Switched from digital multimeter to analog for troubleshooting comms gear

Honestly I was all about my Fluke 87V for everything until I had a weird intermittent squelch issue on a King KX 155 last week. The digital readings kept jumping around and I couldn't tell if it was noise or a real signal. Borrowed an old Simpson 260 from the lead tech and the needle movement made it super obvious it was a bad capacitor. Now I keep both in my bag for different jobs. Anyone else prefer analog for RF work or am I just getting old?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_ben13d ago

Man that KX 155 can be finicky as hell with digital meters. I had almost the exact same thing happen with a Garmin GNC 255 last year where the display showed a bunch of random numbers but the analog needle just told me straight up the AGC circuit was acting up. The Simpson 260 is a beast for that kind of troubleshooting, I still grab mine whenever I'm digging into RF stages or filter circuits. Digital meters are great for precision but they lie to you sometimes when you're dealing with glitchy signals. Analog just shows you the truth in a way your brain can process instantly.

jackson.jenny13d ago

Analog don't lie, @the_ben. Digital just confuses you when the signal gets ugly.