Re: Topband: Re: S-meter

[Herb Schoenbohm <herbs@vitelcom.net>]

Jeff Maass wrote:

> S-meters have little meaning when using receiving
> antennas. The most copiable signals are often not
> moving the needle (or bars) at all, but are R5.
>  

Jeff, Here in the tropics the S meter always lets me know where I live 
by seldon dropping below S9 plus on 160.  I use my S meter as a test 
indicator to measure f/b rejection of Beverages on BC station 
tests.Noise floor determination on Beverages is also a good use.  For 
example yesterday I did something that I should have done long ago.  My 
SW Beverage has been terminated in a chain link fence railing and 
support post which runs around my 1/2 acre plot for several hundred 
feet.  By removing the ground connection and running the SW Beverage 
over the top of the fence by a few feet and down to a series of 4 foot 
ground rods inside the fence about 15 feet away caused my noise floor on 
the SW Beverage to drop about 1 and a half S units  on 160.  The signal 
levels from reference BC stations in Columbia and Venezuela did not drop 
at all.  I repeated the test several times to make sure I was getting a 
correct result.  In the morning I worked a bunch of solid JA contacts on 
this antenna.I would imagine that part of this success was due to a skew 
path to the southwest.  Yet my S meter let me know I was making some 
improvement in the ability for this Beverage to receive.

73

Herb Schoenbohm, KV4FZ


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