I put a G5RV antenna up to try out my Yeasu FT-900 however I found that the internal tuner didn't have enough range to match this antenna. In a hurry to get on the air, and on a college kid budget, I threw together a junk bin L network antenna tuner to get it going.

The variable inductor is wound with solid core 14 gauge wire around a cardboard tube with taps at regular intervals. The inductor value can be tuned by connecting an alegator clip at different points. The variable capacitor was scrapped out of an old tube AM radio and the coax connectors were pulled from some junk CB radios.

The capacitance range isn't quite enough with the variable capacitor so I added additional capacitors in parallel. With this makeshift tuner I was able to get the SWR down to just under 1.5 on the G5RV antenna using the radio's internal tuner to fine tune the impedance match. I had to keep the transmit power below 50 watts but I was able to make contacts on 80, 40, and 20 meters.