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Johnson Meter Compatibility

Amateur Radio > E.F. Johnson Restoration
What do the Johnson Viking 500, Vailant I and Ranger I meters have in common?  

Electrically, they seem to be interchangable.   The Viking Valiant I and Viking 500 multimeter are identical except for the meter face and the bezel color.  Either one of these meters can be converted to fit one another with a compliant meter face.  Either of these can be made to fit (and work) in a Viking Ranger I meter case.   


Here is a Viking Ranger I meter is on the left, and a Valiant I meter is on the right.  In this case, the Ranger meter was bad.  The mounting hardware from the Ranger meter was transferred to the Valiant meter.  Finally, the Valiant meter needle was trimmed to match the Ranger meter scale and then installed into the original Ranger meter case.    





The finished rebuilt Viking Ranger I meter.

Here is a replacement Johnson Viking 500 meter that was electrically incompatible with the transmitter.  The Viking 500 multimeter measures 20 ohms across its terminals; this replacement meter measured around 2500 ohms.  The meter face was produced on cheap copy paper and was beginning to yellow.

It was replaced with a re-faced Viking Valiant meter.  The Viking 500 meter bezels were produced in the Johnson maroon color.  Unfortunately, the replacement meter bezel was black, so black bezels were fitted to both meters to match.

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