[Elecraft] DMM advice?

[Stephanie Maks]

>
> Just remember: a cheap DMM is so much nicer than having no DMM.

I'm not sure I agree with this statement.  During alignment & test II  
of my K2, my cheap DMM went wonky on me.  Looking for VCO voltages on  
R30, and no matter what I tried, I only got a few dozen millivolts.   
So I checked for +6 volts on one of the pins of one of the ICs and  
found 20 volts!  Then I checked at the power jack and saw over 30  
volts!  I shut off the K2 and pulled the power out, thinking for sure  
that my power supply had just gone wild and fried everything in the  
K2.  I got my backup power supply out and checked that.  It was  
reading over 30 volts as well!

Of course, it was the cheap DMM.  Anything under about 3 or 4 volts  
read as close to 0 volts, and anything over that read as 20 to 30  
volts.  It still seems to work for measuring resistance but I won't  
use it any more, it's lost my trust.

I was doing some comparisons online and the B&K models look really  
good to me.  I tried to find a local shop to buy the 2706 model but  
nobody seems to carry them here.  DigiKey has them but I was too  
impatient to wait for delivery.

So I have another (different) cheap DMM for now.   Oh wait, ok I  
guess I do agree with that statement!  :-)

73 de Stephanie
va3uxb
K2#5311 - K1#2132