Good
This is what they're supposed to look like:
It seems that the brass S meter housings 'explode'.
Of the five radios so far examined, two have good S meter housings, two have housings that have exploded and one has a housing that exploded and was repaired by someone who wasn't putting up with it's foolishness.
This is what they're supposed to look like:
When I first saw this, the meter face was quite discolored, presumably
from the light bulb heat, and I thought someone
had made the cuts with tin snips to provide ventilation.
When I found the second one, I looked closely and it's clearly
metal fatigue. The
second one had a split that went all the way to and through the front bezel.
I found this one after seeing the good ones and I thought it was
an early type part as it was on the oldest of my radios. After all the above examinations,
I discovered it had split as well and someone had wound and soldered bare wire
all around it to repair it. (My wife pointed this out. I thought it was braid at first.)
I did some Googling and discovered this is a very common problem.
Page: /S_meter/Exploding/Exploding_s_meters.shtml
Last modified: Friday, 24 Apr 2026