Well, good luck on studying for your tests. Be a little forward thinking and study for the tests past the Technician. If you pass the Technician test, give the General test a try. Then, if you pass the General, try the Extra. There are lots of new hams starting out with their Extra.
If you just want to listen, there is no need to calibrate the SWR meter. A check of the SWR tells you whether your antenna is a good match to your transmitter, at your current frequency. While a good match is important during receive, the receiver is not a picky as the transmitter and will work fine without calibrating the SWR meter.
In fact, unless you are calibrating the SWR with a dummy load, you should not be transmitting until your get your license. Even then, you should be using a dummy load for adjustments and tune ups.
Now that the lecture is over, here are the steps to calibrate the SWR readings.
1. Push the METER switch until the meter changes into SWR calibrate mode.
2. Select a mode based on the mode you intend to use. This is because the CW/SSB modes have more output power than the AM/FM modes. If you don't set the reference correctly, the SWR indicated may be in error.
2 A. Put the radio in the CW mode, if you are going to use CW or SSB. You use the CW mode because the SSB mode does not output any ower,
until you talk into the microphone.
2 B. Or, put the radio in the FM mode, if you are going to use FM.
2 C. Or, put the radio in the AM mode, if you are going to use AM.
3. Turn the SWR calibrate knob fully counter clock wise.
4. Push the TX switch.
5. Adjust the SWR calibrate knob so that the indicator is over the calibrate mark on the meter (at the high end of the meter).
6. Push the METER switch, to change into SWR mode.
7. Read the current SWR off the meter.
8. Release the TX switch.
Good luck on your test.
Martin - K7MEM
