RadioBanter - View Single Post - s-meter readings - drake r8 vs.palstar r30cc vs. kenwood r-5000.

john · January 5th 07, 05:32 AM posted to rec.radio.shortwave

BDK wrote:
In article m,
says...

David wrote:
On Fri, 05 Jan 2007 02:17:32 GMT, Telamon
wrote:

In article .com,
"john" wrote:

An exception would be radios that have a signal strength meter in dBm,
which is an absolute scale.

Millivolts?

actually the palstar and the drake scales are in Decibels, while the
kenwoods scale is in Db at the top and millivolts at the bottom. also
before anyone asks my rf gain is fully clockwise on both the drake and
kenwood. the palstar doesn't have a rf gain control.

You can't even be sure identical radios will have the same S-Meter
readings, in most cases. The reading is pretty meaningless, except to
compare antennas, or if a preselector is used, to adjust for max
reading.

BDK

BDK, that makes total sense - especially if you are comparing antennas.
so what your saying is that its a reference point for that given radio
and should only be used as such.
like i said the signals on all three radios sound just about the same -
its not like the kenwoods signal is stronger sounding. in fact i think
my r8 has a slight edge at digging out the weak ones over the r-5000.
the r8 is a great radio.