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[QUOTE=&quot;FOX TV, post: 45219, member: 4493&quot;]Sorry it has taken me so long to re-visit this post. I was not saying that an uncalibrated instrument is unreliable as long as it shows a difference between two signals. If non critical, or other types of tests not requiring a calibrated instrument are being performed, then an uncalibrated instrument is fine.And that is not to say that I have not used other methods as well. I bought a Magnavox converter box just because it has a numerical readout of signal strength, and the signal display will stay on the screen until you cancel it. It also seems to give an initial peak signal level that is always higher&nbsp; than average levels, which may be the RF levels before the AGC circuitry kicks in.This is only speculation, but it seems to be true for any signal I tune to, or any antenna it is hooked to. In any case, when using it for this purpose, I log the peak and average numbers for each test and form a data chart in excel to compare antennas the poor boy way.If pure signal gain is what you are measuring, then this will still give accurate data to a certain degree when comparing one signal to another, or in my case one antenna to another. The actual signal level is not important, but the difference between them is, as this will show a level of difference, which can then be a measure of an antennas performance.I don't own any high end test gear myself, but I do have access to high end gear to use whenever I need it. If I find a deal on uncalibrated gear, I would buy it myself.Here is a question for discussion. Since most TV broadcast antennas use downward mechanical, and or electrical beam tilt, is there any advantage to mounting a straight boom Yagi with a little upward or downward tilt since one element in front of the other kind of &quot;Blinds&quot; the one behind it from full RF exposure to a certain extent when in the true horizontal plain?Just a random theory question to see if anyone has any opinions on this subject.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE="FOX TV, post: 45219, member: 4493"]Sorry it has taken me so long to re-visit this post. I was not saying that an uncalibrated instrument is unreliable as long as it shows a difference between two signals. If non critical, or other types of tests not requiring a calibrated instrument are being performed, then an uncalibrated instrument is fine. And that is not to say that I have not used other methods as well. I bought a Magnavox converter box just because it has a numerical readout of signal strength, and the signal display will stay on the screen until you cancel it. It also seems to give an initial peak signal level that is always higher than average levels, which may be the RF levels before the AGC circuitry kicks in.This is only speculation, but it seems to be true for any signal I tune to, or any antenna it is hooked to. In any case, when using it for this purpose, I log the peak and average numbers for each test and form a data chart in excel to compare antennas the poor boy way. If pure signal gain is what you are measuring, then this will still give accurate data to a certain degree when comparing one signal to another, or in my case one antenna to another. The actual signal level is not important, but the difference between them is, as this will show a level of difference, which can then be a measure of an antennas performance. I don't own any high end test gear myself, but I do have access to high end gear to use whenever I need it. If I find a deal on uncalibrated gear, I would buy it myself. Here is a question for discussion. Since most TV broadcast antennas use downward mechanical, and or electrical beam tilt, is there any advantage to mounting a straight boom Yagi with a little upward or downward tilt since one element in front of the other kind of "Blinds" the one behind it from full RF exposure to a certain extent when in the true horizontal plain? Just a random theory question to see if anyone has any opinions on this subject.[/QUOTE]

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