My opinion is the same for decades.... If you are a professional installer, do your math and purchase a professional field meter. This will do the job efficiently and you can document all installations in a serious manner. It adds credibility to your business, too.
If you are a serious DXer/reception freak, you normally would purchase a second hand professional field meter. The last one I bought for my collection is the Rover Instruments HD TAB 4. It is tiny with a reasonably big touch screen and supports DVB-S/S2, DVB-T/T2, DVB-C, ATV and FM radio. Comes with reasonably fast spectrum analyser and constellation diagram for all supported modulations. I got it really cheap and in as-new condition, but I have seen similar OEM models being sold at around 500 Euro. They cost about 1.500 Euro new.
This is just an example, of course! I also own 4x Satlook DIgital NIT. While they are bulky and heavy, they do feature the nicest realtime spectrum analyser function, very good DiSEqC-1.2 support and use plain 12V lead batteries which can be bought for less than 20 Euro. The last ones I bought cost me less than 50 Euro! The same goes for the Satlook ComboLook, MegaLook, Color, Color HD. These are excellent hobby field meters. Note that all models after the SatLook/ComboLook come with NiMH or Lithium battery packs, which are expensive to replace.
Other nice field meters to consider second hand: all field meters from Sefram (and their OEM), all field meters from Rover Instruments (and their OEM), there have been some KWS Electronics field meter (of the newer type and their OEM) on eBay, as well as, of course, Emitor.
Stay away from any field meter with CRT (except the Satlook Digital NIT/ComboLook/MegaLook, which are cheap and well built) and meters with B/W LCD screens, for example old Unaohm, Koenig, Technisat boat anchors.
Regarding the purchase of new chinese "field meters": these are rubbish. I have a few and they all get broken within 1-2 years, even if not used. The plastic/rubber starts to deteriorate, the batteries are normally non-replaceable and the software is simply bad.
These are in reality satellite receivers with TFT screen and battery in a small form-factor. But the software is so bad, that if you scan Astra 19.2E, you can't even properly change to the desired channel. With thousands of channels in the channel list, you get (at least in the devices I tested) just a CH+ and a CH- button... Imagine the pain to reach channel 500! Of course you won't get any propper channel editor, either. So the only option is to just scan one single transponder per satellite, so that you have only few channels.
The spectrum rendering in some of these devices is pure fantasy! You can disconnect the LNB cable and the spectrum runs for a further few seconds...
If they had at least proper satellite receiver functionality, they could serve as portable camping TV's, but the software is just not made for this. If someone knows a brand where this does work fine, please enlighten me.
Another option is to use a Linux receiver with E2/Enigma2. You can remote control it over the network and hence use your mobile phone. The problem will be the lag, though.
Regards,
Vitor
