Well, you're just flat wrong about auto tuners.  You can tell me 2 and 2 
is 5 all day and that won't make it so.  I've used auto tuners and manual 
tuners since I got my 440 with one in 1985.  I got my novice license in 
1961, never got on the air but got my general in 1968.  The only auto 
tuner I have had trouble with is this last m f j I got, and I should have 
known better.  We all don't know auto tuners are bad.  If you don't like 
them, so be it, but a blanket statement like that just isn't so.  If you 
insist on using a manual tuner, than for heaven sake get something so you 
know when it is tuned.  You can not, and I say again can not do it just by 
listening to the noise.  Yep, I've lived in all kinds of places and had 
all kinds of antennas.  Here is what I think plain and simple.  You chose 
to not get a radio with an auto tuner.   I have no problem with that.  You 
also chose to use an external tuner without a real way to tell what it is 
doing.  That is what blew up your 120.  Your choice and your money, but 
that is my story and I'm sticking to it.
73
Butch
WA0VJR
Node 3148
Wallace, ks.