Advice on Frequency Counter

[Truck]

O.K. guys, im tired of my inconsistent freq, counter. Please reccomend me a economical counter for basic alignments. Must be sensitive enough. Will be using it for 10-11 meter rig alignments. Thanks

 

[Robb]

O.K. guys, im tired of my inconsistent freq, counter. Please recommend me a economical counter for basic alignments. Must be sensitive enough. Will be using it for 10-11 meter rig alignments. Thanks

I have and use a Protek 9100 and a HP 5316A; the HP is pretty expensive but cool. I aligned my Protek to the HP and use the Protek most of the time. So long as a freq counter is calibrated, it should work just fine. You gotta allow 20-30 minutes for both the radio AND the freq counter to stabilize - and do it in a room at 70f temps for best results.

A local friend of mine bought on of those freq counters from eBay. He said it is pretty consistent:

Precision Frequency Counter Meter 0 01Hz 2 4GHz | eBay

The only way to make them ultra accurate at home is to buy a rubidium oscillator as a reference point. They can be dangerous, because if the rubidium bulb inside should break for whatever reason - well - rubidium is highly toxic!

 

[RADIOOMAN]

I have and use a Protek 9100 and a HP 5316A; the HP is pretty expensive but cool. I aligned my Protek to the HP and use the Protek most of the time. So long as a freq counter is calibrated, it should work just fine. You gotta allow 20-30 minutes for both the radio AND the freq counter to stabilize - and do it in a room at 70f temps for best results.

A local friend of mine bought on of those freq counters from eBay. He said it is pretty consistent:

Precision Frequency Counter Meter 0 01Hz 2 4GHz | eBay

The only way to make them ultra accurate at home is to buy a rubidium oscillator as a reference point. They can be dangerous, because if the rubidium bulb inside should break for whatever reason - well - rubidium is highly toxic!

You can beat your oscillator against wwv during the quiet period and watch the S-Meter.
The closer you get the osc freq to WWV the slower the S-meter will wiggle, and if you're careful with the knob you can get the S-meter to wiggle only once per second and then you know the difference between your oscillator and wwv is about 1cps and then you can calibrate your frequency counter that is hooked to the osc with the known frequency at that point in time. (at some other point in time it will be a different freq due to drifting)
Simple, cheap and probably more accurate than it needs to be.

 

[Robb]

The only problem with that, is that he has a 10-11m setup.
Nothing about an HF rig . . .

 

[RADIOOMAN]

The only problem with that, is that he has a 10-11m setup.
Nothing about an HF rig . . .

I guess I did not take notice to that.
You could use or borrow a short wave receiver for this purpose, if it has an S-meter on it.
Just need the am mode.
I guess I was replying more to your post than his; My bad.

 

[mr_fx]

A local friend of mine bought on of those freq counters from eBay. He said it is pretty consistent:

Precision Frequency Counter Meter 0 01Hz 2 4GHz | eBay

yep those work great

 

[Truck]

Hmmm I will have to look into this then.