CB and Ham Radio Techs Love Their Bird Wattmeters

[xrunner]

It's important to treat your Bird wattmeter with care as you would any precision instrument. Always use the carrying case to prevent damage to the meter when in transit to and from the field. While in the field, do not allow the meter to hit or be struck by objects capable of inflicting damage to the instrument's case - possibly affecting the meter movement or element calibration.

eBay auction: #335495456843

[metrologist]

The carrying case is practically mint condition 

[xrunner]

Yea it's really nice. Why get it all scratched and marred using it to carry the meter around? 

[byoungblood]

Bird Wattmeters are a cult.

   Truth!  Hams and CBers are a funny lot. They're absolutely fanatical about certain brands such as Bird and Astron (power supplies) even when there is much better equipment available for nearly the same costs.

FB is FULL of old "sad" hams that won't use anything but an old Astron or other boat anchor linear supply on their HF rigs. Any time a newbie asks about an SMPS the old guys line up to tell everyone how noisy it will be. I always love following up their rants about noisy SMPS relating how quiet my Samlex 30A switcher is with my Yaesu HF rig. Nothin' but crickets!

[Mark19960]

Sad hams.... See 75m band... 3927

I saw some CBer post about a gadget that replaces the meter movement in a Bird 43 with a digital display and called that "the first digital wattmeter"
Which of course drew a chuckle.... since Bird's own digital offering pre-dates it by decades.
However, it's being worshipped like Elon Musks "hyperloop" whitepaper. Just don't tell that bloke it's not the first. They kinda get mad.

On the above... re: power supplies....
I have an Astron switching supply. It works fine. No noise on the upper bands.

[joeqsmith]

https://www.cqdx.ru/ham/new-equipment/digital-meter-kit-for-the-bird-43-wattmeter/

Sorting slugs 

[joeqsmith]

Looks like G0HZU was posting about the Bird 43 long before this thread was started:

https://www.worldwidedx.com/threads/10-watt-or-25-watt-slug.151925/page-2#post-417661

[metrologist]

Hey, you found all my old buddies. 

Wonder if I can figure out my login. 

[pdenisowski]

Bird has been releasing a couple of "teaser" videos about a new wattmeter that .... (wait for it ) .... doesn't use slugs 




My guess is that they're going to release a (USB-based) directional power sensor like the R&S NRT, especially when one of their videos talks about it not being "cumbersome"

I also like the fact that one of their teaser videos shows a Rohde & Schwarz ZNB vector network analyzer (despite the fact that Bird also makes their own VNA)

[xrunner]

It will never be accepted by the True Believers. 

[joeqsmith]

Think my thread had any influence on their decision to go after a new design?       

My guess is that they're going to release a (USB-based) directional power sensor like the R&S NRT, especially when one of their videos talks about it not being "cumbersome"

It appears it will run standalone.  If it does have a PC interface, hopefully it can update faster than 1Hz.  I wonder if it uses standard batteries & how long they last.  I got the impression the hams like not having a battery and most frowned on having a digital display.   They had the 4381 that never seemed very popular.   

https://www.ebay.com/itm/405194968459

Do you think they will offer different products to cover the various ranges? 

[pdenisowski]

It will never be accepted by the True Believers. 

That was my thought as well.  The Bird 43 is about to become the HP15C of directional power meters - buy one while you still can

[pdenisowski]

Think my thread had any influence on their decision to go after a new design?       

   

It appears it will run standalone.

Yeah, didn't notice the "blueprints" in the video.  My guess is battery powered with standard batteries.

Do you think they will offer different products to cover the various ranges?

Depends on what kind of frequency range(s) they want to cover.  We have two directional power sensors that cover 25 MHz to 1 GHz (NRT-Z14) and 200 MHz to 4 GHz (NRT-Z44).   Trying to cover everything from the 160m to 1.2 GHz ham bands in a single sensor is probably do-able.

I actually do use our (R&S) directional power meter for ham stuff sometimes, but it's not priced for that market

[joeqsmith]

I also like the fact that one of their teaser videos shows a Rohde & Schwarz ZNB vector network analyzer (despite the fact that Bird also makes their own VNA)

I thought it was pretty funny that R&S would use the Bird 43 as the first meter they show.  Proving once again, it is the gold standard.   

[pdenisowski]

I thought it was pretty funny that R&S would use the Bird 43 as the first meter they show.

I'm glad you liked it - I spent a lot of time making those graphics.   I haven't finished that presentation yet, but here's are my draft notes on what the slide on "unidirectional wattmeters" needs to say. (see attached)

But I guess now I'll have to change "are" to "were"  :'(

Proving once again, it is the gold standard.

I included a slide on these because they are the "old" way of doing this, at least from a professional point of view.  The ham in me (KO4LZ) very much wants to collect instruments like this in my old age

[ftg]

I also like the fact that one of their teaser videos shows a Rohde & Schwarz ZNB vector network analyzer (despite the fact that Bird also makes their own VNA)

I thought it was pretty funny that R&S would use the Bird 43 as the first meter they show.  Proving once again, it is the gold standard.

Heh, Bird 43 and Daiwa CN-801. Both classics.

[joeqsmith]

I just skimmed it and noticed the slide but intend to watch it later.   

Buried in this thread there are links to people that will series up several of the Bird meters.   True Bird fans always seem to have more than one.     

I no longer hold a ham license and do not own a CB.  The only transmitter I have intentionally broadcasted with was this thing.  Note the use of some salvaged analog meters to measure the match and aerial current.   
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/rf-microwave/fly-swatter-ham-radio-transmitter/msg5458907/#msg5458907

[Wallace Gasiewicz]

pdenisowski:
You would sell more meters if you had a catchy song about your directional watt meter:     



I know I posted this before but I cannot resist.

[pdenisowski]

Daiwa CN-801. (Attachment Link)

[joeqsmith]

My takeaway, R&S was limited to 25MHz min,  120W Avg.   

At 2:24, it states the sensor can be used with the NRT2 meter or a PC with the virtual NRT PC software.  It shows the connector but never talks about how this would connect to the PC.  I would have guessed the PC connects to the NRT2 and requires it to talk with the sensor.   But that is not what the video claims.   

CBers and hams need to yell "audio" into the mic and watch the meters live.  There was no mention how fast the bar graphs  are updated.  The Bird 43 is fast enough for both groups.  We saw that one with the PC interface running at 1Hz and the ham/CBer was pretty upset how useless it was.  I would think something basic like the update rate would be one of the first things mentioned and demonstrated in a video like this.   I didn't see a mention of minimum power or accuracy.   

The homemade one I demonstrated had maybe a 2kHz update rate.  I would need to go back and look.   I think I demonstrated it with signal levels as low as -30dBm.   Downside to that unit was my home made coupler was limited to about 50MHz.  I could have possibly characterized it and then compensated for the non linearity in software but as it was, I just used a simple point slope and called it a day.   There was a third or fourth order polynomial fit to that Bird 43 analog meter graphics I ripped off.   Far more math to get that to work.   

[pdenisowski]

At 2:24, it states the sensor can be used with the NRT2 meter or a PC with the virtual NRT PC software.  It shows the connector but never talks about how this would connect to the PC.  I would have guessed the PC connects to the NRT2 and requires it to talk with the sensor.   But that is not what the video claims. 

The NRT2 is a standalone base unit that talks to and controls the NRT-Zx4 directional power sensors - no PC connection or software is needed, although it can be remotely controlled over a LAN connection, either via VNC or using SCPI commands.

There is a USB adapter that allows the NRT-Zx4 sensors to be directly connected to a PC and controlled via the NRTV application running on the PC.  For time reasons (and because most customers don't use it that way), I didn't go into any detail on that in the video.  There's a picture in the brochure linked to below.

CBers and hams need to yell "audio" into the mic and watch the meters live.  There was no mention how fast the bar graphs  are updated.  The Bird 43 is fast enough for both groups.  We saw that one with the PC interface running at 1Hz and the ham/CBer was pretty upset how useless it was. 

Let me see if I made a video of it.  I'm not sure how you would spec bar graph speed, but the NRT2 bar graph is very, very fast compared to anything else I've seen.

I would think something basic like the update rate would be one of the first things mentioned and demonstrated in a video like this.   I didn't see a mention of minimum power or accuracy.   

The video was meant to be educational / instructional rather than an advertisement for the meters so I didn't include much in the way of specifications.  The full specs are available in this document:

https://scdn.rohde-schwarz.com/ur/pws/dl_downloads/dl_common_library/dl_brochures_and_datasheets/pdf_1/NRT_bro_en_5215-0986-12_v0500.pdf

The minimum power is 0.006 W (6 milliwatts) for the NRT-Z14 and 0.003 W (3 milliwatts) for the NRT-Z44.   Measurement uncertainty is also in the above document.

Hope that helps!

[joeqsmith]

There is a USB adapter that allows the NRT-Zx4 sensors to be directly connected to a PC and controlled via the NRTV application running on the PC.

That makes sense.  I searched YT to try and find anyone showing the PC's software and screen update rates.  So far I have not found anything.  Guessing the PC software allows features like streaming the data to disk, linking with other software.  I found where to download it.  I installed the Windows version thinking it would have a demo mode.  Sadly, it just crashes.   

The rest looks good.  So 4% of reading for the CBer's (unmodulated).   What's the Bird 43, 10% of full scale?   It will be interesting to see the datasheet for the new Bird. 

The CBer's need 10kW and hams would want their 160 meter.    Guessing these groups are not the target.

[pdenisowski]

The CBer's need 10kW and hams would want their 160 meter.    Guessing these groups are not the target.

We don't really design for or market to CBers or hams, even though we have quite a few hams working for Rohde & Schwarz, including Dr. Rohde himself (N1UL).  He's quite active on the bands and is also a strong supporter of / advocate for the amateur radio community.

A lot of the market for professional directional power sensors is for people who want to leave the sensor inline all the time and remotely monitor it.  For people who just want to make occasional measurements, most just use directional couplers and terminating power sensors (and pads, where needed).  I discuss this in an upcoming video.

[Bud]

... we have quite a few hams working for Rohde & Schwarz, including Dr. Rohde himself (N1UL).

That must have come as a shock to the arrogant assholes posting in this thread.

[pdenisowski]

... we have quite a few hams working for Rohde & Schwarz, including Dr. Rohde himself (N1UL).

That must have come as a shock to [people] posting in this thread.

He's been in QST numerous times in the last couple of years.  He's also donated a lot of very nice instruments (like a vector sig gen and a phase noise analyzer) to the ARRL labs.