CB and Ham Radio Techs Love Their Bird Wattmeters

[El Rubio]

Sorry, but it’s you who are mistaken. My point was when shit hit the fan, more than a few responded. I was there and Involved with it.
There are places where the local authorities may look at hams like you do, but not around here. I have been to several Parish ( county) Emergency Operations Centers and the state Emergency operations center in Baton Rouge. All are outfitted with amateur radio desks and equipment. Most, except for maybe the most rural of areas have active emergency communications groups. The hams involved in this must take the same message handling training as other emergency responders as well as other “ protocol” training.  As a ham for nearly 25yrs, i have never met a State or local official that did not go out of their way to thank us volunteers for providing a backup communications link.
Maybe the hams in the UK are like what you describe, but not here where real disaster is still fresh in people’s minds.
The hams you describe sound like CB’ers that show up at hamfests looking for Bird wattmeters. The other side of that coin is the condescending extra class who must wear a name tag with his callsign and the fact that he is a 23wpm “extra”. He probably feels a lot like some of the guys in this thread but comes across as a narcissist.

[vk6zgo]

Sorry, but it’s you who are mistaken. My point was when shit hit the fan, more than a few responded. I was there and Involved with it.
There are places where the local authorities may look at hams like you do, but not around here. I have been to several Parish ( county) Emergency Operations Centers and the state Emergency operations center in Baton Rouge. All are outfitted with amateur radio desks and equipment. Most, except for maybe the most rural of areas have active emergency communications groups. The hams involved in this must take the same message handling training as other emergency responders as well as other “ protocol” training.  As a ham for nearly 25yrs, i have never met a State or local official that did not go out of their way to thank us volunteers for providing a backup communications link.

I am not associated with WICEN in Oz, but I remember reading in "AR" magazine some years ago, that members of that organisation spend time with the SES (State Emergency Service) in various States, training in the use of their dedicated Comms systems.
It makes sense to use volunteers who have a reasonable acquaintance with the use of radio equipment, & importantly, don't get "mike fright"!
It also makes a lot of sense not to have fully trained emergency responders sitting in front of a radio, when they can be out on one of the trucks, doing what they trained for.
This may have changed since that time, but during real emergencies, the SES is usually stretched to almost breaking point, so capable volunteers would still be very useful.

Maybe the hams in the UK are like what you describe,

Funny thing, but over on Google Groups, I frequent a group called WAHAMS which is principally for Amateurs in Western Australia (VK6).
Apart from the usual internal politics & gripes about the national association, all is pretty much "sweetness & light"---no "monstering", swearwords, or real politics.

As Google do, they put up a list of other groups I might like, including "u.k radio amateur".
When I looked on there just now, I found a bloke looking for cannabis, & a couple of others having some kind of onlne feud, but this must be a quiet week!
Other times there was a lot more such crud-----they have some seriously weird dudes in that group!

If they carry on like that in public, or on air, maybe people are right in calling them nuts.

but not here where real disaster is still fresh in people’s minds.
The hams you describe sound like CB’ers that show up at hamfests looking for Bird wattmeters. The other side of that coin is the condescending extra class who must wear a name tag with his callsign and the fact that he is a 23wpm “extra”. He probably feels a lot like some of the guys in this thread but comes across as a narcissist.

I wear a name tag with my callsign when I go to hamfests and the like.
It's from 1977, & disappeared for years, only surfacing a few years back.

Apart from a WIA logo, it says just that---my callsign.
Old timers know I am a former "Limited Licence" holder, & never passed (nor applied to sit), the Morse Test back in the day.
"Z" calls passed the same Theory & Regulations as "Full Calls", but no Morse, so for my sins, up to 2004 I was restricted to "6m & up" till 2004, when the Morse Test was removed.

Nowadays, I am just a boring old "Advanced" licence holder!

[xrunner]

Yes, some people can be off-putting.

Grandchuck, I've been a ham since I was a teenager - 1974. That's a mere 48 years. So I know something about hams. The radios I used to communicate with the local hams have been tossed in a closet since the beginning of the year. There's only two hams that I speak to since I did that, and I don't use a ham radio to talk to them I use a cell phone because it's frankly a better communication tool. It's much better for technical conversations in particular, because I can communicate more clearly, send / receive pictures if needed, or even have a video call, and I don't get stupid annoying interruptions from people who think they know more about what I'm talking about than I do.

Oh excuse me, I just pulled one radio out yesterday because I do have a use for it - to generate a high power (5 to 50W) RF emission to test my power meter project. After that it's going right back into storage. That's the only task I have for it for the foreseeable future. Reason I pulled the plug on these radios is because of the local hams and what they talk about which is religion, extreme political views, anti-COVID vaccine views, all manner of conspiracy theories they believe in, asking for advice that could be found by RTFM (pure laziness), and other lazy time wasting dribble. Many of the jokes and stories have been recycled so many times I can't take hearing them any longer.

This is taking place on a simplex frequency not a repeater. Why is that you say? Because the last several years the most popular repeater has been plagued with several jammers and unidentified people who disrupt communications with strange sounds and silly voices. They even disrupt the weekly net, which is a serious offense. But I and others have reported this to the FCC on their website. Nothing happened.

Also in the evening a person who drinks too much is there and makes any enjoyable conversations impossible. But hey, he's not jamming or doing anything illegal so there is nothing that can be done but leave. The repeater owner will do nothing - he rarely even uses it. Nothing in Part 97 says you can't get drunk and operate your ham radio. Great place for young hams eh?

They have a right to say whatever they want, but I also have a right to pull the plug on them. There's no FCC rule that makes me have to engage anyone on a radio.

If you put a 2 meter rig next to a modern smartphone and asked a young person to pick the best communication tool what do you think they would choose? If you tried to tell them the 2 meter rig was better they'd think you were insane or senile - almost out of touch with reality. But the ham radio is for emergency comms! Emergency? You mean when the internets go down and I can't play my game? They couldn't care less.

I cannot imagine any young person who would find anything of interest talking to most of the hams I know. I can't even imagine what they would think, or if their parents were listening to these people, what they would think. They'd probably get them into some other hobby ASAP. Come to think of it, I haven't heard a single young ham talk to anyone around here for many years. It would be unheard of if anyone under the age of 18 were to pop up around here with a new license.

No, the place I go to, to have meaningful conversations with people all over the world, is not ham radio, it's places like this. Hobbies come and go over time. We don't pass the time as the Romans did, or people in the dark ages, or the early 1900s ... ham radio will go away just as earlier pastimes did. It doesn't bother me to realize this.

Oh boy I went on again didn't I? 

P.S. I do still try to increase my DX count by working some DX expeditions on the HF bands, but it ain't by "talking" to hams, it's by using digital modes.

[joeqsmith]

Nuff Said.

Nuff said? I doubt that.

I know hams have trouble reading unless it has something to do with them taking their test but I don't think you realized that was a cut and paste from one of our ham friends. 

Sorry, I almost forgot how hams are saving the world and we own them a great deal for all their service, not just to our country but to mankind.  Consider the clip from family guy as my way of showing my personal gratitude.



These videos of hams in action pay tribute to the few remaining members.  This is pretty much what I remember hearing in the 90s.   As I said, a few days ago it was just chats of politics, religion, antennas and tube finals.  Nothing of any interest to me.  Agree that between the cell phone, forums like this and email chains like group.io,  I doubt many youngsters interested in electronics or science would find ham radio attractive.   Even if they moved to something like a no license 5W limit and started making kits, I doubt you would get much interest.     

One video that came up during my search was an old man who plays with Barbie dolls (really).  I quickly scanned the video and it did not have the humor I was hoping for so I left it out.   One the guy tells about when he first gets into ham radio which I actually too the time to listen to.  It's old but I wouldn't be surprised if new members today didn't receive the same warm welcome.   

[bd139]

Good perspective here on ham operators and the supporting organisations:

https://www.qrz.com/db/GW4ALG

[joeqsmith]

I read the entire article.   Glad I did as the ending sums it up.  If this is what potential new members see, the hobby should continue to decline.  After all, kids don't have these problems with their cell phones. 

Considering that the majority of hams are busy saving the world from disasters and these contests are interfering with saving lives, this is a matter of national importance.  Everyone should be concerned and take the time to write members of their local congress.  Lobby to shut these contests down.         

[bd139]

Yep.

Want to try 40m here. All we have is SEEEEE KEEEEWWWW SEEEEE KEEEEEWWWW FAWTY FAWTY DEEE EXXXXSH (say with Italian accent) taking bow shots all over the band trying to DX to US with a full size beam and 20dB over their licensed limit going into it. Occasionally 40m CW is usable but that’s only got SDR police (“you’re off frequency by 0.22Hz”) and human robots (60 wpm morse). Everyone else is FT8 which you can replace yourself with a small python script and fuck off down the pub with some floozies instead 

[joeqsmith]

Toggling the amplifier from 5 to 175W and tracking the Signal Hound with my poor man's Watt meter.  Of course, the poor mans meter was aligned using the Signal Hound so all the system errors removed.   I reset the graph and toggled it a few times every second.   They seem to track well but why wouldn't they...

Saw a few other parts that look like a better fit for what I would want but wasn't able to find an inexpensive evaluation board.   

[xrunner]

Labels added. Red warning label as advertised.

Still playing with the final look of the display. Then I'll test it using 5, 20, and 50 W power levels (using ext. 50 dB atten.) on the VHF and UHF bands and compare against an hp 437B using same ext. atten. Should be interesting ...

[xrunner]

The setup to test the power meter project at higher powers is shown. The RF emitter is a Yaesu FTM-100D VHF /UHF mobile radio. It has three output power settings of 5, 20, and 50 W. This is the specification from the manufacturer. It's probably in need of calibration so I don't expect the power levels to be exactly those values. However, whatever values it does transmit should be the same as measured between the two power meters. That's really the point here.

The power output of the radio will go through a 50 dB attenuator because neither power meter can accept anywhere near that much power. So 50 W (+47 dBm) will be brought down to -3 dBm. However, both power meters have the ability to add back in the ext. atten. value through a menu setting, so the reading will be corrected back to what the radio is actually transmitting.

Also, both the hp 437B and my project meter have the ability to enter the frequency (or freq. band in my case) being measured so the proper cal factor is applied. There is barely any frequency error for the particular sensor I currently have for the hp, but I will do this anyway. I could add even more cal factors to mine if I needed to, several per band, but I'm hoping one per ham band will be good enough.

Another side project is the slide-in mount for the PCBs that fits these types of cases. What I had been using was a design somebody made in Tinkercad, and I had to modify for my own use. Of course that is mind-numbing torture to do in Tinkercad, especially if the model is complicated. So, I decided to make my own from scratch and that's another thing I'm working on. I got pretty far yesterday. When it's done it will be so much easier to change it for different case sizes and add mounting holes etc. I'm going to make a different power meter (if this works out like I think it's going to). Just a different take on the interface to the user, something more general for a test bench.

[rfclown]

I've been meaning to sell this on eBay. Government throw away. Probably never used. I think I got a slug also.

[xrunner]

Want over $1300 for a new one. I saw a used one on Ebay for $499. Good money there.

[rfclown]

I need to find the slug and then figure if it's better to sell them separately or together. I've not yet done my homework on what these things go for. I know with old HP power meters like a 436A the only way to get enough money to make it worth your while selling is by selling a complete "solution" (meter+sensor+cable). Otherwise it is a crime how little money they go for on eBay. Buyers are funny. The cable is worth about $50. The sensor about $200. A 436A only gets about $30-40. But offer all together, and you can get more than the sum. I visited an HP cal facility years ago, and they were using a 436A in their setup, so it isn't a bad meter.

[xrunner]

I need to find the slug and then figure if it's better to sell them separately or together. I've not yet done my homework on what these things go for. I know with old HP power meters like a 436A the only way to get enough money to make it worth your while selling is by selling a complete "solution" (meter+sensor+cable). Otherwise it is a crime how little money they go for on eBay. Buyers are funny. The cable is worth about $50. The sensor about $200. A 436A only gets about $30-40. But offer all together, and you can get more than the sum. I visited an HP cal facility years ago, and they were using a 436A in their setup, so it isn't a bad meter.

Oh yea that's all true. I have a couple of hp 437B's and a sensor for each of them. The 437B's go for the same low price I think I got one of mine for $40. The sensors are ~$200 to $300. You need both to make a usable power measurement system (and the cable too) so it's strange why the sensors get the high price. Guess they were costlier to make.

But yea I found a 436A on Ebay once for really cheap so I got it and cleaned it up nice and it works with the sensors I already had - perfectly useable meter.

Actually you can use the 437B or the 436A for something without a sensor. They have a nice internal 0.0 dBm 50 MHz power reference that's useful.

I looked at the Bird APM manual and it doesn't seem to give a lot of details about the "averaging" the meter does. A "regular" Bird or similar meter averages, but it really has to do with the mechanical mass in the meter so it would not "hold" it long. I guess the APM meter has a circuit that holds and averages readings (it uses a 9V battery). Not sure why the elements have to be different.

[vk6zgo]

I need to find the slug and then figure if it's better to sell them separately or together. I've not yet done my homework on what these things go for. I know with old HP power meters like a 436A the only way to get enough money to make it worth your while selling is by selling a complete "solution" (meter+sensor+cable). Otherwise it is a crime how little money they go for on eBay. Buyers are funny. The cable is worth about $50. The sensor about $200. A 436A only gets about $30-40. But offer all together, and you can get more than the sum. I visited an HP cal facility years ago, and they were using a 436A in their setup, so it isn't a bad meter.

Oh yea that's all true. I have a couple of hp 437B's and a sensor for each of them. The 437B's go for the same low price I think I got one of mine for $40. The sensors are ~$200 to $300. You need both to make a usable power measurement system (and the cable too) so it's strange why the sensors get the high price. Guess they were costlier to make.

But yea I found a 436A on Ebay once for really cheap so I got it and cleaned it up nice and it works with the sensors I already had - perfectly useable meter.

Actually you can use the 437B or the 436A for something without a sensor. They have a nice internal 0.0 dBm 50 MHz power reference that's useful.

I looked at the Bird APM manual and it doesn't seem to give a lot of details about the "averaging" the meter does. A "regular" Bird or similar meter averages, but it really has to do with the mechanical mass in the meter so it would not "hold" it long. I guess the APM meter has a circuit that holds and averages readings (it uses a 9V battery). Not sure why the elements have to be different.

Seems like a strange idea, if a normal Bird reads averages, anyway.
I could understand an active "peak & hold" circuit, although that can be done passively.

Normal Bird 43 meter movements are a bit weird at 30uA FSD, so maybe the "active" guts are to allow a more standard (& cheaper) 50uA FSD movement (with different mass, etc) to be used, without having to mess with the design of the established slugs, etc.(although they do say "only APM slugs")

[joeqsmith]

What label maker are you using?   

[xrunner]

What label maker are you using?   

Just a typical Brother P-Touch nothing special. I do an extra step by trimming the labels to size with a razor blade.

LOL, at first I thought he was going to transmit through all of them in series! 

I'll give him credit for not attempting that. However, he's using a 100W element on the Bird and measuring 4 W. Now don't go after me readers - He's not peaking power he's measuring it and then comparing those measurements.

He says nothing (of course) about the error which would be 4W +/- 5 W. It's a +/- 5% of full scale meter. You think the other meters are 5% tolerance meters too? If so I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. 

Addendum: The manual for the Drake W-4 says the accuracy on the 200W scale is +/- 5% of reading (not full scale) + 2W

[joeqsmith]

Because it's the holy grail of Wattmeters, correct (0:20 in). 

I thought all of Brother's label makers are named P-Touch.    

[joeqsmith]

Notice how the Bird is reading about a third up before he keys it!  Once he puts the camera on it, he never lets the audio drop.  At the very end  he finally unkeys and the meter does not appear to return.  Ham with a dead Bird?  Still accurate? 

[joeqsmith]

Looks like they bought one of the new low cost VNAs.  Was it prematurely connected to the same amp?   

[vk6zgo]

What label maker are you using?   

Just a typical Brother P-Touch nothing special. I do an extra step by trimming the labels to size with a razor blade.

LOL, at first I thought he was going to transmit through all of them in series! 

I'll give him credit for not attempting that. However, he's using a 100W element on the Bird and measuring 4 W. Now don't go after me readers - He's not peaking power he's measuring it and then comparing those measurements.

He says nothing (of course) about the error which would be 4W +/- 5 W. It's a +/- 5% of full scale meter. You think the other meters are 5% tolerance meters too? If so I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. 

Addendum: The manual for the Drake W-4 says the accuracy on the 200W scale is +/- 5% of reading (not full scale) + 2W

AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!
I have seldom seen such a mismash of misinformation, BS & general dumbness than in that misbegotten video.

Back in the day, I worked with real AM transmitters.

The big ones, around 10kW to 55kW didn't have power meters, but relied upon RF line meters.---some lower power ones did have power meters.

In both cases, neither the average RF line current, or where provided, the average forward power varied with modulation.
If the big beast was delivering the current to line corresponding to 55kW without modulation, the same current existed under modulation.

With symmetrical modulation, the negative excursion of the modulating waveform will reduce the instantaneous power by the same amount that the the positive excursion increases it, so the average remains the same.
That is, of course, how AM Broadcast Tx work.

In the dying days of Amateur Radio AM, various schemes of "Supermodulation" were devised, which deliberately distorted the modulation envelope, at the cost of higher distortion & possible out of band spurii.
Possibly, something like this is being used in those CB AM radios where they get all that "swang", but my take is ---just plain old overmodulation!

Interestingly, AM overmodulation is not readily detected by just listening to the signal on an AM radio tuned to that signal..
We had an embarassing incident once, where due to a misunderstanding, a Tx site was lined up by the locals with an audio test tone 8dBm less than the correct level.

We got a complaint of excessive readings on the Modulation Monitor when on programme, & assuming a faulty MM, despatched a replacement to them.
On test, the original MM was in spec, & they claimed the replacement was doing the same thing, so we were sent for a visit.

On the way to the site, listening on the car radio all seemed Ok, but when we reached the site, the MM on the rack was "Twanging" its meter.

Luckily, the station had an Oscillosope on site, & looking at the RF normally input to the MM, there was classic "carrier cutting".
We leapt for the audio input fader, winding it back.

When the "time pips" came up before the News we roughly reset the mod %, but then had to wait till "closedown" to do a proper "lineup"!

No complaints from our listeners, though what other people getting interfered with by the multple harmonics & other crud generated thought about it is unknown!

Of course, the guy in the video waves away the mod % reading on one of the meters as "just an indication"!

[vk6zgo]

Looks like they bought one of the new low cost VNAs.  Was it prematurely connected to the same amp?   

Unlike you, I had a bit of a look at the bloke's background.
He has built a lot of quite decent looking equipment from scratch, so isn't your everyday "memorised the answers" ham , but actually had to do a real exam with real "essay" type questions, back in 1973.

Anyone (except, it seems, your good self) can make a blunder, like forgetting that his Bird had a stuck movement.
Yes, he should have picked it up before posting it, but extrapolating that to "was the VNA prematurely connected to the same amp?" is 'drawing a very long bow', indeed.

Bugger you guys!
I meant to leave this thread alone---I'm too old for the aggro!

[bd139]

Oh bugger. In an unfortunate night of crazed temperature and maddening sweats I appear to have ordered some AD8307’s from China again.

Hold my beer. Joining the party.

(Eventually - moving house)

[joeqsmith]

Looks like they bought one of the new low cost VNAs.  Was it prematurely connected to the same amp?   

...

Anyone (except, it seems, your good self) can make a blunder, like forgetting that his Bird had a stuck movement.
Yes, he should have picked it up before posting it, but extrapolating that to "was the VNA prematurely connected to the same amp?" is 'drawing a very long bow', indeed.

Bugger you guys!
I meant to leave this thread alone---I'm too old for the aggro!

I would suggest every video I uploaded has at least one mistake.  On a professional level, the percentage of failures during my career has far outweighed the few successes I've had.  Even worse, I take pride in my failures.  How twisted is that??!!       From these few comments, you may reasonably conclude I am a dumb fuck and the only reason I continue to work is people feeling sorry for me.  I'm perfectly fine with that! 

[joeqsmith]

The following comment was pulled from the attached video.

Bird didn't make their own meters, Before Bird moved production to china they used Simpson meters.. Ever since Bird, moved production to china their quality has gone down the crapper, The slugs are now brass plated plastic. Coaxial dynamics is really become a better product but they are still over priced.   

I'm curious as to why CB'rs have such a Bird fetish, I mean they aren't all that accurate.   Bird laughingly claims +- 5 percent of full scale but the calibration lab I use has told me in the 40 years they've been in business that the overwhelming majority of bird slugs they've tested barely met  +- 10 percent and they are a military contractor

I wonder what this brass plated plastic looks like. 



Also, an article on how to modify your Bird slugs:
https://www.hayseed.net/~jpk5lad/BIRD%20Slugs/birdslug4.htm