Finally, affordable laboratory-grade accuracy.
And a whole lot more.
For about fifty years, SWR/power meters haven’t really changed at all. Until now.Consider your choices the past decade:
- For a few hundred dollars, there are low-end SWR/wattmeters with 5-10% accuracy.
- For nearly a thousand dollars, you can buy the same low accuracy with a famous brand label. Or a complicated or uncalibrated small-company/hobby/kit unit with a few extra bells and whistles bolted on, maybe some extra buttons, pretty blue display, or high-SWR beeper.
- For about the price of a new car, you can buy a delicate laboratory-grade 1% precision bench-use-only wattmeter with one sensor. Which you then must remove from service and pay up to a thousand dollars to recalibrate every two years.
In other words, it’s been 50 years of compromise, plus occasional new products that “solve” problems you don’t actually have.
Until today.
Now there’s the Heathkit® HM-1002: Intuitive, intelligent, affordable, accurate measurement. The next-generation Heathkit® HM-1002 Precision RF MeterTM picks up where our venerable SWR/wattmeters of yesteryear — and everyone else’s — stopped. Incredible new features, yet simple for beginners to assemble and understand. And you can build and maintain it yourself.
Frequency. Power. SWR. ERP. Efficiency. Ergonomic. Multi-sensor.
Our patent filing was 62 pages long for a reason.
Does your SWR/power meter display your transmit frequency? The Heathkit® Precision RF MeterTM does. Have a homebrew transmitter with no frequency display? Does your vintage transceiver have a 1KHz analog display with dial backlash? Problem solved. While you’re monitoring SWR and power, read your transmit frequency too — in 6 digits, to 100Hz accuracy. Your station just got a whole lot better.
Plan on working 60 meters? Have neighbors? Great. Know your Effective Radiated Power? Your HM-1002 does. It computes ERP for you, even alerts you if you exceed regulations. Good thing, since knowing your ERP is required by law. No other meter does this (or will, due to our patent filing).
Interested in your station efficiency? Use the HM-1002 to measure the efficiency of each component in your transmission chain, from exciter to antenna and back to receiver. And monitor it continuously.
Ready to upgrade from measuring “SWR”? Engineers use Return Loss instead, because it permits more sensitive and precise measurement in the SWR range you actually operate in most of the time. But take your pick: The HM-1002 will tell you forward power and reflected power, in Watts or dBm, and SWR, and Return Loss.
Need Peak power? Check. RMS power? Check. Average power? Check. PEP power? Check. All right there in front of you. Just press a button.
Operate QRPp? No problem. QRO? No problem. We autorange. No power-range buttons, knobs, dials, slugs, switches, parts swapping, cable plugging, computing power factors…. Any power level from 50 mW to 2kW, from MF to VHF, right there on the display. Whether you’re working on your QRP 1000 Miles Per Watt Award or DXCC, you’ll operate at either end of the legal power range with equal ease.
All this with just a push of a button. No more hunting through tedious cryptic menus to find your most-used functions. Does your SWR/power meter have a button to tell you your station efficiency? How about ERP? No, of course not. Now it can. You just need a Heathkit HM-1002.
Multisensor with a purpose.
Measure and compare multiple points in your system. Why didn’t anyone think of this before? Sure, a few pricey meters have independent sensor inputs. Here’s what’s better: Cooperating sensors. The HM-1002’s patent-pending design incorporates a model of your station, and uses it to compare different points and compute or estimate measurements that you’d have to work out with a calculator using any other instrument. Not just two sensors — two sensors that work together. Why did your SWR suddenly skyrocket — because your antenna tuner arced and failed, or because your feedline has water incursion? How much of the power developed in your station is actually getting out of your antenna? Now you’ll know.
High precision, incredible accuracy. The Heathkit® Precision RF MeterTM ships with a pre-calibrated reference device and Heathkit® assembly instructions that let you achieve better than 5% accuracy. Actually, much better. Frankly it’s been a challenge to find lab equipment good enough to measure our accuracy : Those expensive name-brand meters you hear about are only 5-7% accurate, and only for full-scale signals on a single frequency and limited power range — just not up to the job. But we’re in the lab now, working to confirm better than a nominal 2% accuracy. That’s for all frequencies. And all power levels. Automatically computed and displayed, shown right there on the color display. No knobs to adjust, or Correction Factor error charts to estimate what an accurate meter would have said, or complicated sensor characterization procedures. Just… accuracy. The real answer, displayed right in front of you.
Great for fixed or portable use. The HM-1002 runs off both AC and DC. Our AC adapter option has a no-noise design to minimize RFI. No noisy switching power supply to send spurs throughout your receiver. If you already have 12VDC, at home or in the field, just plug it in, using Anderson Powerpole connectors.
Legendary Heathkit manual and build experience. The manual takes you step-by-step through assembly and calibration, and explains the electronics & operation. It’s clearly written and easy to understand. Complexity designed out, amazing functionality designed in. It’s a Heathkit®.
Technical specs (preliminary, subject to update)
Power / SWR / Return Loss Accuracy:
- Meter: 2% nominal for Power, SWR, Return Loss.
- Sensors: Specs vary per sensor model. 5% or better when assembled as directed (no promises yet but we actually hope to beat 2%).
Power precision: Up to four displayed digits, measurement significance one part in 8,000 (125 PPM).
Frequency Accuracy & Precision: 6-digit precision, displaying 100Hz units with +/- 100Hz accuracy for MF, HF, 6 meters. Accuracy and precision always depend on sensor as well as meter. Frequency measurement requires a Heathkit® frequency-capable sensor; one is provided with each meter purchase.
Range: Frequency and power range depend on the sensor model(s) in use. With standard sensor, meter range is 50mW to 2kW power (17dBm to 63dBm) nominal, and 1.6MHz to 54MHz frequency nominal, when assembled as directed. (Subject to change) As with any power device, true SWR handling capability varies with sensor and depends on applied power level, and we will report lab results here as they are confirmed.
Front panel: Sensor/mode cluster, power cluster, SWR/return cluster, color graphic LCD display, calibrated DigilogTM bargraph, configurable visual alert.
Rear panel: Power jacks, sensor jacks, digital jack, audio annunciator.
Enclosure: Hardwood sides, plastic top/bottom, screwless top & front design with integral feet (patent pending).
Size: Approx. 2.2″ high x 5.5″ wide x 4.75″ deep (6 x 14 x 12cm).
Weight: 1 lb (0.5 kg) nominal.
Included: All kit parts, any required assembly hex wrenches, one sensor, silver solder, one six-foot (2m) indoor sensor cable.
Compliance/legal: RoHS. Optional AC power adapter is UL approved. Patent pending.
AC power: Optional AC adapter accepts 90-130 VAC 60 Hz pure sine wave (North American
standard), approx. 4 watts. 6ft (1.9m) power cord. (UK, Europe: 50 Hz compatible, but requires a different power adapter.*)
DC power: Accepts 12VDC nominal. Anderson PowerPole jack.
Tools required: Low-wattage soldering iron, wire cutters, needlenose pliers.
RFI/EMC & safety: No switching power supply brick. No mains line voltage (no 120VAC or 230VAC) in the box.
Accessories: (Coming soon) AC adapters, cables, more sensor models.
$ 575.00
* NOTE TO INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS:
The Heathkit® HM-1002 Precision RF MeterTM will work around the world. When running on AC, it needs an AC power adapter to connect to your local electrical mains, and each country’s electrical mains service is different. We may still be qualifying the electrical adapter for your country. Contact us about availability in your region. We have 120VAC 60Hz adapters qualified for North America and parts of Japan, and Euro and UK style adapters qualified for 200-240VAC 50Hz serving most of the world outside North America.
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