I'm not particularly careful at all. I have an MFJ-971 which I tune for max noise, then a short transmission to get as close as possible to 1:1, which I almost never achieve on either my balanced dipole, or my EFW. I've also used MFJ 949E, and QRP Guys mini tuners. I've been using QRL Labs transceivers for almost 5 years and never blown a final. I have an original QCX, two QCX minis, a QDX, and a QMX. I built them all from kit form, and I keep a bag full of BS170s in the shop just in case, because of all the horror stories I've heard here. I don't know what I may be doing differently, but I've had a lot of success with BS170s withstanding some fairly high SWRs. I suspect it may be because I don't stress myself with trying to squeeze the last milliwatt out of these transceivers.?
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73, Dan - W2DLC
Daniel Conklin