[Elecraft] No analog S-meter emulation planned for the P3 at this time

[Edward R Cole]

Just an observation about professional engineering spectrum analyzers:

Most engineers will take the value from the curves, displayed.  They 
do often have cursors which one can position which will display a 
numerical value of the curve at that position.

Spectravue which accompanies the SDR-IQ has selectable resolution of 
the vertical scale from 0.01 to 10 dB per division.  I use 0.2/DIV 
for making sun noise measurements with my 16-foot dish.  The jitter 
in the white noise allows me to estimate level to 0.1 dB using that 
scale.  1-dB/DIV is perfectly reasonable for viewing radio 
signals.  I usually set up 5-dB/DIV when observing eme signals (and 
you know they are weak!).

For a typical S5 signal on 20m you will get very good resolution 
(assuming your local noise is lower than S5).  I get S3 to 4 on HF 
noise floor, on average, so S5 is 12-dB over noise.  S9+20 is 56-dB 
over noise.  1-dB/DIV will have the display off the top of the screen.

If I didn't already have LP-Pan installed I would be interested in a 
P3.  With addition of transmitter signal analysis that is a real 
plus!  (I also cheat a little with my 1970's era surplus HP141T, 
which cost me $550).

73, Ed - KL7UW
http://www.kl7uw.com
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