Description

MADE in U.S.A. PEAK Adaptor (Aftermarket) for Bird 43 This is not one of the older, TTL, battery eating PEAK Adaptors. It uses an LM358N and draws 0.4 ma without the LED and 1.2 ma with the LED from a 9 volt battery. Auction does not include the Bird 43 - you must furnish your own wattmeter. It will allow you to read PEAK (SSB) power and still allow the wattmeter to read Average (CW) power. This is a no holes kit. The circuit board mounts on the meter PLUS and MINUS terminals and the switches and LED mount in one of the spare holes on the side of the meter. The kit can be removed and the Bird 43 returned to original condition without any holes or extra switches showing. In addition to the PEAK function, this circuit board also has a two-position Element Range extender circuit. It will allow you to read up to five times the power (either PEAK or Average) the Element is calibrated for – the two positions are user definable. Don’t worry about calibration, because this board also contains an on-board calibrator circuit. No external source of power is required to set any of the five functions of this board – (calibrate, PEAK set, hang time, range extender settings one and two) - you can calibrate everything with just a small screwdriver. The whole kit comes already wired and “ball park” calibrated – nothing to hook up except the coax from the line section. The two toggle switches and LED are mounted on a small piece of circuit board that can be hot glued to the spare hole in the side of the wattmeter. You can, if you want, drill and mount the switches and LED on the meter - let me know if you are going to use this way as I need to have longer wiring from the board to the switches and LED. Nothing extra to buy – all is included – even a fresh 9 volt battery. The circuit board is double sided, through hole plated, double ground planes, solder masked and silk screened. Mailing to USA addresses via USPS Priority is $8.40. 2/27/2020 - added the seventh photo to show how some users are installing the switches and LED on the front of the Bird 43 - If you want to do this, let me know when ordering as there is additional wiring I need to include in order for this to work like in the photo. Thanks for looking and bidding. (Note - there are companies that are duplicating this item and the FBI has suggested I add this statement to my auction) “Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.” A word about those “import” replacement meters for the Bird 43. There’s a very good discussion about counterfeit Bird 43 wattmeters on the web. I bought one, a new import replacement meter for the Bird 43 off eBay and this is what I found. They look pretty much like the Bird 43 meter and will fit in the 3 holes on panels and in the Bird case just fine. They are very light in weight compared to a meter made by Simpson for the Bird 43. It says on the front 30ua but I actually measured full scale at only 26ua – that’s about a 16% error at full scale. It gets worse. The internal resistance of an actual Bird 43 meter can range from 1300 to 1500 ohms – this meter measured about 3550 ohms. With a 100 watt element and 50 watts into the dummy load, the real Bird 43 with a Simpson meter read approx 50 watts while this import only read 24 watts, that’s a little over 50% error at half scale. The problem is the 26ua movement and the high, more than 3 times what Bird calls for, internal resistance of the import meter. Bottom line, you get what you pay for!