If you're in the market for a new DMM, the mid-range Radio Shack DMM's provide these capabilities as well. One time I suddenly needed a part for my Fluke and I was in the middle of building - my K2 IIRC. So I trucked down to the local RS store and picked up a meter to use in the interim. It's a real workhorse. It measures:
Voltage, resistance and current, of course current up to about 10 amps I believe. You can plug a transistor into a socket provided and it'll report the type of transistor, the gain and identify the leads. Capacitance from a couple of pF to many, many microfarads. It has about 100 pF "stray" capacitance, but a 5 pF cap reads exactly 5 pF more than the stray minimum cap it indicates with nothing connected. Temperature with a probe supplied. Frequency through the audio range. Of course, it has front-panel contacts for critical measurements to avoid having the leads in the circuit. The only thing it doesn't measure that I want regularly is inductance. I have an inductance measuring device built from an ARRL "Handbook" circuit that uses the DMM as a readout. Quite accurate enough from a one or two microhenries up to several millihenries. I got RS meter about seven years ago, but I see they seem to keep a meter with those capabilities in the US$80 to $90 range in their regular instrument lineup. Yeah, I fixed the Fluke. The Fluke is faster. The RS meter takes about 2 or 3 seconds to produce a reading while the Fluke is virtually instantaneous. I compared them side-by-side and compared those with a third high-end meter I own and all three agree on Ohms, Volts and Amps across the scale wherever I've happened to check them within 1% or better. Usually they dial up identical values on the display when connected together. The slow speed of the RS isn't an issue for me because I have an old VOM (wiggly meter movement volt-ohm-amp meter) that I use for "peaking" things, or I use my o'scope. Ron AC7AC _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
