[Elecraft] AGC/S-meter

[Daniel Reynolds]

I found that out at lunch when I put the K2 on the bench at work. Running 50uV
into the K2 on 7040 yielded S9 (after I readjusted my S-meter last night...
more about that adjustment process below).

BUT - when I dropped from 50uV (-73dBm) to -53dBm (+20dB gain), the meter went
from S9 to Full Scale... and when I backed it off to -85dbm (approx 2 S-units)
it actually dropped to S-5...

So the lesson is that the meter is very relative (and not very precise)!

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I adjusted my meter last night using the following procedure...

- AGC Voltage set at 3.80.
- Set S Lo with max RF gain
- Set S Hi with RF gain at 9 o'clock (instead of min RF gain).

It resulted in what I felt was significantly improved meter action compared to
what my meter was doing before (it was very stingy).

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Is it accurate? Is the K2 designed to be exactly 12-dB between each LED between
S-5 and S-9 and 10-dB between each LED from S-9 to +40 dB? Who knows...

I just know that I 'feel' better seeing the meter travel more than S-1 or S-2
on signals that seem pretty clear and 'strong' to my ears. I also know that a
strong signal (50uV) will now give me a strong reading of S-9.

BTW - 50uV on 7040 was S9, and 50uV on 21060 was S7 - so the gain varies from
band to band.

- Daniel/AA0NI