Galaxy DX88HL

It's awful pretentious to claim that you have knowledge that Mark does not.
The word test has many meanings depending on how you interpret it.
There are many tests that could be performed on coaxial cable.
Since I'm just a stupid truck driver I will assume you are referring to phase angle measurement.
If that's the case then an Agilent 4396B Network Analyzer or vna should do the trick.


Yes you are correct the MFJ 259-B is a very crude instrument. Even I, the stupid truck driver am fully aware of that.

 

For the rv, the the easiest would be screw a piece of sheet metal to the roof and use a mag mount.

 

I don't think that will work very well. Every antenna need a counterpoise of some sort and unless that piece of sheet metal is resonant at the frequency you are trying to use, it won't work.

 

It will work better than you think. The larger the sheet the better probably,but a buddy of mine has a 2'x2' on top with a Wilson mag mount. Have no problems hearing him at 10+ miles in the big truck.

 

Not "all" hams use "tuners". A few use dedicated verticals and dipoles for each band. A tuner is an item of convenience, and, indeed, might be required for some antennas. Many different reasons for that (room for antennas, type of antenna (folded dipoles, etc). And they can actually work surprisingly well. I have an LDG autotuner I was using with my Cobra Untralite Senior, a light weight, compact 102' dipole that gave remarkable results from 160-10M. This allowed me to check into several military nets, FEMA, and also ham DX.

Many things are a compromise! And a tuner IS just THAT: a compromise. It does NOT "tune" anything, much less an antenna. You can think of it in one way as a big resistor: it acts like a "dummy load" whereby it permits a 50 ohm load for the radio, and dissipates heat! Unfortunately, that heat substitutes for the SIGNAL that would be emitted IF it was a resonant antenna instead.
The "tuner" just so happens to sent out enough signal to, perhaps, get a message out/in--even sometimes working fairly well. Mine DID! But IF I were working contests (I don't), I might, recognizing that a tuner is not the best thing going, utilize a well-tuned, single-band antenna for the frequency of choice.

And again, in that case, I would "cut" the antenna to frequency rather than cut the coax in order to "tune" the antenna. When its all said and done, the coax has little to DO with it. IF coax was so important, then we wouldn't need an antenna!