Readability and Signal Strength

The following relatively standard scales can be useful in logging and report readability and signal strength.  Of the two scales, readability is more important because it will help you decide whether you can receive messages directly from the station, request a relay from someone else or offer a relay to someone who can hear the station as well as you.

Readability – Scale is a low of 1 to a high of 5:

1. Unreadable.
2. Barely readable, can only make out some words.
3. Readable with considerable difficulty.
4. Readable with almost no difficulty.
5. Perfectly readable.

Signal Strength – Scale is a low of 1 to a high of 9:

1. Faint, barely perceptible signal.
2. Very weak signal.
3. Weak signal.
4. Fair signal.
5. Fairly good signal.
6. Good signal.
7. Moderately strong signal.
8. Strong signal.
9. Extremely strong signal.

If someone reports hearing a station that you don’t hear at all, you can log the signal strength as 0.

When we use FM repeaters we usually don’t report signal strength because the signal we receive is from the repeater rather than from the originating station.