If I set the forward power to 5w, can I get away
with hooking up the meter backwards to read
reflected power?

I set forward power to 5 w then reversed the
connection and adjusted for 5 w reflected.

Is this ok?

Ken-

If I understand you, you want to use the SWR bridge function of a combined
SWR/Wattmeter to read reflected power. It would appear that you have a five
watt range, and you want to calibrate the SWR-reflected function for five watts
as well. If you adjust the "calibrate" for full scale with five watts into a
good dummy load, the "reflected" function should (hopefully) be calibrated as
well. If you reverse it, reflected should now read full scale.

On the surface, it appears this will work. You should use your "known good"
power meter to check the lower power levels of the meter, since a diode
detector's linearity is poor at low levels. The low end of the meter's power
scale may favor higher power levels, unless it was intended for use with 5 watt
CBs!

If you don't already have information about the relationship of SWR and power
readings, the Bird catalog has some good information. They may also have it on
their web page, http://www.bird-electronic.com/.

73, Fred, K4DII