On SSB, no power output is produced until the carrier (which is later
suppressed) is modulated. Yeah, you could know this, but it is possible that
you do not. This is in case of the latter.

As the previous responder said (my memory is bad - sorry), if your meter is
slow, the modulated voice peaks may not show up on the meter.
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However there are umpteen circuits for a'peak-picker/holder' which with
a set suitable time constant will enable any meter to sense the peak
and hold it until the next peak. I don't mean just a simple capacitor


Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH