October 18, 2025 • 5 mins
Discover Bird Wattmeters in action at Huntsville Hamfest 2025! Join us for an in-depth look at Bird RF's industry-standard Model 43 and advanced digital wattmeters, showcased through live demos. Learn how these precision tools measure RF power for ham radio, public safety, and telecom applications. Perfect for amateur radio enthusiasts and RF pros! #HamRadio #HuntsvilleHamfest #BirdRF
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Huntsville Hamfist twenty twenty five. I'm with Jason Keilo November
for Mike Uniform Delta Bird Watt meters, which everyone will
recognize a bird watt meter, but these are brand new.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's correct, market, it's correct.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Yeah, Okay, So you've got three different I think one, two,
three different.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Items here, right, that's absolutely correct.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
So we're gonna go ahead and tell us all that.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
So the watt meter, bred Budden, the model forty three.
What made the company who we are? High accuracy, dependability
in the hamshacks.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
As a matter of fact, the one that's on the
table is my personal one that's well over twenty years old. Okay,
still using it today. As as a matter of fact,
I one of the reasons why I took the job
with Bird is because they give me all this additional
test equipment to start playing around with. So I thought
my shack was wired tight, but it turns out it
is not. So our primary market is not the amateur.
(00:51):
We are here for public safety. We're here for cellular installers,
you know, the higher end equipment, people that require a
high end of precision in their measurements. And that's what
we've always been known for. So with this, with the
slugs in there based on their frequency base, based on
the power range under four percent accuracy, and that's when
you're actually you know, you're putting out the legal limit.
(01:13):
You want to make sure you're there. That's what that's
there for in the industry. As we've moved beyond that,
we've come up into the digital age. For the first
one of the items that we have here is our
new forty four eighty a watt meter, So this is
two megahurts to one gigahertz up to ten thousand watts
of power sluggly. Wow to do that much power, right,
So the engineers designed this, which makes it hard for
(01:33):
the sales guy to come out and sell because it
does everything. It's a kitchen sake, it's an industrial device,
but gives you four power, gives you a reverse power
at the same time. And then I don't have to
worry about sluck. So I just hook it up and
go battery powered. Long lasting's been running, you know for
almost two days now, batteries still up there and running.
Can hook it up to a computer so I can
pull down data over a longer period, so I can
(01:54):
see what the power curves look like for the device.
So that is an incredible piece of techno. Now, of course,
that is just one piece of what we would call
our master test kit for an electronics technician. So that
would be to tell me whether or not my radio
is working. So I go out to the site, I
know I've got a problem. This is gonna tell me
whether it's putting out fifty wats, whether it's putting out
(02:15):
the ten watts what it's supposed to according to which
band that it's working on. So then from there the
next question will be, well, is my antenna is my
site working correctly? So this would be our next device
down here, which was called our site Hawk, and that's
gonna measure anything up to this. This particular device is
measured up to six gigare arts, so from one from
DC all the way up to six gigahertz. And what
(02:35):
I have inside this transit case is a simulated antenna. Well,
actually it's a real antenna system because I've got about
thirty six feet of LMR four hundred in there, and
then with the panel on front, and that is a
busted cable for an LMR four hundred does not like
to be bent. Like that. So this is a simulation
or a trainer that I would use to go out
with the technician. So we're able to see what that
(02:56):
SWR curve is on you in this system. So I
use this as a training device. But what that's showing
me is now with the high precision of being able
to accurately measure this system, now I can actually see
where my connectors are in this. So I've told that
this is a forty foot system, and you'll see that
first hump that comes up, and that's where my SWR
or my return loss is coming up. That's gonna be
(03:18):
that first connector, and then it's going to go into
I'll see a long peek down at the bottom. That's
that constant loop of lm R four hundred, so I
know that that's gonna be good. And then up here
in this next set of connectors upfront is where I'm
starting to run into the problem. So I'm seeing a
little bit more return loss and you can see how
sensitive it is, just just based on me changing out
the electrical.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Field just moving around it.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah. Right, But now what I can teach that technician
is I can disconnect that and as it settles back down,
We're going to start to see that huge fault, and
then based on that, I can actually read the bottom
and that's gonna tell me where's it started. About twenty
eight feet and that would be about the distance of
this where that is. So now I can actually go
out through that system and say, I need to go
look at twenty eight feet and that's where that got
(04:00):
disconnected to squirrelated you know, you know, somebody hit it
with the lawnmower, et cetera, et cetera. So that's it.
They're there. So now as a technician, I'm out. I've
got these, so I've measured my radio. I know my
radio is working, I know my intent is working efficiently,
but I'm still having an issue. Would come out to
our portable our Signal Hawk, which is a handheld spectrum analyzer,
(04:21):
so now I can see if I'm being squash from
an external source. If I've got great, you know, somebody
else is radiating on my frequency, so that's going to
be there. Now, there are a lot of spectrum analyizers.
There's a lot of devices that measure spectrum, but this
being a calibrated device, I can hook up a calibrated
antenna to it. And now I can actually measure the
field strength, and that's where that becomes important. It is
(04:41):
not just knowing that there's a signal there, but being
able to see how much it's a rate inning, which
would tell me how far. And then with that I
can go on the ultimate fox hunt because we have
a application in there that now I can actually hook
up a directional antenna and I can measure where that
signal's coming from, triangulate it, and now I can go
out to the So say not a Rubicon's out there
(05:02):
running his radios illegally. Somebody that might be a g
man might take a look at this and go, hey,
he's right over here on this frequency. So that is
our what we would call like a master kit for
an electronics technician across the board on everything that we
would need. So once again not really marketed at the
amateur radio community. There are devices that do each of
(05:23):
these at a much lower price point. Trust me, I've
got them on my bench. I've seen your videos, I
know all about them. But when I've got to sign
my name off on the job, when I need that accuracy,
that true precision, this is where bird comes in. So
we appreciate it for sure. Yeah, we're out here celebrating
everything amateur radio and we love it, love a channel.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
That's great, man, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I appreciate your time today. Thank you
Huntsville Hamfist twenty twenty five. I'm with Jason Keilo November
for Mike Uniform Delta Bird Watt meters, which everyone will
recognize a bird watt meter, but these are brand new.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's correct, market, it's correct.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Yeah, Okay, So you've got three different I think one, two,
three different.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Items here, right, that's absolutely correct.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
So we're gonna go ahead and tell us all that.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
So the watt meter, bred Budden, the model forty three.
What made the company who we are? High accuracy, dependability
in the hamshacks.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
As a matter of fact, the one that's on the
table is my personal one that's well over twenty years old. Okay,
still using it today. As as a matter of fact,
I one of the reasons why I took the job
with Bird is because they give me all this additional
test equipment to start playing around with. So I thought
my shack was wired tight, but it turns out it
is not. So our primary market is not the amateur.
(00:51):
We are here for public safety. We're here for cellular installers,
you know, the higher end equipment, people that require a
high end of precision in their measurements. And that's what
we've always been known for. So with this, with the
slugs in there based on their frequency base, based on
the power range under four percent accuracy, and that's when
you're actually you know, you're putting out the legal limit.
(01:13):
You want to make sure you're there. That's what that's
there for in the industry. As we've moved beyond that,
we've come up into the digital age. For the first
one of the items that we have here is our
new forty four eighty a watt meter, So this is
two megahurts to one gigahertz up to ten thousand watts
of power sluggly. Wow to do that much power, right,
So the engineers designed this, which makes it hard for
(01:33):
the sales guy to come out and sell because it
does everything. It's a kitchen sake, it's an industrial device,
but gives you four power, gives you a reverse power
at the same time. And then I don't have to
worry about sluck. So I just hook it up and
go battery powered. Long lasting's been running, you know for
almost two days now, batteries still up there and running.
Can hook it up to a computer so I can
pull down data over a longer period, so I can
(01:54):
see what the power curves look like for the device.
So that is an incredible piece of techno. Now, of course,
that is just one piece of what we would call
our master test kit for an electronics technician. So that
would be to tell me whether or not my radio
is working. So I go out to the site, I
know I've got a problem. This is gonna tell me
whether it's putting out fifty wats, whether it's putting out
(02:15):
the ten watts what it's supposed to according to which
band that it's working on. So then from there the
next question will be, well, is my antenna is my
site working correctly? So this would be our next device
down here, which was called our site Hawk, and that's
gonna measure anything up to this. This particular device is
measured up to six gigare arts, so from one from
DC all the way up to six gigahertz. And what
(02:35):
I have inside this transit case is a simulated antenna. Well,
actually it's a real antenna system because I've got about
thirty six feet of LMR four hundred in there, and
then with the panel on front, and that is a
busted cable for an LMR four hundred does not like
to be bent. Like that. So this is a simulation
or a trainer that I would use to go out
with the technician. So we're able to see what that
(02:56):
SWR curve is on you in this system. So I
use this as a training device. But what that's showing
me is now with the high precision of being able
to accurately measure this system, now I can actually see
where my connectors are in this. So I've told that
this is a forty foot system, and you'll see that
first hump that comes up, and that's where my SWR
or my return loss is coming up. That's gonna be
(03:18):
that first connector, and then it's going to go into
I'll see a long peek down at the bottom. That's
that constant loop of lm R four hundred, so I
know that that's gonna be good. And then up here
in this next set of connectors upfront is where I'm
starting to run into the problem. So I'm seeing a
little bit more return loss and you can see how
sensitive it is, just just based on me changing out
the electrical.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Field just moving around it.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Yeah. Right, But now what I can teach that technician
is I can disconnect that and as it settles back down,
We're going to start to see that huge fault, and
then based on that, I can actually read the bottom
and that's gonna tell me where's it started. About twenty
eight feet and that would be about the distance of
this where that is. So now I can actually go
out through that system and say, I need to go
look at twenty eight feet and that's where that got
(04:00):
disconnected to squirrelated you know, you know, somebody hit it
with the lawnmower, et cetera, et cetera. So that's it.
They're there. So now as a technician, I'm out. I've
got these, so I've measured my radio. I know my
radio is working, I know my intent is working efficiently,
but I'm still having an issue. Would come out to
our portable our Signal Hawk, which is a handheld spectrum analyzer,
(04:21):
so now I can see if I'm being squash from
an external source. If I've got great, you know, somebody
else is radiating on my frequency, so that's going to
be there. Now, there are a lot of spectrum analyizers.
There's a lot of devices that measure spectrum, but this
being a calibrated device, I can hook up a calibrated
antenna to it. And now I can actually measure the
field strength, and that's where that becomes important. It is
(04:41):
not just knowing that there's a signal there, but being
able to see how much it's a rate inning, which
would tell me how far. And then with that I
can go on the ultimate fox hunt because we have
a application in there that now I can actually hook
up a directional antenna and I can measure where that
signal's coming from, triangulate it, and now I can go
out to the So say not a Rubicon's out there
(05:02):
running his radios illegally. Somebody that might be a g
man might take a look at this and go, hey,
he's right over here on this frequency. So that is
our what we would call like a master kit for
an electronics technician across the board on everything that we
would need. So once again not really marketed at the
amateur radio community. There are devices that do each of
(05:23):
these at a much lower price point. Trust me, I've
got them on my bench. I've seen your videos, I
know all about them. But when I've got to sign
my name off on the job, when I need that accuracy,
that true precision, this is where bird comes in. So
we appreciate it for sure. Yeah, we're out here celebrating
everything amateur radio and we love it, love a channel.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
That's great, man, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I appreciate your time today. Thank you
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