TA-0405: BG5CQV SWR Power Meter CQV-SWR-508 1.8-54 MHz - Hands On

[@gmdusa]

Meter injects super bad noise onto the signals. Faulty out of the box and I had to return mine.

[@TonyAlbus]

Thank you for this important comment, you are the 2nd to notice this and mention it in the comments, this for sure needs more investigation on my side. i did not test that. i am still using my Daiwa myself. i will test more and make a new video when needed and Pin your comment.

[@TonyAlbus]

Yes mine i bad too. 1.766 MHz / 3.531 / 7.065

[@robertherendeen7702]

I have the same problem, produces massive RFI on the 40 meter band. I have not spent any time to see if I can fix it, sending back to China is too expensive.

[@TonyAlbus]

@@robertherendeen7702 Yes best thing to do... i am completly cured now from digital SWR meters... i use my good old Daiwa.

[@MrThisIsMeToo]

@@TonyAlbus Yet you still have it advertised in your description. Shame on ya.

[@JR-lx8nn]

Nice work. Well illustrated and scripted. Thanks. J

[@TonyAlbus]

Thanks, be aware, some older models seem to have QRM on some of the HF bands, i have an other video about that. but also note that some have reported that the newer model does not have the problem, the last i have not been able to confirm, as i did send mine back because of the QRM (i had the first model)

[@M5AXA]

Hi Tony, What a great meter. Bright detailed and very nice addition to the shack. It is certainly complements the modern radios you have with big displays. Thanks for sharing. 73s

[@TonyAlbus]

Thanks Ian, yes good point to match the modern display, now i need to find a nice spot for it.

[@davidv1289]

Very nice looking piece of kit, Tony. I also like an "analog" display for tuning/alignment - call me old fashioned too. You need to get a large 75 ohm load for you bench - terminate a 50 line in 75 ohms and get exactly 1.5:1 SWR. I used this trick to calibrate beacon interrogator SWR monitor circuits.

[@TonyAlbus]

Thanks David... That is a good one the 75Ohms... cool! will do.

[@jwrtiger]

Hi Tony, I have the same BG5CQV SWR power meter and several CN-801 HF. VHF/UHF Daiwa analog meters. We sure have a lot of the same equipment... great minds think alike ; ). I also like the digital bar graph feature over just digital number readout. So far I am happy with my BG5CQV. I have not opened mine up. Thanks for the video.

[@TonyAlbus]

Hi John, yes amazing how much equipment we have in common indeed, nice to see so. For me Daiwa is still the best, also i have always seen then in my dads shack, so they must be good. i have bought a few second hand and all of them have been still spot on. they make some amazing quality to last for many years. but this modern stuff is great to try and they have build something good this time, if the sample could be higher it would be better even.

[@barrybogart5436]

I like needles too, and MFJ has already sold a lot of their stock. For me it makes sense to have the tuner and two needles in the same device. I like turning knobs. Some things are better if analog. I still like my VOMs and VTVMs too.

[@TonyAlbus]

Yes i read somewhere that MFJ stopped the company if i remember correct. Comet has a nice CAT-300 i use and its great. although i must admit that the older Kenwood At-200 /230 and some of my Daiwa tuners work amazingly well still. Sorry to say i was not a big fan of MFJ, their cheaper tuners were not that good and fragile, but nicely compact for mobile. Needles rock!

[@driverfilmsshortwavechannel]

A nice meter. I do like the high SWR alarm

[@TonyAlbus]

Great for when you switch bands on the TRX and you forget to adjust the tuner...

[@johnbrown-rm8kc]

very good greetings from Australia

[@TonyAlbus]

Thank you very much! Greeting to you too!

[@colinstamp9053]

I'd guess that the update rate of the bar graphs is dictated by the length of time it takes to re-render all the digital values on the display. It would be a nice addition to the software, to give it a "fast" mode that has much more responsive bars at the expense of smaller digits.

[@TonyAlbus]

Hi Colin, that is a great idea, a sort of Tune mode where you only have 2 bars with crazy fast update... i hope they will do this at some point.

[@VoSo_]

Zuerst einmal muß ich sagen, daß das CQV-SWR-508 knapp 30 dB QRM erzeugt, wie die anderen ähnlichen digitalen SWV Geräte! Mir gefällt zudem nicht, daß man es nicht an die Stromversorgung der Station (13,8 V Netzteil) anschließen kann und extra wieder ein USB Steckernetzteil anschließen muß (mehr Netzteile, mehr Störungen und mehr Effizienzverluste). Auch finde ich es als Nachteil, wenn die ermittelten Spitzenwerte nicht für einige Sekunden gehalten/angezeigt werden - auch wenn man nicht mehr sendet. Ebenfalls finde ich es eine Unart Schaltkreise unkenntlich zu machen, indem die Bezeichnung abgeschliffen wird und so eine Reparatur durch einen Funkamateur für einen anderen Funkamateur unmöglich wird.

[@TonyAlbus]

Yes agree, much to improve, i have seen comments from people telling the newer version seems to have a lot less QRM,

[@Jens-dl1bjr]

Got one too, it's a nice ham-toy. To sad it is generating interferences. BTW: Which Marconi is it? ;)

[@TonyAlbus]

Hi! .. 2955 :)) love it

[@kenmcmullan9330]

It's not "just you because you are old!!" I borrowed a needle gauge while I was waiting for my digital meter. Now I really miss the needle. You can see that the ID has ben filed off the CPU because it would be VERY easy to reprogram the digital meter to display a bar, if we knew that it was just an ATMEL or something! In a year, they can sell us the EXACT same hardware, but with a bargraph!!

[@TonyAlbus]

Yes needles are the best. for a good digital needle you also need a fast scan or it will be very jumpy still... i stick with the old stuff for a while.

[@robinbendiksen3960]

I have this meter and it did restart every time i went over 70 watts on battery, not with the charger Connected. The text SWR and FWD change to Chinese text when i go over 125 watts. I changed the battery to a 5000 mAh and it looks like it is stable now and will not restart as long as the battery power is good, but i have to live with the Chinese text(i dont care to much ). The charger give some noise but not all the time, no noise on battery. Banggood wouldn't give me a refund or exchange it for a new one(i am done with Banggood). But i am happy with it now as long as it works? It is maybe the most beautiful SWR meter on the marked i think so it is sad it dosent work as it should. The bilt quality is good.

[@TonyAlbus]

Thanks for sharing your experiance with Bang-U-good, yes i also do not take any equipment from Banggood anymore, not even for free to show on the channel, their aftercare is terrible they are only good for selling unbreakable stuff like bricks as they know very well how to do that , i order electronics form them and receive a brick :) Sorry to hear you have had problems, and we need to share this to safe others.. hope yours keeps working.

[@robinbendiksen3960]

@@TonyAlbus yes we do, love your channel. thanx for your work👌73 from North Norway

[@pvdk]

Tony, I just received my digital meter. Using a FTDX-10 I can report to have only slight QRM noise on 29300 KHz but all other ham bands from 160 to 6 are clean. Rest 10 meter is also clean. I asked for refund and return but so far they did not reach out to me with a solution... 73 Phil ON4VP

[@TonyAlbus]

The meter looks amazing and if you can live with the little qrm, yours seem to produce, maybe by shielding better the RFtap part, its solved for you. If you bought from Ali, you can follow in your order/return and usualy within a few ours your return label is there. (without receiving an email btw, you need to check yourself)

[@pvdk]

@@TonyAlbus I purchased with Banggood and they are more difficult to handle with. They are investigating. If they refund 50% I will keep it, otherwise I want the full refund and send it back. 73 ON4VP

[@pvdk]

@@TonyAlbus I made this video for proof, the rest of the bands are clear. kzbin.info/www/bejne/aWenYZWFrrWIeJI

[@PhilON4VP]

@@TonyAlbus Hi Tony, Finally Banggood replied and they refund my invoice and I can keep the meter because it's to expensive for them to get it back. A little luck... 73 Phil ON4VP

[@TonyAlbus]

@@PhilON4VP Thats great news! 73

[@genesischerlockhomes]

com esse wattimeter digital modelo CQV-SWR-508 você poderia fazer demonstração de medições na faixa de 76A120 Mhz e FM comercial pra duvida se ele faria medições corretas nessa faixa.

[@TonyAlbus]

This meter is build for 1~54 MHz , not above.

[@LawpickingLocksmith]

Cool, more shack clutter?

[@TonyAlbus]

Yeah!!! can never have too much... just need more space :)

[@LawpickingLocksmith]

@@TonyAlbus I keep collecting even that I have lost count years ago!

[@TonyAlbus]

@@LawpickingLocksmith :)) yes i know the feeling.... we can't help it.

[@zdzisiek1979]

ciekawy miernik. Pozdrawiam z Polski

[@TonyAlbus]

dzień dobry panie dziękuję

[@mariomlecka]

I ordered one. Do you know of any higher power meters like 2kW?

[@TonyAlbus]

Hi, in this model i have not seen, but Daiwa has

[@Embarking-on-a-new-adventure]

How long will the battery run prior to recharging? Ronald de PH7R?

[@TonyAlbus]

Good question, i can't tell you, but after using it for 2 hours (allways on mode) the battery was still 4.0V. it needs to be charged at 3.4V the manual says to charge it at least ever 6 mouths. it mostly needs to power the display, so turning the brightness down will give you even more time, also it has auto shutdown. all these factors matter a lot on total use time. 73 Tony

[@johnbrown-rm8kc]

would be very good if there is a meter that will cover the VHF bands / UHF bands 144 Mhz / 432 Mhz

[@TonyAlbus]

Hi John, Daiwa has the V in there series that does that. Comet has tuners with crossneedle for both, i have the CAT-300 for HF and they have also a CAT-283 for VHF/UHF. but for VHF/UHF there is not much to tune once you cutted it to the right size/length.

[@johnbrown-rm8kc]

@@TonyAlbus thank you

[@VK2AAK]

I bought one of these meters. The display was excellent and I really liked the unit ... but the meter generated significant RF interference on 80 and 40 metres. It had serious spurs on 80 metres and on 40 metres brought the noise up from below S1 to above S3. I sent it back and got a refund.

[@TonyAlbus]

Oh thats not good, i did not test that yet, thanks for sharing!

[@VK2AAK]

@@TonyAlbus I would be interested to hear the results :)

[@TonyAlbus]

After your comment others came.. i just did testing today and Yes mine is bad too. 1.766 MHz / 3.531 / 7.065 spurs same will send it back, just in time for refund, again a don't buy video than... and it looked so well build...

[@VK2AAK]

@@TonyAlbus Thank you for confirming that the problem wasn't limited to just the unit I bought. I agree ... it is a shame, because the meter looks well made and the display is excellent. I think the logic and active electronics needs to be separated from the sensing section, and the sensing section properly shielded with just the DC voltages representing forward and reverse power coming out ... preferably via feedthrough capacitors.

[@TonyAlbus]

@@VK2AAK i'll stick now to my nice Daiwa cross-needle ..i even have a few 40 or more years old... still spot on..

[@RogerBrenon]

I'd stay away from the cheap Chinese meters. The cheap displays have cheap inverters to run em and introduce a lot of noise into your signal. You CAN'T filter that out no matter what you do. Signal loss is a whole other story. What your seeing at the radio doesn't reflect what's being put out at your antenna. There's a new flood of these type of cheap meters coming in from China on the cheap and reports of quality control are pretty bad. It's a 50-50 wether or not you even get one that works. Considering terrible shipping times it's not worth it.

[@TonyAlbus]

Yes clearly visual here : kzbin.info/www/bejne/jWGWqGCanZyknbs

[@germanjohn5626]

But only 100w? Useless really, it would be far more usable if it had a 2kw scale

[@TonyAlbus]

It goes upto 125 Watts, for most HF kits thats enough, for much higher power you prob want a 'real' brand. or the Amp have its own meter and matching unit

[@Spookieham]

Most Amateurs around the world dont run huge amplifiers due to licence restrictions in their country and the vast majority of popular commercial rigs are 100w

[@jackhammell1926]

200w the power meter auto adjusts

[@TonyAlbus]

@@jackhammell1926 Thanks, nice to know!

[@frankENZC]

Hi. I just found your channel. I appreciate your review. Well done. New sub here. 73 de WA3RSL

[@TonyAlbus]

Welcome aboard! Thank you sir and enjoy 73