In days gone by a radio amateur always had a dip meter close to hand in his ‘shack’. Now that people can afford oscilloscopes, the poor old dip meter has lost its importance and is frequently no longer to be seen. Actually, this is a shame because many tasks are much easier to carry out with a dip meter. Anyone who’s interested (perhaps the second time around) can easily build one rapidly with this very simple but adequate circuit. The interesting question is namely what do you actually need from a dip meter?