Even with a high quality SDR, it is worth keeping in mind that the S meter is measuring the strength of the signal at the 50 ohm input of the receiver, "not" at the antenna. For example, if the radio's input is 50 ohms, but the antenna's impedance is significantly higher, power transfer from the antenna into the radio will suffer, and signal levels will be lower than if they were fed to an input with a matching high impedance. Many antennas vary in impedance over various frequency ranges, particularly in the case of wideband designs. What is useful to know is that the relative signal strengths at any one frequency will remain meaningful, even if they are not from one frequency to another.