[Elecraft] DMM Recommendations

[Don Wilhelm]

I have an older Kiethley Instruments 762 DMM that I found at Dayton a few
years back - I use it for high accuracy measurements and I take good care of
it.  For more frequent use I have a handheld DVM under the brand name Escort
model EDM-163 that was priced under $80.  It provides routine service at my
workbench and is quite reasonably accurate.  Most of the time, precise
measurements are not required - within 5% is generally good enough - but
there ARE times when the Kiethley is called into service.

For those who don't have the pleasure of owning or buying a DVM that is
known to be accurate, you may want to consider building a calibration
standard just to ease your mind and inform you of the amount of error to
expect with that inexpensive meter.  It really is not hard to do with all
the inexpensive precision voltage references that are available for just
pennies today.

If you have no idea how to go about creating your own, take a look at the
voltage standard that I built - it is on my website www.qsl.net/w3fpr.

73,
Don W3FPR


----- Original Message ----- 
>
> I have Fluke and Bel Merit meters. Neither is what one would call "cheap".
> They agree very closely on all ranges.
>
> I ALSO have a Radio Shack DMM - One that ran me about 70 bucks on sale a
> couple of years ago. It does all the things the Fluke does AND tests
> transistor, measures lower frequencies (<1 MHz I think) and capacitance.
>