[Amps] Bird Element Calibration?

[Phil Clements]

> The lesson I learned from this (and was incidently told to me by a G3
> years earlier) is that the Bird meters are not precision devices, and
> are fine for tweaking a PA for maximum smoke, but are useless if you
> actually want to know the power output.

Just a note for my fellow 160 meter operators. The 2-30 mhz Bird slugs are 
VERY inacurate below 2 mhz. At 1.8 mhz they read so low that you think you 
have amp problems or terrible efficiency. I once worked for hours on an amp 
to try to get the power output up to the level it was on 80 meters. I even 
went so far as putting in a plate choke with more L. All this time, the 
actual 160 meter output was > 80 meters! I hope this might save someone some 
grief that has'nt run into this yet!

(((73)))
Phil, K5PC