[ARC5] Missing meter in Phantom Antenna A-61-A (#7777)

[Michael Hanz]

On 4/9/2016 1:14 PM, J Mcvey wrote:
> Sounds like a great idea!  ...for a bodge...heh, heh.   It has the 
> potential added benefit of allowing some degree of calibration of the 
> anonymous 10 division antenna current meter in situ if you have an 
> accurate standard to compare it with.
>
> I wouldn't consider it a "bodge" since it is more like a home-brew 
> test tool that is NOT part of the overall setup. Isn't a only a bodge 
> when someone "boogers up" the radio itself? Mine are all pretty much 
> as they were designed ( except where a prior owner may have drilled a 
> hole), so no "bodging" on that score...

You may have missed the ROFL emoticon, so I replaced it above with a 
heh, heh, to make sure you understood that it was signifying humor about 
the preceding phrase.  I am sorry if you perceived it in a negative 
sense - I surely meant no offense.  My particular definition of a bodge 
does not include unwarranted modification of perfectly good original 
receivers just to see what happens, as in "let's hack up these original 
receivers just for the fun of it", but rather follows the generally 
accepted terminology of the several definitions on the web, to wit:  To 
accomplish a perhaps inelegant but quick fix, usually as a temporary 
repair, stop gap, patch, bridging action, in order to get something 
quickly working or functional again (literal meaning "to put a square 
peg in a round hole").  YMMV.

As I said, I have done plenty of that type of work without any guilty 
feeling.  So should you, and everyone else on this list.

> Yes, since the dummy load is a known quantity, it could  be used to 
> calibrate the ammeter, but if one was to do that, wouldn't that be a 
> bodge? The thermocouple nor the transformer are NOT adjustable as far 
> as I know.

Why would you want them adjustable?  A simple conversion chart of meter 
indication (0, 1, 2,...10) versus actual RF current would seem to be 
sufficient.  And that would certainly be a bodge (in my view), but well 
accepted and time tested - think of the LM and BC-221 frequency meters 
among dozens of other examples...high praise indeed...heh, heh...

73,
Mike  KC4TOS
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