1. Icom Ah-4 Control Cable
2. Control Cable For Cars
3. Hydraulic Control Cable

My current antenna is the B.A.L. -- a large, horizontal loop that's about 150 meters of wire about 15-20 meters up in the trees around the yard. I think it's a great all band antenna.

The AH-4 is enclosed in a weatherproof housing and is capable of being permanently installed outdoors. It interfaces to the radio with the coaxial feed line and a 4-conductor control cable. The cable carries the 12 volt power and ground, and the KEY and START control lines. Icom AH-4 HF+50 MHz Automatic Antenna Tuner Compatible with most Icom HF radios, including but not limited to: Icom 703, 703+, 706 MkIIG, 718, 746, 746Pro, 756, 756Pro, 756ProII, 756ProIII, 7000, 7100, 7200, 7300, 7410, 7600, 7800, 9100.

I buried a couple of coax runs from the shack wall to a spot about 15m away behind a large bush. The ladder line from the loop falls down to this spot so I do not have wires directly hanging off the house (which makes the YL happy). I was using a DX Engineering MAXI-CORE Balun and was happy with the results. (As an aside: I love hamfests! I picked up this used balun for a song.

Icom Ah-4 Control Cable

) I used this setup for a few years and have been pretty happy with the results.
Since the loop is a non-resonant antenna, the SWR can be high. I've been using the tuners built into my transceivers (Elecraft K2 & K3) but have been concerned about loss in the coax. Since I only run 100 watts or less, I want every bit of power to get to the antenna and not be used to heat the coax. Placing a tuner at the end of the coax run is supposed to reduce the coax loss. I had always planned on adding a remote tuner when the budget allowed. When I buried the coax, I also threw in a couple of runs of CAT-5 cable that I had laying around for use for some sort of remote control.

The remote connection at the end of the coax run

I recently acquired an Icom AH-4 remote antenna tuner. I am using one of the CAT-5 runs as the control cable for the AH-4; I simply used each twisted pair together for the power and control signals. I no longer use the balun.

All connected and ready to go!

Since I am using this tuner with a non-Icom radio, I needed a way to tell the tuner to initiate the tune cycle. I whipped up the circuit described as the universal controller and it seems to do the job. (Edit Jan 2019: The link to the universal controller diagram http://www.k2.dion.ne.jp/%7Esradio/AH-4En.htm no longer works! There is a discussion on eham with a diagram that I think is similar.) I do plan on building a better controller that will initiate the tune cycle and then key the radio automatically.

Control Cable For Cars

The 'controller' in the shack

Hydraulic Control Cable

I've been very happy with the tuner so far. It finds a decent match (less then 1.5:1) on all bands and I believe it has made a difference. I don't have empirical evidence to support that, though! At least I no longer worry about loss in the coax...