[TowerTalk] Speaking of S units

[Pete Soper]

Bob AA0CY wrote:

>Totally true. QST refused to carry the advertisements, but CQ did.
>In fact, Lew McCoy reviewed the product (favorably) and said if you didn't
>mind losing 3dB (hey, it's half the power but only 1/2 of a "S" unit)
>go for it.

This is the second time in a few days that we've seen the old chestnut about
an S unit being six Db. It isn't, 99% of the time, it varies from rig to rig,
usually varies across the range of the rig's meter, is frequently a lot less
than 6db, etc. In other words it's worthless if you haven't at least figured
out what it translates to on your equipment (in which case you'd be talking
db to communicate clearly anyway). Let's save all the newbies out there from 
engaging in a lot of wasted effort by thinking for one second that an S unit 
can be equated with 6 decibels.

Regards,
Pete
KS4XG

(PS I'm sorry I accidently "CC'd" the reflector with a "test meta-message". It 
wasn't meant to be a public statement, just a private hint.)

--
FAQ on WWW:               http://www.contesting.com/towertalkfaq.html
Submissions:              towertalk@contesting.com
Administrative requests:  towertalk-REQUEST@contesting.com
Problems:                 owner-towertalk@contesting.com
Search:                   http://www.contesting.com/km9p/search