Evening Jim, The sad fact about this "S meter" business is that the SINFO (for CW) and SINPFEMO (for phone) signal reporting codes were NOT intended to report absolute signal strengths, but how well a signal was received and heard. I believe that these codes mutated into the RS and RST reporting codes sometime after someone realised that a meter connected to a receiver's AGC line would "wiggle" as the received signal strength varied.
A "S meter" which shows the incoming signal level in dbm is, of course, very useful when comparing antennas (the other guy's or yours) provided that its calibration accounts for any preamps etc. 73, Geoff GM4ESD Jim Brown wrote on Friday, January 14, 2011, at 18:50Z: > More to the point, what happens on any band 10dB below S9? The rigs > I've measured with an HP generator have really lousy linearity, > typically 3dB per indicated S-unit below an indicated S6. > > There are many components of a signal report, not the least of which is > the absolute gain of the RX antenna in the direction (both H and V) of > the other station. And how do you adjust for the use of a Beverage, and > of outboard preamps? > > FWIW, I typically give reports by ear on the first exchange, but may > give a second report after watching the calibrated K3 meter on the > second transmission, sometimes switching from the Beverage to the TX > antenna for comparison. > > If it's practical to do so, I would suggest an option .to allow > adjustment of S-meter (and/or P3) calibration by band to account for > external preamps other than the Elecraft preamp. > > 73, Jim K9YC ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
