I use a bird 43 p with bird slugs NOT coaxial dynamic slugs. You can at any time call Bird send your unit back to the factory and have it calibrated. There is a small charge. In the '80s I used to tell a wave they only go up to 500 watt but it was pretty darn accurate too it looks a lot like the bird. Thanks for the video it just affirms what I already knew wave of the hand and 73rds from unit 33 New Jersey USA
Hi Kenneth, I am really pleased with the Bird 43 and its going to be my go to meter from now on. All the very best for 2023 and thanks for watching and for commenting. 73's MJ7NLK
We all know manufacturers supply radios at least 10% below the legal maximum as a safety margin,so i was surprised that the bird meter gave such a high reading???
Hi Simon, I have found that the Midland units are far closer to the wind than the President units. I guess the closer to 4W the radio the better it performs and sells. Some President radios are well off the mark and others are much closer. Something to keep an eye on when testing. Thanks for watching
Everyone seems to put a LOT of faith into these Bird Meters, yet NO ONE uses CW as the test signal, which is what they are designed to measure. I think you should check it's calibration too. I have one of the RS-70' s myself, and when it was tested against a high end lab scope, it showed less than a 10th of a watt difference from 1w to 200w, it was tested to 250w and was still accurate, but it gets VERY hot when you go beyond the specs. I'm confident enough in mine to continue using it. I also have a Dirland power meter and a few other SWR/Power meters, they all seem to be within a close enough range to the RS-70. The crossover weighted needle type meters I have are the ones with the highest drift, but this is still under 1w from the test machine.
My old bird was calibrated about a year ago. The MetroPWR unit was most inaccurate due to the 3Kw coupler in the lower ranges of 1W to 10W. It depends on what type of signal you are measuring but in this case CW and AVG for FM CB are comparible. My RS-70 eats batteries at an alarming rate so could be my unit. The point of the video was that without a very expensive bit of lab equipment you just don't know how accurate your meter is. You also need to have confidence in the slugs for the Bird that they have not been dropped or damaged. Thanks for watching and for commenting. All the best
Interesting topic, thats for sure! I own a analoge Team 1188 W with SWR and-Powermeter for CB. For routine measuring SWR homeantenna or to have a quick look at the approx. output of a radio its fine, but to get 100% trustful results its not a winner, of course not by a price of 20€. I only would calibrate a radio by a digital amateur radio device. However, not everybody has the money for a Rhode & Schwarz precise reference instruments, but to see wether SWR or Power is ok or not a simple analoge SWR-Powermeter works always precise enough with its +/- 5% difference. Vy 73, Gordon, 13 SW 128
Hi Gordon, thanks for watching and for commenting. It was a bit of a mine field and ended up costing me quite a bit. I always relied on the RS70 and then purchased the Metropwr and noticed a difference in readings. Then had to buy the Bird to find out which was closer to the truth. If your tuning CB radios to a whisker below the 4W limit then you need something accurate. The Rhode & Schwarz meters are quite costly but its more about the size for me. I just dont have room for one. All of the meters tested had +/- 5% in their documentation but the differences were much greater than that. All in all it was an interesting task in the end and learnt lots along the way. 73's and Happy New Year to you
How is 3.06W perfect 3:50 when you got a refernece value from the bird that were +33% higher.? and the Bird 4W were +60% higher then Metropwr775 with 2.5W.. quite a margin. You should take a look at the very cheap digital power meters from far east. Like SW-33Plus and SW-102. (125Mhz to 525Mhz UHF/VHF.) its SWR & Watt powermeters to around 35 bucks that quite a few in the Ham community took the plunge on... would be interresting to see how these far-east-gadgets from the local market, actually stacks up to an aspect of reference gear. Big thumbs up for your video.. second to none, and one of the best compare videos I have seen on Power wattage meters... it comes acroos as extremely honest & no underlying agenda.. simply let the values stand on their own two feet and try to sense what is up or down... love it.
Hi Jakob, Power Meters are a mine field and knowing which one to trust is difficult. The Metropwr775 has a huge 1.5KW coupler and after speaking with Metropwr directly they said that it’s not meant for lower wattage accurate readings and this is why there were variances even although the spec sheet said +/-5% tolerance. I also spoke with a tech at one of the largest UK radio suppliers and they told me they had given up on trying to find an accurate power meter at an affordable price range as they all show different results. You need both measurement types CW and PEP in order to test the output of FM and AM especially when calibrating a radio accurately or as close to the legal limit as possible. It would be interesting to purchase some of the cheaper meters on the market and compare them to the Bird using this as a reference point. It was really hard to put this video together as not having a definitive reference point meant that I did not know what was accurate / which was correct. Even down to picking the test radio was difficult as they all advertise 4W but when tested they can be showing anywhere between 3W to 4W depending on what meter you use. So, I settled on a new, never used Midland, and when testing on the Bird out of the box it showed 4W which is what it should have been outputting. The RS-70 isnt cheap, the Metropwr was very expensive and the Bird was equally as expensive as the Metropwr. So, all in all, it cost me quite a lot of money to get a reference point I was comfortable with (well over £1k). Thanks for your comment and for watching. I am sure I will return to this topic again once the wallet has cooled down from this one :-) All the best
Hi, yes the Bird 43 is most certainly my go to meter from now on. Trustworthy and reliable. Happy New Year to you and all the best for 2023. 73's MJ7NLK
I own those 3 plus bird digital 4391 and various daiwa and comet, metropower was most accurate follow by bird 4391, daiwa 801 and after bird43p/nissei... Bird calibration it's nees if take away the instrument but more important are the slug same power slug can do a huge difference in misuration, I test my slug periodically with the digital that was 2 insert for direc/reflect adn take a look if measure the same thing on both 73 de iz3qvb
Hi IZ3QVB, the 4391A is on my list of things to acquire at some point. I spoke with Metropwr and they recommended the Bird as being the best option for measuring low wattage. They said their coupler was designed for much higher wattage (up to 3k) and would not give the same level of accuracy in the 0 to 4W range. It might be amazing if I was measuring 100W+. I think the conclusion I came to was that to know for sure it was going to cost me a lot to buy lab level equipment and a calibrated bird and slugs was good enough to get close to some sort of true power test. All the best and thanks for watching and commenting 73. MJ7NLK
Cant you reference a given RF signal with a modern DDS arb waveform generator.? so you aint having to rely on some FR product and its claimed wattage specs, that often can vary greatly acroos the span.? I dont know much about this, just curious if a moden waveform generator couldnt manipulate a given signal that you can use as sort of a refernece to test fx a watt power meter with a dummyload?
Hi Jakob, I have an OWON XSA1015 spectrum analyser but this does not help with testing power output. It has a 1W maximum input signal and requires a signal tap attenuator to be used to take a low power tap from the output signal. I am not sure if you can set the output power level of a particular waveform generator but this then puts question into how accurate the generator being used is with its output level. I have two signal generators but both on Oscilloscopes. I was trying to avoid having to purchase more expensive calibrated test equipment but the Bird is calibrated so should be a reliable reference point to use. It was a fun video to put together as the more I investigated this topic the more questions appeared. All the best and thanks for watching
Bird meters are known and believed to be trusty, and accurate. But when two other not-that-bad meters showing results very near to each other and Bird being the only one showing different measurements, I know suspect the Bird (blasphemy!)... Curious case... But this is always the problem with measuring equipment, isn't it? I have never seen my many DMMs agree with each other too, but their differences are always within their specs, not like this...
Its really hard with test equipment as you say but the bird did agree with the standard radio out the box outputting 4W which the others did not. I came to the conclusion that the only way to know for sure was to spend a huge amount on some lab equipment. I spoke to MetroPwr and they recommended the Bird and said that their coupler was not designed for such low power outputs and the bird would be far more accurate. My old bird has been calibrated but getting a new one is not cheap to compare birds. Its a mind field really but was fun to delve into. Thanks for commenting, very much appreciated
So, now im confused. What should i buy now? The big Question. My favorit was the Nissei RS-70 but if i see i 3 Powermeter and 3 different results i dont know. For now i have the Zetagi Mod.203 and thats it. What is your opinion? 73 DL1STJ
Hi DL1STJ, oh its a mine field it really is. I have spoken to so many people about this and if you want accuracy then lab level equipment is required. I got such different results using different equipment and went round in some expensive circles. I feel that the Bird is a defensible choice if challenged and gave me the most reliable and expected results. Assuming that factory set radios are tuned using lab level equipment then the bird was consistently right on the money. I have a lot of radios and I tested 5 random new units fresh out of box and the bird was exactly where you would expect it to be. Without sinking huge amounts into some very expensive equipment this was the conclusion I reached. Maybe a different RS70 to mine would be better calibrated, who knows. I have not used my FX775 since performing the tests as I just don't trust anything it tells me. All the best and thanks for watching 73. MJ7NLK
Hi Robert, I have been toying with the idea of getting a Randy 2 FCC and tearing it down and comparing to the EU version (Randy 3) to see what the differences are. Something for the future maybe provided I can get hold of one. Thanks for watching and for commenting. All the best
I liked the video in general but I have to say something.The accuracy is of that Bird is +/- 5% of full scale (for the slug 10 W). So it can be off by 0.5 W on any reading over the entire scale. The measurement is really 4.0 +/- 0.5 W so it could be any power from 3.5 W to 4.5 W. You never figured the accuracy of the meters into your chart. In other words, if the radio is low 0.5W from the factory, and the Bird is actually reading 4.0 W - 0.5 W error, then the actual power could easily be 3.5 W. The other meters have accuracy limits as well. The only way to discriminate between them all is to have a much better commercial RF power meter to check them against, such as an hp 437B or other like item. Checking them against the manual is no guarantee of anything. I've measured a lot of more expensive amateur radio transceivers with commercial power meters and none of them agree exactly with the power outputs listed in the manual.
Hi Nashme, yes you are correct, most meters have an accuracy range of anywhere from +/- 5% up to 10%. However, the MetroPWR has the same deviance rating as the Bird but was wildly different. I think the take away is that unless you buy a seriously expensive calibrated bit of lab equipment you are never going to know for sure. I spoke with MetroPWR about it and they said, its a 3KW coupler and will be much less accurate in the 0 to 10W range and was designed for much higher power outputs. I highlighted the +/-5% accuracy rating in their documentation but they didnt have an answer for that and they recommended a Bird for low wattage readings with 10W slug. Thanks for commenting, it's an interesting topic. All the best
This seems to be a good place to also say that spreading coils in your radio does not mean extra power all it is doing is messing with your radios harmonix and the power meter see's this and translates it as extra power. But your radio is still doing the same power. So please don't go spreading coils.
Thanks Lee, coil spreading most likely decreases overall true power and just confuses the power meter, am not a fan of coil spreading, totally agree with you on this one. Happy new year and all the best for 2024
It is a possibly incorrect assumption that the Bird is correct, and the others are incorrect. The Bird must be calibrated, otherwise it is as accurate (or inaccurate) as any other meter.
@@NLKMediaGroup I always enjoy background music as long as it's kept in the background and you did that well. Our of all the radio related channels on RUclips I enjoy yours the most.
I use a bird 43 p with bird slugs NOT coaxial dynamic slugs. You can at any time call Bird send your unit back to the factory and have it calibrated. There is a small charge. In the '80s I used to tell a wave they only go up to 500 watt but it was pretty darn accurate too it looks a lot like the bird. Thanks for the video it just affirms what I already knew wave of the hand and 73rds from unit 33 New Jersey USA
Hi Kenneth, I am really pleased with the Bird 43 and its going to be my go to meter from now on. All the very best for 2023 and thanks for watching and for commenting. 73's MJ7NLK
We all know manufacturers supply radios at least 10% below the legal maximum as a safety margin,so i was surprised that the bird meter gave such a high reading???
Hi Simon, I have found that the Midland units are far closer to the wind than the President units. I guess the closer to 4W the radio the better it performs and sells. Some President radios are well off the mark and others are much closer. Something to keep an eye on when testing. Thanks for watching
Everyone seems to put a LOT of faith into these Bird Meters, yet NO ONE uses CW as the test signal, which is what they are designed to measure. I think you should check it's calibration too. I have one of the RS-70' s myself, and when it was tested against a high end lab scope, it showed less than a 10th of a watt difference from 1w to 200w, it was tested to 250w and was still accurate, but it gets VERY hot when you go beyond the specs. I'm confident enough in mine to continue using it. I also have a Dirland power meter and a few other SWR/Power meters, they all seem to be within a close enough range to the RS-70. The crossover weighted needle type meters I have are the ones with the highest drift, but this is still under 1w from the test machine.
My old bird was calibrated about a year ago. The MetroPWR unit was most inaccurate due to the 3Kw coupler in the lower ranges of 1W to 10W. It depends on what type of signal you are measuring but in this case CW and AVG for FM CB are comparible. My RS-70 eats batteries at an alarming rate so could be my unit. The point of the video was that without a very expensive bit of lab equipment you just don't know how accurate your meter is. You also need to have confidence in the slugs for the Bird that they have not been dropped or damaged. Thanks for watching and for commenting. All the best
Interesting topic, thats for sure! I own a analoge Team 1188 W with SWR and-Powermeter for CB. For routine measuring SWR homeantenna or to have a quick look at the approx. output of a radio its fine, but to get 100% trustful results its not a winner, of course not by a price of 20€. I only would calibrate a radio by a digital amateur radio device. However, not everybody has the money for a Rhode & Schwarz precise reference instruments, but to see wether SWR or Power is ok or not a simple analoge SWR-Powermeter works always precise enough with its +/- 5% difference. Vy 73, Gordon, 13 SW 128
Hi Gordon, thanks for watching and for commenting. It was a bit of a mine field and ended up costing me quite a bit. I always relied on the RS70 and then purchased the Metropwr and noticed a difference in readings. Then had to buy the Bird to find out which was closer to the truth. If your tuning CB radios to a whisker below the 4W limit then you need something accurate. The Rhode & Schwarz meters are quite costly but its more about the size for me. I just dont have room for one. All of the meters tested had +/- 5% in their documentation but the differences were much greater than that. All in all it was an interesting task in the end and learnt lots along the way. 73's and Happy New Year to you
How is 3.06W perfect 3:50 when you got a refernece value from the bird that were +33% higher.?
and the Bird 4W were +60% higher then Metropwr775 with 2.5W.. quite a margin.
You should take a look at the very cheap digital power meters from far east.
Like SW-33Plus and SW-102. (125Mhz to 525Mhz UHF/VHF.)
its SWR & Watt powermeters to around 35 bucks that quite a few in the Ham community took the plunge on... would be interresting to see how these far-east-gadgets from the local market, actually stacks up to an aspect of reference gear.
Big thumbs up for your video.. second to none, and one of the best compare videos I have seen on Power wattage meters... it comes acroos as extremely honest & no underlying agenda.. simply let the values stand on their own two feet and try to sense what is up or down... love it.
Hi Jakob, Power Meters are a mine field and knowing which one to trust is difficult. The Metropwr775 has a huge 1.5KW coupler and after speaking with Metropwr directly they said that it’s not meant for lower wattage accurate readings and this is why there were variances even although the spec sheet said +/-5% tolerance. I also spoke with a tech at one of the largest UK radio suppliers and they told me they had given up on trying to find an accurate power meter at an affordable price range as they all show different results. You need both measurement types CW and PEP in order to test the output of FM and AM especially when calibrating a radio accurately or as close to the legal limit as possible. It would be interesting to purchase some of the cheaper meters on the market and compare them to the Bird using this as a reference point. It was really hard to put this video together as not having a definitive reference point meant that I did not know what was accurate / which was correct. Even down to picking the test radio was difficult as they all advertise 4W but when tested they can be showing anywhere between 3W to 4W depending on what meter you use. So, I settled on a new, never used Midland, and when testing on the Bird out of the box it showed 4W which is what it should have been outputting. The RS-70 isnt cheap, the Metropwr was very expensive and the Bird was equally as expensive as the Metropwr. So, all in all, it cost me quite a lot of money to get a reference point I was comfortable with (well over £1k). Thanks for your comment and for watching. I am sure I will return to this topic again once the wallet has cooled down from this one :-) All the best
Bird is the only way to go… Well for us techs!! Great video 73
Hi, yes the Bird 43 is most certainly my go to meter from now on. Trustworthy and reliable. Happy New Year to you and all the best for 2023. 73's MJ7NLK
I own those 3 plus bird digital 4391 and various daiwa and comet, metropower was most accurate follow by bird 4391, daiwa 801 and after bird43p/nissei... Bird calibration it's nees if take away the instrument but more important are the slug same power slug can do a huge difference in misuration, I test my slug periodically with the digital that was 2 insert for direc/reflect adn take a look if measure the same thing on both 73 de iz3qvb
Hi IZ3QVB, the 4391A is on my list of things to acquire at some point. I spoke with Metropwr and they recommended the Bird as being the best option for measuring low wattage. They said their coupler was designed for much higher wattage (up to 3k) and would not give the same level of accuracy in the 0 to 4W range. It might be amazing if I was measuring 100W+. I think the conclusion I came to was that to know for sure it was going to cost me a lot to buy lab level equipment and a calibrated bird and slugs was good enough to get close to some sort of true power test. All the best and thanks for watching and commenting 73. MJ7NLK
Cant you reference a given RF signal with a modern DDS arb waveform generator.?
so you aint having to rely on some FR product and its claimed wattage specs, that often can vary greatly acroos the span.?
I dont know much about this, just curious if a moden waveform generator couldnt manipulate a given signal that you can use as sort of a refernece to test fx a watt power meter with a dummyload?
Hi Jakob, I have an OWON XSA1015 spectrum analyser but this does not help with testing power output. It has a 1W maximum input signal and requires a signal tap attenuator to be used to take a low power tap from the output signal. I am not sure if you can set the output power level of a particular waveform generator but this then puts question into how accurate the generator being used is with its output level. I have two signal generators but both on Oscilloscopes. I was trying to avoid having to purchase more expensive calibrated test equipment but the Bird is calibrated so should be a reliable reference point to use. It was a fun video to put together as the more I investigated this topic the more questions appeared. All the best and thanks for watching
Bird meters are known and believed to be trusty, and accurate. But when two other not-that-bad meters showing results very near to each other and Bird being the only one showing different measurements, I know suspect the Bird (blasphemy!)... Curious case... But this is always the problem with measuring equipment, isn't it? I have never seen my many DMMs agree with each other too, but their differences are always within their specs, not like this...
Its really hard with test equipment as you say but the bird did agree with the standard radio out the box outputting 4W which the others did not. I came to the conclusion that the only way to know for sure was to spend a huge amount on some lab equipment. I spoke to MetroPwr and they recommended the Bird and said that their coupler was not designed for such low power outputs and the bird would be far more accurate. My old bird has been calibrated but getting a new one is not cheap to compare birds. Its a mind field really but was fun to delve into. Thanks for commenting, very much appreciated
So, now im confused. What should i buy now? The big Question. My favorit was the Nissei RS-70 but if i see i 3 Powermeter and 3 different results i dont know. For now i have the Zetagi Mod.203 and thats it. What is your opinion? 73 DL1STJ
Hi DL1STJ, oh its a mine field it really is. I have spoken to so many people about this and if you want accuracy then lab level equipment is required. I got such different results using different equipment and went round in some expensive circles. I feel that the Bird is a defensible choice if challenged and gave me the most reliable and expected results. Assuming that factory set radios are tuned using lab level equipment then the bird was consistently right on the money. I have a lot of radios and I tested 5 random new units fresh out of box and the bird was exactly where you would expect it to be. Without sinking huge amounts into some very expensive equipment this was the conclusion I reached. Maybe a different RS70 to mine would be better calibrated, who knows. I have not used my FX775 since performing the tests as I just don't trust anything it tells me. All the best and thanks for watching 73. MJ7NLK
I wish you did more stuff on the president usa fcc radios.
Hi Robert, I have been toying with the idea of getting a Randy 2 FCC and tearing it down and comparing to the EU version (Randy 3) to see what the differences are. Something for the future maybe provided I can get hold of one. Thanks for watching and for commenting. All the best
I liked the video in general but I have to say something.The accuracy is of that Bird is +/- 5% of full scale (for the slug 10 W). So it can be off by 0.5 W on any reading over the entire scale. The measurement is really 4.0 +/- 0.5 W so it could be any power from 3.5 W to 4.5 W. You never figured the accuracy of the meters into your chart. In other words, if the radio is low 0.5W from the factory, and the Bird is actually reading 4.0 W - 0.5 W error, then the actual power could easily be 3.5 W. The other meters have accuracy limits as well. The only way to discriminate between them all is to have a much better commercial RF power meter to check them against, such as an hp 437B or other like item. Checking them against the manual is no guarantee of anything. I've measured a lot of more expensive amateur radio transceivers with commercial power meters and none of them agree exactly with the power outputs listed in the manual.
Hi Nashme, yes you are correct, most meters have an accuracy range of anywhere from +/- 5% up to 10%. However, the MetroPWR has the same deviance rating as the Bird but was wildly different. I think the take away is that unless you buy a seriously expensive calibrated bit of lab equipment you are never going to know for sure. I spoke with MetroPWR about it and they said, its a 3KW coupler and will be much less accurate in the 0 to 10W range and was designed for much higher power outputs. I highlighted the +/-5% accuracy rating in their documentation but they didnt have an answer for that and they recommended a Bird for low wattage readings with 10W slug. Thanks for commenting, it's an interesting topic. All the best
This seems to be a good place to also say that spreading coils in your radio does not mean extra power all it is doing is messing with your radios harmonix and the power meter see's this and translates it as extra power. But your radio is still doing the same power. So please don't go spreading coils.
Thanks Lee, coil spreading most likely decreases overall true power and just confuses the power meter, am not a fan of coil spreading, totally agree with you on this one. Happy new year and all the best for 2024
WELLL EXPLAINED M1ECP.
Thank you Robert, all the best and thanks for watching
It is a possibly incorrect assumption that the Bird is correct, and the others are incorrect. The Bird must be calibrated, otherwise it is as accurate (or inaccurate) as any other meter.
Why the annoying music ? .... Come on , If you're making a narration video , Is the annoying music needed 👎👎👎
Hi GW0WVL, sorry you didnt like the music and that you found it annoying. Hope the content was better than the music. All the best, 73's MJ7NLK
@@NLKMediaGroup I always enjoy background music as long as it's kept in the background and you did that well. Our of all the radio related channels on RUclips I enjoy yours the most.
Why do you keep saying my wife is 43 and shes old ? 😂✌🏻👍🏻🇺🇸
Thanks for commenting and thanks for watching. Got to love the old bird :-)