Federal am864 Metering/meter question

[Rompstomp89]

Hey all,
Im working on a protype of an am864 limiter circuit and im a having a bit hastle trying to get my meter to work with this circuit.
I know the meter works I was able to get some gain reduction movement by applying an 470K resistor in the place of R2.  Now that might sound crazy but its true.  The original R2 only requires a value of 240R....Something isnt right here.  With the 470K in there I get very bad motorboating and some signal loss.  Not good.  I measured with an ohm meter across the meter and got 150K.  Is this meter just way too out of spec for this project?  I read somewhere on here that most VUs have an internal resistance of 3.9k. do i need to strap a resistor on the back of the meter to bring it down? do i need diodes in there as well.  I have used another meter to test the circuit and had to drop a 1k in place of R2 with slight motorboating when threshold is cranked. That meter however is taken up by another project.  I appologize because im a noob when it comes to this sorta thing.  All voltages are correct when R2 is to spec.  Would love to hear some insight on this delema!
Thank you in advance for help!

heres a link to the schematic I used.

https://www.google.com/search?q=am864+schematic&es_sm=91&tbm=isch&imgil=3MzLMElhdSEqvM%253A%253BAJ5goD9fCodU5M%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.preservationsound.com%25252F%25253Fp%2525253D7921&source=iu&pf=m&fir=3MzLMElhdSEqvM%253A%252CAJ5goD9fCodU5M%252C_&biw=1920&bih=915&usg=___n3P7-YRO1_HP3TlD6pKWtjmKYE%3D&ved=0CDYQyjdqFQoTCKvfp93xv8cCFUGegAod52EJ8w&ei=MRjaVeuCIcG8ggTnw6WYDw#imgrc=3MzLMElhdSEqvM%3A&usg=___n3P7-YRO1_HP3TlD6pKWtjmKYE%3D

 

[moamps]

You should keep R2 of 240 ohms as is and for meter use DC 1 or 2mA fs meter.

More info  you can find here:

http://www.preservationsound.com/?p=7921

 

[Rompstomp89]

Awesome! thank you so much!
Romp

 

[Deepdark]

I just tried a meter from hairball audio. I got a vdrop of about 0,2v across R2, but when adjusting current ctrl accordingly, vdrop get better so the needle sit a little higher on the meter and i see gain reduction. But needle sit low on the meter so i'll simply adjust R2 to get my 0db on the meter. To get 1,2 v i should strap a 1k5 resistor

 

[Rompstomp89]

I just tried a meter from hairball audio. I got a vdrop of about 0,2v across R2, but when adjusting current ctrl accordingly, vdrop get better so the needle sit a little higher on the meter and i see gain reduction. But needle sit low on the meter so i'll simply adjust R2 to get my 0db on the meter. To get 1,2 v i should strap a 1k5 resistor

Sorry I'm just seeing this now. As for me, I ended up finding GE 1A meter on ebay and got that.  works wonderfully!  Now about that hairball meter.  Which one did you use? Ive always wondered if one of those would work.
Rob

 

[Deepdark]

I got the big squarrish one. Anyway,  with an 1k5 resistor, it worked. These vu meter are about 20uA, and the federal needs an 1mA fs, for the given 240r resistor

 

[Rompstomp89]

Cool! thats good to know! I might give one of those a try.