Wiki is only as good as the last guy that edited`ed it, it is good for general info, but not gospel.
You can use RMS voltage and current to Calculate watts, but it is not something that you can just hook up a meter and read.
To get back to the original poster:
There is no way to tell if your Meter is going to read the same as your friends meter, even after you have the other friend "calibrate " it.
There are too many things that can be different.
Did he read on the peak or AVG scale?
Is it a Passive peak reading meter or an active peak reading meter?
Did he check his power into a dummy load?
Did he check his power into a Antenna?
If a Antenna was used, what was the SWR?
How much coax from the meter to the load/antenna did he use?
Did you check your power into a dummy load?
Antenna?
SWR?
Coax?
Was his meter built and set at the factory on a Friday when the guy "calibrating" it wanted to go home early?
Monday when he wanted to take all day and get it down to the last milliwatt?
Does his AMP have the old style 2879`s in it, or the New "red dot" 2879`s in it?
You can make yourself go crazy trying to get identical readings.
The only way to do that......open your watt meter and find the VR for the high power scale and set it so your meter reads the same as his, problem solved....sort of...unless he says that his meter reads 60 watts less when he turns the variable 1/2 way down on his amp.
Drill a hole in the watt meter and add a external control to change the reading to..............
If you are in the ballpark with his readings, no one will ever tell the difference on the other end anyway, the radios we are using are not that critical when it comes to the Signals we see on the RX meter in the radio.
Just don`t worry about it and have fun talking.
73
Jeff
