Why bandwidth hack's difficult at R&S devices ? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: Frank_MV
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2020, 09:56:44 am
content: Why is it so difficult to "hack" measurement devices from Rohde & Schwarz?With an oscilloscope, given the bandwidth limitations, I suspect it may "only" be a capacitor that needs to be removed - or is it built into the FPGA and therefore inaccessible?

author: darkstar49
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2020, 12:31:04 pm
content: Quote from: Frank_MV on November 04, 2020, 09:56:44 amWhat instruments are you referring to ? Bandwidth upgrades exist for the RTO, and RTB/M/A. For the RTO I think it requires servicing, but I doubt they use h/w low pass filters... with the RTB/M/A, a 'simple' key is enough, but the (downloadable) firmware files are encrypted, so 'investigation work' is a bit harder, but I think to have seen some signs of progress on that front...

author: YetAnotherTechie
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2020, 12:59:29 pm
content: But are they more difficult?To hack you need to spend time, and time is money. So hacking is worth it to those with very low incomes like students, or those that absolutely could never afford a more expensive unit, it's also done for fun. So the amount of people that can buy a 300$ 70Mhz scope that can be upgraded to 350MHz is larger than the amount of people that can buy a 2000$ 100MHz scope that can be upgraded to 500MHz. Of those, only a fraction would have the skills to reverse engineer the unit.In my opinion more contributing factors are:For higher end units, the much much lower market share compared to keysight/tek and therefore much less thinkerers picking them up in the second hand market.For low end (cough!) units like rtb/rtc, i believe hobbyists actually buy them new, and since they cost 3/5 times the price of a hackable rigol/siglent the owners are far more fearfull of messing with them.

author: Kean
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: November 04, 2020, 03:13:44 pm
content: I've not tried to hack any of my R&S gear as it is too valuable to me, so I'm not speaking from experience - but check out the various business units of R&S.R&S are far more than just a test equipment vendor, and likely have access to some seriously talented people to lock things down quite well and make any hacking difficult.As I say, I don't know if that is actually the case. It could be mostly for the reasons YetAnotherTechie mentions.Anyway, another thread around here might shed some light on that.

author: Frank_MV
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2020, 05:23:01 pm
content: these are very good arguments from you, probably it is so.

author: tv84
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2020, 06:25:12 pm
content: The difficulty is only proportionally inverse to the effort one puts into it.

author: Fungus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2020, 08:03:50 pm
content: With the low end 'scopes the hacking is a sales technique, they can't officially say it but they have no interest in preventing it.

author: darkstar49
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 04, 2020, 08:40:18 pm
content: Quote from: Fungus on November 04, 2020, 08:03:50 pmI’m not getting it... many hacks for fairly expensive pieces of equipment have been published in this forum, so why are we making this distinction ?Sure, many « lower end » manufacturers do not care to much protecting their options.Hacking is not (only) related to the price, but to a device’s ‘popularity’ and potential... spending hundreds of hours to crack a 250$ Rigol option is not (always) the right motivation... when a Keysight S-Series can be hacked from 500M to 8G bandwidth, with all options, for the equivalent price of a German luxury car...And that a hack is not available ´publicly’ does not mean it doesn’t exist... the RTO is hacked (at least the options), but no one has published it (yet).Can’t imagine it will take long for the more accessible RTB/C/M/A...

author: Scratch.HTF
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2020, 12:39:28 pm
content: Requiring the purchase of a software code for bandwidth upgrades (or to enable any other hardware option such as a waveform generator) is plain crippleware; from what I see, (illegal) upgrades to increase bandwidth and/or enable other hardware options can significantly increase resale value and are particularly lucrative.

author: Fungus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 12, 2020, 01:23:34 pm
content: Quote from: Scratch.HTF on November 12, 2020, 12:39:28 pmYou'd rather have it hardware?

author: jipo
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: July 25, 2025, 09:39:43 pm
content: Hi. I bought a RTM 2034 last year from R&S. R&S used the oscilloscope for exhibitions. It is in very good shape. But the only option open is the logical protocol. All others are closed. After some days with this excelente device I called to R&S asking for the others options. R&S told me that, the options aren't availables. The oscilloscope is too old. But I can buy an RTM 3000 new with all options.My conclusion is that SIGLENT is an option with better cost benefit ratio.