Signal strength meter - recommendations

[Pro-95]

Does anyone have any recommendations on signal strength meters?

Yes cheap is good. Build it yourself is better. Accuracy isn't as important as consistantcy. Yes I want to use it in a receive only environment. Surely there has to be a way of reading how much signal is coming across, right????

 

[Pro-95]

My thoughts are that if Trunker and Etrunker can read a signal strength then surely there must be something that can be plugged into the discriminator tap/hamcom interface to read it just the same but in a field (garage) environment.

 

[loumaag]

Mike, Trunker & ETrunk both do not have signal strength meters. Those numbers up there are a calculated decode rate. Similar to what the Pro-96 will show if you sit on a Control Channel in manual mode.

An S-Meter would have to have access to the RF detection stages in the radio. If you were to hook anything in there then the alignment of the radio changes due to the fact that you have changed the capacitance, inductance, and voltages present. Not something you really want to do.

Interestingly enough, the Pro-92 & Pro-94 (GRE & Uniden built) both have undocumented (read RS didn't tell us about them) signal strength meters in one of the test modes. I don't have a 95 here with me so I can't say for sure if it does, but I can tell you that I can't find it on the 96. But since you are the experimental type, on the Pro-92 you press <0><3> during the "Welcome" screen and the radio goes into some test mode. It will function normally after that except the display flashes. In the upper right corner where "D" and "L" would normally display (Delay & Lock Out) the scanner will put a hex digit reflecting a signal strength (when receiving a signal of course). The Pro-94 works similarly, except you press <0><4> on startup. I will caution you to be careful as the wrong <0><?> combination do other things, like reset the scanner, wipe out the memory, load default test data, etc. :shock:

If you find the 95 will do a similar thing please let us know. Good luck.

 

[Pro-95]

0,1 Initilize scanner - wipes out memory
0,2 Test Set - scan doesn't work
0,3 Displays a backwards 6 next to the mode (open/close indicator)
0,4 same as 0,3 AND 0,2 combined
0,5 EEPROM Test mode - INITILIZES SCANNER - wipes out memory
0,6 EEPROM Test mode - Programs EEPROM - INITILIZES SCANNER - wipes out memory
0,7 makes banks disappear bank = all banks and search frequencies
0,8 S/A
0,9 S/A
1 key beep on
2 key beep off
3 displays version

 

[loumaag]

Sorry Mike, looks like they stopped giving you the extra's.