Mcbazel Surecom SW-102 Digital VHF/UHF 125-525Mhz Antenna Power & SWR Meter

I found this product to meet my needs and expectations. One thing to note it comes with N connectors, however, PL adapters are included they just extend the width of the unit if space is an issue for you. I would recommend this product if you are in need of an SWR Meter.

Excellent meter for GMRS. Only downside it the short battery life.

Very nice and easy to use, highly recommend.

Great Unit, easy to use, good results. Use for MURS.

THIS SWR METER IS NOT EASY TO USE THE INFO IS POORLY WRITTEN HARD TO UNDERSTAND SO I GAVE UP AFTER 5 DAYS OF TRYING TO GET IT TO WORK, SO I GAVE UP AND ORDER A STANDARD SWR METER ONE THE HAVE FORWARD AND REVERSE SWITCH ON IT THAT IS ALL I NEED TO DO A SWR SETTING.

The Surecom SW-102 is a meter that youll either love or hate. Mine came with no adapters and the firmware was 2.7 (not upgradable). According to the manual, one should not hold the meter horizontally when taking readings. That said, most YouTube reviewers do this when taking readings for testing walkie-talkies (HTs). These meters test two things. The first is power, measured in watts. Many Baofeng radios are rated 10W and more, and the only two that actually Ive up to the hype are the H6/H7 class radios. Most others dont live up to their claims, and you dont have to hook them up to meters to tell you they dont put out 15 watts and more. And Baofeng will happily lie about its products if their retailers want to make outlandish claims (you lie, they say, and well swear to it!). And if Baofeng radios come with color screens and dot matrix characters, you can prey much conclude they are 5W radios (the 8W UV5R and 8W UV82 being exceptions). If the Baofeng has a white high definition screen, with black characters and eight digits, you can conclude its worth checking. My Surecom SW-102 is either defective or it needs a ground plane plate, which is recommended. The ground plane is a metal plate that reflects antenna emissions upwards and away from the meter. This ensures youll get an accurate SWR reading. THE SW-102 NO LONGER COMES WITH THE GROUND PLANE PLATE, as the cost for including it is prohibitive. According to market studies, most users only want to test the power of their radios. Not the efficiency of their antennas. Sadly, Im not that kind of user. I want to test the efficiency of my antennas, and when I attach a Nagoya NA-771 or a 24J and get a reading of 3.58 and 4.07 respectively, I know somethings off. So not having a ground plane plate, I tried using my Cold Steel tanto, a flat-bladed knife as a ground plane. Immediately my readings dropped to 1.00 or 1.05 and 1.07, but then, is that accurate? I can only hold my knife like that for a few seconds and its awkward as hell! Bottom line, if you only want to measure wattage, this meter may be for you. If you buy a cheap antenna and want to see if its any good, find an older model that comes with a ground plane plate. Or if youre handy, find a thin metal plate and attach it between the meter and your antenna. Frankly, I wouldnt touch this meter as it doesnt provide accurate readings without the metal plate. I give this a big fat one-star as its poorly designed and inaccurate for measuring SWR. Id pass.

I liked it

No, its not a Bird but it does the job very inexpensively. Yes it does have N connectors but comes with adapters to SO-239. Internal batteries charge by USB. Very intuitive and good thing, the instructions are fairly minimal. It shows power out, power reflected, SWR, AND has a frequency counter. It has a solid metal case (not drop tested!), covers 100-520 mHz and can handle 100 watts. I have a RigExpert AA30 which is awesome for HF but I was too cheap to buy the AA170 or higher. The SureCom does the trick for my VHF/UHF needs which is to check SWR on a couple of antennas and I am building a 2m quad so will need it for that as well. The only down sides to this little meter is it does not do an SWR curve or have software to plot one but those are only minor issues. So get one of these meters and some graph paper, plot your curve old school. Over all very satisfied with this meter

I swap out antennas quite a bit bec. no antenna covers every band I use. I took a good look at a variety of SWR meters and tried some. I think the SW-102 is by far the best value for the money. The 5 stars are for the value - I am not saying its in the top tier of SWR meters in the world. Still, theres also nothing the $75-$375 price range that looked to me to be any better overall. The $200 MFJ is nice bec. you the display is big and you can read it way across the room - but it doesnt have the frequency counter, so its like 4x the price of the SW-102 just to get that display. As for analog meters, Im not likely to trust any of them bec. I could never be certain the movement was protected in transit, and a calibration service costs as much or more than the meter does. The price and trouble of being analog-retro-cool isnt worth it. I really like the SW-102s frequency counter, because more than once its tipped me off that I was mistakenly transmitting on the A channel of a dual-watch radio when I thought I had the transmitter toggled to the B channel. Or sometimes, the SW-102 tells me that I didnt enter a repeater shift correctly, or a radio has an auto-shift function that defaults to repeater shift within a certain range of frequencies - a supposedly helpful feature of some common radios. The frequency counter is so useful that if I ever do get a most costly SWR meter, like the type that uses a PC as the display, I would still leave the SW-102 in the circuit, just to use as a frequency counter, considering how handy and useful that feature of the SW-102 has been to me. Caveats - the screen isnt all that easy to read, especially in bright sunlight. Indoors, its much easier to read if you leave it USB-powered - the light stays on much longer and I can read SWR from a few feet away. However, I still have to get up close to read frequency and power, which are in a much smaller font. Another caveat about this review - my comments are only about the N connector version of the SW-102.

Works great