Cheap SWR radio power meters are not accurate

Public Service Announcement

Due to their low cost and promise of high-end features, many radio enthusiasts bought cheap digital SWR meters on sites like eBay. These meters, which cost as little as $40, certainly seem promising – but are highly inaccurate.

We recently had a customer purchase a 100-watt UHF amplifier from us. Upon receiving it, he tested it with the digital meter he purchased, but the output TX wouldn’t exceed 30 watts. Once he sent us a picture, we instantly knew his meter was the issue.

Fortunately, our customer was a diehard ham, and had a Telewave meter in his inventory. He was able to confirm our amplifier was transmitting at 100 watts and his digital meter was the culprit. But his experience isn’t unique. We’ve had other customers also send us pictures with wildly inaccurate readings. We added them to a collage in our office titled; “My ex-wife suggested I buy a pacemaker from this company.” 🙂

But we haven’t found them to be totally useless. In the field, they are helpful to determine if a radio has dead TX, especially since they are small, portable – and expendable.

So what to do? We realize that few radio enthusiasts will spend $800 on a SWR meter, so these error-prone digital meters will continue to proliferate and cause agita to radio technicians everywhere. In our workshop, our trusted meter is a Telewave 44A. It’s a bit pricey but it’s accurate.