On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 20:49:46 -0700, Frank Gilliland
wrote:

I'm not a big fan of SWR
meters -- they are good for detecting a major malfunction but that's
about it. Antenna tuning/matching is best done with a field strength
meter.


A local retired instructor of some sort (military, i believe) has the
same opinion. He doesn't like SWR meters but instead measures all his
antennas by field strength meter.

I used to tune my Swan with one. I found when I used an SWR meter,
the minimum SWR dip was NEVER the maximum field strength reading. I
always had to raise the SWR to about 1.3:1 or so.

Around here, most of us know not to mention the performance of an
antenna to him if we only used an SWR meter or antenna analyzer. His
first question is "How did it do with the FSM?"

I believe he is right. Radios drop power when they don't like the SWR
and raise it when it does.

73
N4PGW

--
73 for now
Buck
N4PGW