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Re: "SWR" Meter Bars?


 

Hi Larry,

If you have an SWR meter for HF, it¡¯ll probably be fine for 6 m.

So long as the directional coupler in it is less than ¦Ë/20, about 30 cm (12¡±) it should work fine for you.

If you have one for 2 m or above, that will probably be fine too although you may not be able to achieve full scale deflection on the ¡°set¡± or ¡°fwd¡± setting. If, for instance the forward setting only will reach half scale, just extrapolate the physical position of the reflected setting and read off the SWR there.

73¡­.Eric VK2VE.

From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of lbakely
Sent: Saturday, 25 February 2023 07:41
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ft817] "SWR" Meter Bars?

I put up a dipole for 6 meters (fed by RG8x coax). I don¡¯t have an SWR meter that¡¯s specified for 6 meters, so I¡¯m at the mercy of the ¡®817¡¯s internal ¡°SWR Meter¡± display as I test the antenna out.

There are a lot of great posts in the group that dive into the details of the ¡°SWR¡± display, but I still can¡¯t resist asking:
How many ¡°bars¡± in the FT-817¡¯s SWR display do you consider ¡°acceptable?¡± I realize that this is a subjective term and depends on a lot of other conditions. We all want it to be as low as possible (no bars), but I¡¯m wondering how many bars you tend to tolerate before feeling that you need to trim the antenna.

For the sake of argument (because the meter gives a relative indication of reflected power, not SWR), let¡¯s assume we¡¯re operating at 5 Watts.
Thanks again!
Larry, WA2VKG

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