[Hammarlund] S meter

[Ken Hickman]

GM Mike & Gang,

It is interesting to see how "salesmanship" had corrupted things. Bigger is
better.
Consider automobile horsepower - my 1952 Plymouth was 96 horsepower - not
impressive sales wise
so in order to impress they began rating the engines in "cubes", cubic inch
displacement (of the cylinders).
This gave far bigger numbers, on the the order of hundreds of "cubes".
My teen age son (way back then) and his friends were tossing the term
"cubes" around as though they
knew what that meant. I asked him what "cubes" meant. He only could tell me
that the bigger the
number the bigger the engine! Hi!
The "British Brake Horsepower" number is much less than our horsepower
ratings.

Back before the receiver manufacturers began increasing the reading on the
"S" meters, S9 meant,
"An extremely strong signal". So, why do we need 40 db over S9 on the meter?
FIW.

Ken   N5CM

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Taylor" <reel2reel at hotmail.com>
To: <hammarlund at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 12:48 AM
Subject: [Hammarlund] S meter


Well Ken, I stand corrected. If I remember correctly, a doubling in signal
strength is 3db. This in fact means that the meter on the HQ129-X is in fact
a real and calibrated S meter, although not the type that we're used to
today. I'd still like to know who invented the modern day S meter and if
Hammarlund had anything to do with that. Thanks for the interesting reply.
73's...Mike
_______________________________________________
List Administrator: Duane Fischer W8DBF
** For Assistance: dfischer at usol.com **
----
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/hammarlund