hamfest buy, mil grade grid dip meter
 

The mil spec version of the Eico grid dip meter my father used to have. But it goes down only to 2MHz, but up to 400MHz, uses a 955 acorn triode for the oscillator. Useful for getting tubed LC circuits resonant close to where I want them.
http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...1&d=1381623630

Neat. You buy that at BARA today?

Yep, bought a bunch of stuff, mostly a few tubes and someone had a bunch of 7 pin male tube plugs. They looked to be tube bases that were never used to make tubes. And the grid dip meter works! :banana: Wonder if I can use it to test antennas, to find out the resonant freq? :scratch2:

Supposedly, a small coil to act as a coupler on the end of the coax cable that feeds the antenna under test can tell you the resonant frequency with the grid dip meter. But I see a lot of dips on the 2 meter antenna, one every 4 or so MHz from 120 to 250 or so MHz. Not sure what I'm really seeing, maybe a mismatch at the antenna causing reflections to make the extra dips?

nice meter
have a really nice Heath grid dip meter
would someday like to build a few wire antennas
but too damn much power line noise at current qth ... makes the hf bands not pleasant to listen to

That is a very nice GDM. Military test gear of that time was go good. I have RF signal Generators, audio signal generators. etc that need a fork lift to move them but the sure work well.

RobtWB have you tried a loop antenna. The design is the best one for minimizing QRM. I used to run Butternut vertical antennas, great antenna but it could pickup a worn out Kirby Vacuum cleaner 10 miles away.

There was a Hardy Boys mystery where they were kidnapped. The brothers managed to seed out a SOS with a grid dip meter. I don't remember the details on how.