So you've never given anyone 5/1 on SSB on a quiet band, Richard? That's
possible on 10m on a good day. What you're describing seems to me to be
the R value, not the S value. You may have noticed me giving reports of
469 or 479 on 160m when propagation is good but I have a high noise level.
'Knob twiddling' should not affect the S meter in a well designed rig.
On my SDR, provided that a signal is strong enough to overcome noise
levels on all settings, I can switch attenuators and preamps in and out
and it makes not one jot of difference to the S meter reading. S9 is -73
dBm at the antenna connector no matter what.
73, Greg, ZL3IX
On 2021-01-18 08:06, Richard McLachlan wrote:
When I started in ham radio 60 years ago, S meters were just a tuning aid. I
don’t think in all my experience that I have ever given a signal report based
on an S meter reading, in fact I didn’t even realise that my current rig even
had one. My reports are always based on a comparison between the background
noise and the signal estimated by what is between my ears. Thus S3 is barely
audible and anything above 6 or 7 is easy copy. The meter reading can be set to
any value you like by knob twiddling. If somebody wants a comparison on
different antennas for example then I would use the height of the spike on the
panadaptor but I certainly would not rely on its calibration.
73
Richard G3OQT
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