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Reviews For: AVO 8

Category: Tools & Test Equipment for the amateur radio work bench

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Review Summary For : AVO 8
Reviews: 3MSRP:
Description:
Analogue multimeter
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0035
N4ENG Rating: 2011-08-13
Ubiquitous British Test Meter Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had my AVO 8 for nearly 40 years. It belonged to an Uncle who had passed away and he had owned it for about 10 years.
At the time it's main advantage was the ability to
measure AC current up to 10A. It's 20k ohms per volt and I haven't beaten the automatic over range cutout yet. It is still used occasionaly when working on my R390 or auto electrics.
G3RZP Rating: 2011-08-13
Great for what it is Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The AVO 8 goes back to the 1950's in various marks. It is big and heavy, so doesn't fall off the bench easily. It has a mechanical cut out if overloaded, which can give trouble by not staying in, and the earlier models used a 15 volt battery for the high ohms range, which is now not easy to get, and expensive if you can. But 2 9volt batteries and a 68Kohm resistor make a good and much cheaper substitute: the batteries usually last their shelf life.

It has the great advantage over a DMM that it doesn't go mad when working around a transmitter with a lot of RF, and also goes up to 2500 volts DC and AC without any special probes.

The last price I saw for it new was around the $1000 mark, but they can generally be found in the UK at hamfests and the like for around $60 to $80.

I certainly wouldn't get rid of mine in favour of a DMM, although I have 2 of those.
G6UWK Rating: 2011-08-13
Great classic Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The classic multimeter, the test meter of the 70's & 80's and beyond, until DMM an AVO 8 was the multimeter with upto 2.5Kv rating accuracy on DC voltage 2% of FSD AC 2.25% FSD.
Current 50uA-10A
Resistance from x100 to /100

what can I say classic, I still use mine I like the fact that an analogue meter will give an "average" which is useful when working on old circuits with bi-metallic voltage regulators as a DMM is pretty useless on these. If you have an old car the gauges often had these to give 9 volt supply.