Mcbazel Surecom SW-114 SWR RF Field Strength Test Meter with SO-239 UHF Connector for CB Operation

High SWR is a radio killer.

Ad described antenna included but was not. Fraud.

Do not waste your money!

No directions

Loose field strength antenna

Un instrumento básico, pero de gran ayuda. Me permite realizar los ajustes necesarios.

Great

First of all, the 4 stars is for an economical quick and dirty solution. Im not saying its 4 stars compared to having a reference receiver and a calibrated power meter. I didnt see any other low-cost options for doing the kind of testing Im doing. Full disclosure: Im using it off-label for UHF not CB so if that sounds crazy or just too different from your situation, stop reading here. The instructions that came with it clearly say its for CB. Because Im using it off label for UHF I dont expect to use it as an SWR meter. I use it mainly to tell if other peoples UHF radios are at least as powerful as the minimum required for our terrain. I have several UHF radios to test and its giving me relative indications, repeat relative. All I can do is tweak the knob to adjust attenuation until I can read levels from both radios, one after the other. First of all for 2 of my handheld UHF radios that Id previously measured conducted power roughly 3 db different from one another, this unit seemed to give relative field strength readings that were in the same ballpark. In another attempt involving 2 other UHF radio models, it tipped me off that one of the radios is more powerful than I thought, and another less powerful (I thought I was testing 2 pieces of junk but actually one of them is better than expected).

This is a good meter for Citizens Band radio, but its not good for ham radio. In the spec sheet it says not for VHF/UHF. Since this meter is bound to attract ham users, they should understand its made for CB users, and for that it does quite well.

The little antenna for the field strength meter came apart but it was easily fixed, needed to be resoider.