I ran through an RF Gain calibration with the K3 Utility-- as I seem to do 
every three or four years for no good reason-- and then I checked the linearity 
of the S-meter. I've calibrated my S-meter for 1 S-unit = 5 dB because that way 
each tic mark represents 5 dB both above and below S9, making it easy to 
interpret. I use an Agilent E4433B signal generator.


I can go from +60 dB over S9 (-13 dBm) down to S2 (-108 dBm) by stepping the 
amplitude of the generator in exactly 5 dB steps and over this entire 95 dB 
range the segments of the S-meter track perfectly.


(The last S-unit, from S2 to S1, takes about an 8 dB delta to register on the 
S-meter.)


I gotta say, that's pretty remarkable. Not too many years ago S-meters were 
approximate guesses, but they've improved quite a bit, probably because of 
digital IFs and lookup tables. Very nice.

Al  W6LX
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