SWR meter recommendations?

[HHD1]

I'm looking for a device to easily and accurately measure SWR.  What recommendations do you all have, and why.

[OffRoaderX]

On 3/12/2025 at 11:56 AM, HHD1 said:

to easily and accurately measure SWR.

For just making sure your radio is generally transmitting about as much power as it should be, to make sure your antenna is not shorted and the SWR is "good enough", the SW-102 is perfect. Ignore all the propeller heads trying to tell you that you need to spend hundreds or thousands of $$ because they have no idea what it means to just do a quick-check on something without the need for adhering to mission-critical IEEE standards nor can they comprehend that your self-worth is not measured by how precisely-tuned your antenna is. 

Same thing goes for the need of a dummy-load.. You can measure the power of your radio with antenna connected to get a "good enough" power reading, if you even care about that.

..."some people" could over complicate a door-knob and they love to spend other people's money.

[WRYZ926]

If all you are wanting to do is check the SWR and power output then the Mcbazel Surecom SW-102 Digital VHF/UHF 125-525Mhz Antenna Power & SWR Meter from Amazon is hard to beat for the price and for the simplicity/ease of use.

You can get a NanoVNA for not much more but they usually have a steep learning curve. 

Antenna analyzers are great for tuning antennas along with building your own antennas. But they are usually $300 or more for a good quality analyzer.

I have a Rig Expert Stick Pro and use it quite often. I make my own HF antennas so I can justify the cost of the Rig Expert. It also comes in handy when cutting/tuning VHF/UHF antennas. There is no guess work on if the antenna is short or long.

[LeoG]

I second the SW-102

[WRTC928]

It kind of depends upon what you want to test. If you're planning to put up a 40' antenna and push 50 watts through it, you probably need the Nano VNA or better. If you want to test a new mobile antenna on your vehicle, the Surecom SW-102 is hard to beat. It takes about 5 minutes to become an expert with it and it's good enough to be sure you won't damage your radio.

[WRYZ926]

MFJ stands for Mighty Fine JunK. And they have earned that nickname.

No consumer grade SWR/power meter will be super accurate. As others have said, they are designed to a certain price point and also designed for a wide frequency range.

Bird Wattmeters are expensive but very accurate. They also use specific slugs for a small frequency range.  And that is why they are more accurate.

As I stated in my first reply. The SW-102 works just fine if all you are doing is testing the SWR. Sometimes simple is best and the SW-102 is about as simple as it gets. There really is no need for a NanoVNA or antenna analyzer if all you are doing is testing the SWR on mobile antennas. 

[tweiss3]

The Cadillac of quick meters is RigExperts. I have the Stick XPro, but the Stick Pro and Stick 500 also cover UHF. I chose the XPro because it does 1.2GHz. https://rigexpert.com/products/antenna-analyzers/

 

If you want to spend a ton of money on a professionals series, FieldFox is kind of one of the standard pieces of equipment for RF Technicians.

 

If you want significantly cheaper, a NanoVNA will do the job, but it can be rather annoying to calibrate and use every time.

[WRYZ926]

The Surecom is not the most accurate but it is the simplest to use if all you are wanting to do is check the SWR. And this is normally good enough when checking the SWR on mobile antennas.

I will always suggest getting a NanoVNA or a good antenna analyzer for tuning/cutting antennas. They make life easier when tuning by showing exactly where the lowest SWR is. You will know right away if the antenna is too long or too short.

I have a Surecom SW-102 that I use for quick SWR tests along with a Comet CAA-500 analyzer and a Rig Expert Stick Pro analyzer. I use the SW-102 for quick SWR checks and the analyzers if I need to actually tune the antenna.

[SteveShannon]

52 minutes ago, nokones said:

MFJ is far from even coming close to being accurate. RigExpert appears to be pretty accurate and is an excellent tool. Bird 43s and Telewave meters are accurate, but you have to use the chart to determine the VSWRs.

All SWR meters are directional power meters at heart. The SWR meters that were manufactured by Nissei for MFJ are okay, about the same as any other mass produced SWR meter.  They’re a compromise between cost and accuracy and because they try to measure very wide frequency and power ranges they excel at none. The biggest problem I see with them is an inability to measure low levels of reflected power accurately, leading to very optimistic SWR values at low power. But good enough is good enough.
As far as antenna analyzers (which are not SWR meters) I also prefer RigExpert.  They’re easy to use and have a lot of functionality built into them that I suspect many people never use. For instance, if you know the actual length of a cable you can use the RigExpert to determine the actual Velocity Factor (VF).  If you know the actual VF you can measure the length of the cable using the RigExpert.
Once you know the VF, save it so you can look it up. Then, if a long cable starts acting strange remeasure the length using the RigExpert and the saved VF.  If it’s anything other than what you measured originally it tells you the general location of a problem.

But a RigExpert will not tell you forward power or reflected power. For that you need a directional watt meter.  Once you have those two measurements you can very easily calculate SWR. That’s where Bird or Telewave stand head and shoulders above all of the cheap SWR/wattmeters. Their sensors are calibrated for the exact range of frequencies and power levels you wish to measure.  
 

The McBazel SW-102 is inexpensive, does a lot of different things, including measuring the frequency (something that neither the high end wattmeter nor the moderately expensive antenna analyzer can do, except for the MFJ 259, 269 series), forward power (within limits) and reflected power (possibly even more limited at the bottom end), and calculates the SWR based on those limited measurements.  I think they’re very handy for a go bag for use with a specific range of power outputs.

[dosw]

I have the Surecom SW102, and the NanoVNA.

 

Advantages to the NanoVNA: You don't just get SWR, you can get an SWR curve showing you where the dip in the curve is, and can identify immediately whether the antenna is too long or too short. With just an SWR meter you have to take multiple samples and plot your own curve. Also the NanoVNA does a LOT more than just SWR.

 

Advantage of the SW102 - It tells you the power level being transmitted. And it's very simple to use. But for accurate power, and to avoid annoying people you'll need a dummy load, too.

[WSEZ864]

I have several SWR meters of varying frequency ranges and varying precision that I've used successfully in the past. I finally went for the nanoNVA-H4. I find it very useful and fascinating to experiment with. Having a full sweep of the band and broadband capability (mine goes to 1.5gHz) is immensely helpful with building/tuning antennas.

While much the same SWR info can be gained by MANY readings on an straight (single-frequency at a time) SWR meter, the VNA does it all almost instantaneously, and also offers other useful test modes, such as cable testing. My only regret is not buying one sooner.

[Jaay]

13 hours ago, nokones said:

MFJ is far from even coming close to being accurate. RigExpert appears to be pretty accurate and is an excellent tool. Bird 43s and Telewave meters are accurate, but you have to use the chart to determine the VSWRs.

Well Mine is accurate, and those of others I've seen, are accurate. If not they can easily be calibrated too.

[Jaay]

1 hour ago, nokones said:

Yah right, BS. How did you confirm that accuracy? Did you compare it with another Pandaland POS instrument?

I had a 849 that was far from being accurate and it was sent back to MFJ for a recalibration and 9 months later, I finally got it back saying it was recalibrated, and it was still far from being accurate.  I ended up putting it in the garbage.

Also, I had a MFJ269 that I sent back for recalibration. They had that instrument for four months and while I was waiting, I had my Bird 43 recalibrated and purchased a RigExpert. The RigExperf appears to be a good unit. I ended up giving away the 269 to Sir Steve because I no longer had a need for it.

Both my Diamond, and Mfj are Calibrated, using a Up to date, Bird 43.

[WRUE951]

The Surecom SW102 is probably your best bet for fast, quick and pretty accurate readings..    For antenna tunning i prefer the Nano VNA and having both in your tool box is a must iMO  

[SteveShannon]

2 hours ago, nokones said:

I ended up giving away the 269 to Sir Steve because I no longer had a need for it.

Which I greatly appreciated because it was very helpful to a young ham.  I tested it at multiple ham frequencies against my RigExpert and it was good enough.  Not exact, but good enough to tune an antenna.  He doesn’t have a lot of money so I gave it to him for just the cost of shipping and he also appreciated it. Thanks again!

[nokones]

6 minutes ago, SteveShannon said:

Which I greatly appreciated because it was very helpful to a young ham.  I tested it at multiple ham frequencies against my RigExpert and it was good enough.  Not exact, but good enough to tune an antenna.  He doesn’t have a lot of money so I gave it to him for just the cost of shipping and he also appreciated it. Thanks again!

It was my pleasure and I am glad to see that it benefited another person.

[Jaay]

A little more money, but Good choices are the Diamond SX-600 or the MFJ-849 if you can find one.

[nokones]

9 hours ago, Jaay said:

Well Mine is accurate, and those of others I've seen, are accurate. If not they can easily be calibrated too.

Yah right, BS. How did you confirm that accuracy? Did you compare it with another Pandaland POS instrument?

I had a 849 that was far from being accurate and it was sent back to MFJ for a recalibration and 9 months later, I finally got it back saying it was recalibrated, and it was still far from being accurate.  I ended up putting it in the garbage.

Also, I had a MFJ269 that I sent back for recalibration. They had that instrument for four months and while I was waiting, I had my Bird 43 recalibrated and purchased a RigExpert. The RigExperf appears to be a good unit. I ended up giving away the 269 to Sir Steve because I no longer had a need for it.

[nokones]

23 hours ago, dosw said:

Advantage of the SW102 - It tells you the power level being transmitted. And it's very simple to use. But for accurate power, and to avoid annoying people you'll need a dummy load, too.

Any RF power output check without a commercial quality 50 ohm power terminator will not be accurate. Also, periodically you should check the load resistance of the power terminator to be sure that it is a 50 Ohm resistance or the power reading will be inaccurate. I have had a commerical grade power terminator go bad over time. The cheap POS Pandaland Power Terminators are not always a 50 ohm load out of the box.

[nokones]

MFJ is far from even coming close to being accurate. RigExpert appears to be pretty accurate and is an excellent tool. Bird 43s and Telewave meters are accurate, but you have to use the chart to determine the VSWRs.