Manager


Manager - NA4M
Manager Notes
Reviews Home

Reviews For: Ten Tec T-Kit Model 1202 Dual Band Wattmeter

Category: SWR & Wattmeters & Dummy Loads

eMail Subscription

Registered users are allowed to subscribe to specific review topics and receive eMail notifications when new reviews are posted.
Review Summary For : Ten Tec T-Kit Model 1202 Dual Band Wattmeter
Reviews: 7MSRP: 50
Description:
Fun to build wattmeter kit.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.tentec.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0074.4
OE3SGU Rating: 2008-02-13
good, but be careful Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The kit is of very good quality, comes with clear instructions and the case is very sturdy. All parts are delivered. However, I experienced some problems in building the meter. The installement of the circuit board to the PL-sockets is very difficult. I wonder why Ten Tec choose this annoying method. Mine did not work on the first try, but thankfully a good friend checked it out and found the problem(s). I will use it as a spare meter in the shack. If you are looking for a nice project and very good QRP-meter I would recommend the OHR WM-2. Assembling it was easier in my opinion, but its only good up to 10 Watts. Would I build another 1202? I am not sure, perhaps.
K4SGT Rating: 2005-09-24
Fun and easy! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The price has gone up from $50 unfortunately. None the less, this was a very fun and rewarding kit to build. I found it pretty easy. This was my second kit. The meter could be more accurate if it were built by someone other than me, but with callibration it is not bad. So, for a bit of fun and some hands on learning, you can't beat it! If it were $50 again I would have given it a 5.
K9JRW Rating: 2003-09-19
Instructions cover all the bases Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
A+ to ten-tec for the quality of the information in the instructions. They leave no question unanswered in the assembly process. This in turn leads to less mistakes.
There was one 10 turn toroid to wind for the HF sensor portion. The unit can run off 9V battery or external DC power. All controls/switches are on the front of the box and are of good sturdy quality.
Took me about 4 hours to constuct over a 2 day period.
The calibration process requires known power source or a known meter to compare against with 4 small trimmer pots on the 4 distinct combinations of hi/lo power for both HF/VHF. Hopefully using the diode matching they document will tweak the performance to somewhere on the lower side of 10% accuracy.
Much fun!
VR2XMC Rating: 2002-06-11
Interesting and useful kit Time Owned: more than 12 months.
It is an interesting experience in building your own SWR meter. The meter could be fairly accurate if you spend some time in matching diodes. It has two sensors so that you can use both HF and VHF rigs at the same time. The kit is not difficult to build at all but requires some patience.

I highly recommend to kit builders.

73

Johnny Siu VR2XMC
KF6IIU Rating: 2002-01-24
Fun Kit, OK Meter Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This is a fun and easy kit to build. As a power / SWR meter, it's pretty basic, but I bump it up two stars since it's more fun to use something you assembled yourself, and having an HF and VHF meter in the same box is a unique feature.

You're going to be doing a lot of button pushing - there are three front panel switches for Power/SWR mode, 200/20 W range, and Fwd / reflected mode. Unit needs to be calibrated to a known power source. Operates off wall wart or internal battery.
KD6LM Rating: 2001-11-30
Very Nice Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I found the kit easy and fun to build. I like the wattmeter/SWR bridge itself very much. What I particularly like aside from the dual band function (HF and VHF), for the 20 watt scale, 5 watts is the center (there are two scales, 20 and 200, each independent of the other). Having 5 watts as the center of the 20 watt scale makes it quite useful for QRP. For the serious QRPer or QRPp devote', one could set the 20 watt scale for 5 watts max, which would make the center point 1.25 watts, quite nice for low power work. Ten-tec claims a 10% accuracy at full scale for the meter, which is quite good as Bird's are typically 5% at full scale. As noted before, the case is quite good, and all of the components appear to be of top quality. So, why not a 5/5 rating? Cause you have to calibrate the wattmeter against a known source, i.e. another wattmeter, or a transmitter of known power output. This is a bit hassle, and requires one go to a hamfest or know a ham with some good equipment. Other than that, the kit is great and well worth the 50 bucks.
K9PL Rating: 2001-11-30
Attractive station accessory. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Fun to build kit with good quality components and a handsome, heavy-duty enclosure.

Offers: HF, 1.8 to 54 MHz and VHF, 140-150 MHz and Power Ranges of 0-200 and 0-20 watts RF