An earlier posting brings this to mind .... There is a seemingly little-known failure that frequently occurs to Bird meter movements ... or more correctly ... to the connector at the sensor casting end of the length of coax used to connect the (30 ua) meter to the sensor.
Often a sharp "whack" on the housing will cause the meter to resume working, often for long periods of time. The connector's internal connection is made by inserting the (solid) center conductor of the coax between turns of the coils of a tiny spring that's part of the center pin assembly of the casting end's cable connector. There's such a tiny amount of current flowing through the coax center conductor and the spring "connection" that it seems to corrode easily, and most assume the meter movement has failed. The resulting tiny disturbance to the wire/spring junction is why the "slap" on the housing often brings the meter back to life. Many of the expensive proprietary meters have been needlessly replaced because of this. 73 - K0PP ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com