Hi is there a chart on the 1500 to show the power in comparison to drive control setting?

Here is what Dudley wrote to me:
"The 1500 output TX metering is not actual RF output, and is a reflection of the 5W drive setting and may not be clocked fast enough.
At the voice peaks at 0 dBm, then you are hitting your PEP output percentage in the "Drive" slider.
If you click the Tune button and select "Mic" or "ALC" in the Tx meter, you will see 0 dBm.  The output at that drive setting. is your PEP output power, kind of a reference tone."

I found out that I was often putting out a lot less peak power in SSB that what I though, so I built a simple external peak power meter, so I could easily see when I was peaking at 5W.  The circuit was published in Nov 1994 73 mag, and is titled "An Average and Peak Reading RF Power Meter."  Far Circuits still has the PC board for this.

I have found the external peak power meter to be very useful, when running barefoot, and when running a 50 W linear.