[Elecraft] Re: S meter operationg ...

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

> Occasionally, you still hear *very* old timers giving reports of QSA 5
> and R 9.  Remember the BC-453, often referred to as the Q-Fiver? There
> was also a preselector called the R-9er around 1952.
> David G4DMP

Last December I worked K6KPH, the Amateur Club station that keeps the old
commercial facilities of KPH on the CW bands from time to time, and we
exchanged QSA reports.  I guess the QSA code is gone now along with
commercial CW, but it was alive and well in that use right up to the end.

Personally, I'd champion the adoption for Hams of the old 1-5 QSA scale for
the strength of a signal. I find that I tend to divide signals by ear into
four or five levels, not 9 or 9+ so many dB <G>.

But if we ever succeeded, all the manufacturers would quickly "calibrate"
their receivers to read in QSA numbers instead of  S-units and we'd be right
back in the same situation we have today. I can imagine it now: "The QSA
meter is reading 4.24 here OM!".

Ron AC7AC
K2 # 1289