[Elecraft] DMM recommendations

[Ron D' Eau Claire]

I have used Fluke meters for well over 10 years. They are great. But my
Fluke "died" in the middle of building my K2 two years ago. A special
parallel conductor flexible strip developed an 'open'  - so I needed to
order parts. I went of to Radio Shack to see what they offered as a "quick
fix".

I ended up with what I suspect is the same DMM - RS Cat No. 22-174B. It
measures volts, amps, resistance, capacitance and has an excellent
transistor and diode check function. It does a few things my Fluke didn't
do, such as tell me the 'pinout' of transistors as well as measure the hFe
directly. It also has a temperature probe - handy for analyzing heat sink
behavior <G>.

Accuracy seems just as good as the Fluke. Side-by-side checks produce the
same reading on a range of resistances and voltages. The RS offers a wider
range of currents as well as being a "true RMS" meter instead of just
measuring the p-p a-c voltage and assuming it is a sine wave.

Overall, the RS has become my "main" meter with the Fluke as a "back up".
It's a  sign of how the technology has changed in the few years since I
bought the Fluke for 2X or more  the price of the Radio Shack meter.

There is ONE BIG DIFFERENCE though: the time it takes to produce a reading
on the display. The Radio Shack meter requires about 2 seconds to produce a
reading, while the Fluke is almost instantaneous. Reading about the i-c's
these meters use, that seems to be the biggest difference in their costs.
Precision resistors for the range calibration are cheap and common. But the
i-c's that offer the faster readout are much more expensive than the slower
ones, and that shows up in the price of the meter.

So I'd suggest learning to take a deep breath when making a measurement and
pocket the cash savings unless the money is not important.

I do keep an old "analog" meter complete with a large mirror-backed scale
for use when I am "tweaking" an analog circuit for a peak or a null. I HATE
using digital meters for that - even the Fluke! That's the only time I can
see the slow response of the Radio Shack meter being a real problem.

Ron AC7AC
K2 # 1289