I look at it as pretty worthless--mainly followed for historical reasons...
looks important--avoids real world data... I do care about volts/amps/watts
and signal densities though...

I just increased my transmitter power by 10db... how many watts per/cm. is
the near field density power at my antenna now? How many more watts increase
has been affected in the input to the final? ... no way to tell...

I just turned up my volume control knob from "4" to "5" position--how much
of an increase in input power to the audio amp have a affected? How many
watts are now flowing into my speaker? This is just about as useful...

Warmest regards,
John

"Bob Bob" wrote in message
...
What would you use?

I'd suggest that the root reason for choosing the name is irrelevant to
its continuing use. If what you say is correct it has obviously been
redefined by those that use it.. One might even call it evolution!

I have always thought it as "relative to". ie 0dBm=1mW for general RF use.
One can define and tune a radio's "levels" using one unit of measure for
all. eg;

+60dBm = 1kW
-117dBm = a pretty good FM receiver
-142dBm = about the limit for voice SSB/good preamp human ear use on 2M
-174dBm = thermal noise on earth at 1Hz bandwidth

These numbers then make path loss calculations predictions easier as well.
One just adds the gains (eg antenna) and subtracts the losses (eg feedline
and path) to get the RX level. The "margin" between that and the RX level
can then be used to make judgements about error rates over the path.

Please come up with a viable alternative.

Cheers Bob VK2YQA


John Smith wrote:
The decibel is a rather ridiculous method to measure rf power. Indeed,
the decibel is designed on the human ear, of all things. While this can
be justified for audio work-its' justification in radio takes a "stretch
of sanity" (akin to "a leap of faith" in religion) to justify.