Hi Tom,
If you have a dummy load available to you, I would try hooking up your audio
watt meter through a short piece of coax to the dummy load and then hook
first one then the other rig to the watt meter using another length of
coax. That will take all variables out of the equation. I have seen 100
watt rigs come out of the factory running as little as 40 watts out of the
box until they were adjusted properly, but you won't know for sure until you
can duplicate the same conditions on both rigs. Also make sure that the
internal tuners are turned off on both rigs because some of the newer relay
type tuners are really inefficient. The tuner in my TS2000 absorbs 20 watts
of my transmitter's 100 watt output power. That's why I use a MFJ986 tuner.
73
Bob, [log in to unmask], K8LR