Hello,
I was attracted by electronics projects and ham radio since I was a child and now at 36 despite the fact that I am working as software engineer I still have the enthusiasm when it comes to PCB boards, circuit design and it seems that I finally got the time required to restart building some small/medium projects, mostly mixed signal ones. I don't have all the the tools required and I'm looking to buy some laboratory stuff such as DMM, power source and a signal generator that I'll use for RF projects.
I would like to buy a DMM that I'll use with some Atmel projects, small amortizations, LED, sensors, the usual hobby-type tasks. As a ham radio amateur I would like to use it as well while building some RF projects but I've got a LCR meter and a 100Mhz DSO already which are quite fine for these jobs.
I was reading for last couple of weeks about different brands and models, apparently one of the best bet would be a Fluke, perhaps a Fluke 87V. There are a couple of Chinese brands against it, low cost, perhaps lower quality such as UNI-T with their UT71D or UT71E models. The price difference is about 1/3 here in UK. While money are not an issue I am wondering if I'll really need at some point the accuracy gain that apparently Fluke has against the UNI-T. With my hobby projects, would I ever need to distinguish to the 3rd decimal point? Would not so stable readings on the UNI-T count for my amateur projects? Well probably the final question is something like, would I buy the Fluke just because I can afford it and it sounds like a 'thing to have'?
I was also looking at Fluke 289, Fluke 8846A models and the Agilent 34410A. They are all within my budget for my DMM but as an amateur do I really need any of them?
Cornel