Cheap VSWR meter

[VK3ALB]

Hi All,

Recently I came across a VHF/UHF power meter that not only displays VSWR but also displays the transmitter frequency - something I haven't seen before in a meter like this.

SW-102 meter

A few things that are not so obvious about this device:

Max power is 120W
It has an internal rechargeable battery (will also run off USB cable)
It hold the last measurement for display
There is a calibration menu for forward and reflected power as well as frequency so you can calibrate it against known sources.

I'm not going to do one of those silly YouTube "unpack the box" videos but it comes in a colored box which includes a charger with Chinese AC adapter, USB to micro USB charging cable and 2 x SO239 to N male adapters.

The price isn't too bad either

I've seen plenty of similar items around - RedDot comes to mind - but this is in my opinion is of better quality and the fact that you can calibrate it from the front panel puts it a step above the others. We're not talking about laboratory grade equipment and most ham gear including that paragon of test meters the Bird 43 has a specified accuracy of +/- 5% of full scale so for the price I'd much rather use this every day than pull out something more expensive.

If you want something to chuck in the boot for portable activities or something that's easy to use when installing radios in the car you could do a lot worst than this. Chuck it in your back pack along with a dummy load and DMM and you can go to hamfests fully prepared to test those bargains before you let the moths out of your wallet.

[VK3QI]

Lou,

It is worth noting that its sensitivity only goes down to 100MHz - so it is not entirely suitable for HF portable use.

Cheers

Peter VK3QI

[VK3ALB]

Exactly why I said it was a VHF/UHF power meter. Wouldn't even consider it for HF.

[VK2XTC]

Perfect timing for this post.

Was just about to buy one of these.

Thanks for the post.



Brian

VK2XTC

[VK3ALB]

You've got to be quick.

Looks like the $76 units have gone and the remaining ones no longer include the N adapters and the price now ranges from $84 to $96

I had a couple of questions offline about the meter and can confirm my unit has 0.2dB insertion loss @ 432MHz and there is a DC path from input to output. The meter is not affected by DC at the input so those that want to leave it inline and run a preamp supply up the coax can do so.