grass as the counterpoise, while the radiating wire was run up into a fig tree and along the top of a fence. Hardly a textbook installation, but exactly the sort of thing many portable operators end up doing in the real world.

Even with that improvised setup, the MAT-1F managed to tune successfully on:

• 80 metres
• 40 metres
• 20 metres
• 17 metres

Higher bands were not fully explored in that particular session because the weather was turning, but the early signs were very good. The tuner clearly had no trouble dealing with a basic portable wire antenna arrangement.

One particularly nice aspect here is power. The MAT-1F is effectively powered from the radio itself, which in this case means making use of the FTX-1 Field’s substantial battery rather than carrying separate power for the tuner.

On 40 metres, the tuner produced good output without difficulty. Given that the antenna itself was not well matched, this was a solid start rather than a trivial result.

80 metres is where things got more interesting. This was the band where the internal tuner in the Optima would not cope with the reactance presented by the antenna.

The MAT-1F, however, managed to find a workable match and deliver proper output on 80 metres. That says quite a lot about its matching range.

Then came the surprise. The tuner was tried on 160 metres, a band where there was little expectation of success with this antenna. Even other tuners had struggled here, including an FT-710 in the same sort of situation.

Yet the MAT-1F still managed to get a match on 160 metres.

That is not a claim that it will magically tune anything on top band, but it does show this little unit is far more capable than its tiny size suggests.

One of the most useful things about the MAT-1F is that it remembers previous matches.

Once it has found a match for a band or frequency range, going back to that band is almost instantaneous. Instead of running through a full tuning cycle each time, it recalls the stored settings and snaps back into operation very quickly.

In practice, that makes the tuner feel far more refined than you might expect from such a small add-on. It is not just matching successfully, it is doing so in a way that is convenient in day-to-day use.

After working across the bands, the tuner had stored successful settings on a wide spread of frequencies. It remembered matches on:

• 160 metres
• 80 metres
• 40 metres
• 20 metres
• 17 metres
• 15 metres
• 12 metres
• 10 metres

The two places where it would not match the test antenna were:

• 10 MHz / 30 metres
• 50 MHz / 6 metres

That was not really held against the tuner, because the issue was the antenna itself. The reactance on those bands was severe enough that other tuners also failed. In other words, this was more a limitation of the aerial than a sign that the MAT-1F is weak.

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There was one interesting operational detail noticed while using the FTX-1 Field and Optima menu system. If you select a menu item such as the tuner control, that selection is effectively stored on the menu button. Pressing the menu button again can trigger the tuning action directly.

It is a small convenience, but once you know it is there, it makes operation feel quicker and more natural.

For such a small automatic ATU, the MAT-1F is impressively capable.

It is:

• Compact
• Lightweight
• Easy to connect
• Powered by the transceiver
• Fast to tune
• Good at remembering settings
• Flexible enough for coax or wire antennas

Most importantly, it proved capable on a genuinely awkward antenna system. It handled 40 metres, succeeded where another tuner failed on 80 metres, and even managed a match on 160 metres. That is far from trivial for a dedicated 10 watt portable tuner.

If you own the Yaesu FTX-1 Field, this tuner makes a great deal of sense.

It is especially appealing if you:

• Operate portable with random wires or end-fed antennas
• Want a simple ATU with no separate power requirements
• Need something small enough to carry easily
• Want a tuner designed specifically for the radio rather than a general-purpose compromise

It is equally usable at home, but its size, power arrangement and wire-antenna flexibility make it particularly attractive for field use.

The MAT-1F is not trying to be a high-power shack tuner. It is a dedicated, low-power automatic tuner for the FTX-1 Field, and judged on those terms, it does its job extremely well.

It is small, efficient, quick, and far more capable than its dimensions suggest. The fact that it can tame some very rough portable antenna arrangements is what makes it a serious accessory rather than just a nice extra.

If you are running the Yaesu FTX-1 Field and want the freedom to throw up a bit of wire, add a counterpoise, and get on the air without fuss, the MAT-1F Auto ATU looks like one of the most sensible additions you can make.

For more information please visit our online store or alternatively contact us and our team will be happy to assist you.