Customizing Panel Meters
'There's something fishy going on here'

 

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The March 2004 issue of QST has an article on rescaling and customizing meter faces.  This is an excellent article, and I recommend reading it before you customize your meter.  This section illustrates my experiences with creating a new scale for a meter that I’m using in a homebrew receiver.

The first picture is a meter that I found at a hamfest.  It was probably used in a CB transceiver, as it has scale for power output, modulation percentage, and signal strength.  I just needed to indicate signal strength.

In order to create a new scale, I removed the scale of a Hammarlund HQ-170 receiver and placed it on a flatbed scanner.  I scanned this image into a graphics program (in this case, Adobe Elements Version 2.0).  I cleaned up the image and added red coloring for signals above S-9

 


Once I was happy with the new meter scale, I printed the image onto Hewlett Packard premium glossy photo paper, in color and on the 'best' quality setting.

 


Next I turned the old scale backing over and roughed up the metal side. I then sprayed it and the back of the new scale with Elmer’s Spray Adhesive (available at Home Depot) and pressed the two together.  It takes about an hour to dry. After drying, I removed excess paper with an Exacto knife.

 


I then cleaned the plastic meter face with Novus 2 Fine Scratch Remover.   This really makes your old meter look brand-new.

 


Finally I mounted the new meter scale with the two mounting screws on the meter assembly and placed the plastic cover over the meter. Here is the finished result.
 
Here is an S-meter file that you can download and work with:

Hammarlund S-meter in JPG format.