RF Power Meter

[LAZY]

Hi All,

Can somebody recomend me an RF Power Meter for around £100 that reasonably accurate. The Zetagi one i'm using is pants! It will show 9w one the 10w scale, but when I set it to the 100w scale it will show 11+w it's all over the place.
I know for real accuracy I should be looking for Bird Thruline or something similar, but I just don't have £200-£300 upwards spare ATM.

I had one made by a company starting with 'A' before (I think) Avir maybe, that was pretty good. I can find ones on ebay by a company called Diamond that look very similar. Are they cheap knockoffs any good?

Can someone point me in the right direction.

Lazy

[teckniqs]

Daiwa CN101L

[thewisepranker]

Er, why not buy a second hand Bird? Surely you'd get one for under £100 with patience.

[s2000]

Er, why not buy a second hand Bird? Surely you'd get one for under £100 with patience.

Good advice, they are built like a tank and can be had for cheap on ebay.

[s2000]

Hi All,

Can somebody recomend me an RF Power Meter for around £100 that reasonably accurate. The Zetagi one i'm using is pants! It will show 9w one the 10w scale, but when I set it to the 100w scale it will show 11+w it's all over the place.
I know for real accuracy I should be looking for Bird Thruline or something similar, but I just don't have £200-£300 upwards spare ATM.

I had one made by a company starting with 'A' before (I think) Avir maybe, that was pretty good. I can find ones on ebay by a company called Diamond that look very similar. Are they cheap knockoffs any good?

Can someone point me in the right direction.

Lazy

I think thats "Avair", I have a Diamond one and thats really good. I got it over 20 years ago now so would think these were the originals? Trouble is it can't handle the full 200watts (rated) continuously, so I got a Bird for continuous measurements

[teckniqs]

I've got a bird (meter that is) and it's equally as accurate as the Daiwa CN101L as they both showed exactly the same power readings. Unfortunately I lent it to someone and never saw it again after not seeing them again before I left that area. Was a good piece of kit and I only paid about £59 for it, I think they are about £80-100 now. The Diamond meters are also decent and show accurate readings, I've got an Avair and it's pretty hit and miss.

[LAZY]

Avair, that's it! Good call chaps, gives me a good place to start looking. Have looked for a Bird meter for the right money, but they all seem to be a bit over my price range ATM. It's something i'd definitely be looking at getting in the future.

I like the fact with the Daiwa meters you can view forward, refelcted and swr all at the same time.

[MiXiN]

I have an Avair AV20 and it's OK and relatively accurate for a cheap VHF/UHF SWR/Power meter.

Any of the aforementioned meters are all decent for the job, though.

[Shedbuilt]

Something to be aware of.
Accuracy figures quoted for analogue meters, are usually expressed as a %age at the Full Scale reading. The Zetagi HP500 and Daiwa CN801HP, are both quoted as +/- 10%. This is within 1W on the 10W range, and within 10W on the 100W range. FSD is quoted, because it is where the meter is calibrated, and should be the most accurate reading. The difference between 9W and 11W on the 100W range, is only 2% of the FSD reading, which in this context, is a fairly small discrepancy. I'm not saying that a reading at 10% of Full Scale (or less) will only be accurate to 10% of the Full Scale reading, because that would be ridiculous (although technically, I think that's what 10% tolerance at FSD means), but you can't expect a 10% FSD reading to be accurate to within 10% of the actual reading either.
Generally speaking (though this only applies if the meter is reasonably calibrated), if you can take a reading on two different scales, the reading on the lower scale, should be expected to be more accurate.