[TenTec] Re: S METERS Gotta Love'em

[n4lq@iglou.com]

The relationship is ....The more db, the more S units. I like huge S 
meters with well dampened needles. Remember the old Hallicrafters S-76 
with it's huge green meter. Now that's cool. Having a big analog 
reference to relate to gives my brain a more direct link to the ether. 
Forget UV's. It doesn't matter. It's only radio!

N4LQ

-----Original Message-----
From: "Mark Erbaugh" <mark@microenh.com>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 09:31:38 -0400
Subject: [TenTec] Pegasus SMeter display

> The Pegasus Programmer's Reference Guide (PRG) says that the signal
> strength
> query returns results that represent S-Units (and fractional S-Units).
> This
> makes it pretty easy to display signals up to S-9, but what about
> signals
> stronger than S-9? Most people expect a meter calibrated in db over
> S-9. I
> designed my display assuming 6 db / S. Thus S10 would be 6db over S9,
> S11 12
> db over S9. S13 18 db over S9, and so on. While I don't have radios
> setup
> for side by side comparisons, it seemed that the strong signals on 75
> were
> reading higher with this display scheme than I saw on other radios.
> 
> Then today, I'm reading a 1296 MHz antenna review in the latest QST and
> the
> author says the signals went from S3 to S8, an increase of 15 db.
> That's
> only 3 db per SUnit.
> 
> So, just what is the relationship between db and SUnits?
> 
> Thanks and 73,
> Mark
> 
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