How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: nyo
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2011, 01:02:37 am
content: How many people here actually have a netwok analyzer or spectrum analyzer at home?

author: ivan747
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2011, 03:20:53 am
content: Make a poll for these kind of boolean questions

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 14, 2011, 07:13:17 am
content: I used to have two Dynamic Signals Analysers, but I sold'em.I don't have a RF spectrum analyser.Dave.

author: Precisiontools
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2011, 09:13:49 am
content: Had a Marconi 2955B RF test set at home up until recently. Sold it after I moved out of RF repair.

author: tekfan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2011, 09:43:34 am
content: Unless you're into serious RF I don't think you need one. Though for what I'm doing I probably would need an audio SA but these too don't come cheap.

author: jahonen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2011, 10:15:39 am
content: I haveRohde&Schwarz FSV7with some extra options. Though, it is not currently physically located at home but at work, but I still voted yes as it is mine. I haven't actually used it very much for radio stuff, but quite unconventionally to investigate EMI performance of digital/SMPS designs. Some examples are my studies aboutparalleling bypass capacitorsorground plane splitting effectiveness. I think it has been quite eye-opening to see what kind of structure is EMI quiet and what isn't. Oh, andoscillator phase noise/spuriousmeasurement after improving clock oscillator in audio equipment. Tracking generator is nice for measuring the effectiveness of different bypass and (EMI) filter structures etc.I had aHP 8753Dvector network analyzer but I sold it to my employer, as it was too big "aerobics cube" for the space I have at my lab. But it still is accessible if I need to measure something with it.Regards,Janne

author: rf-loop
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2011, 03:47:16 pm
content: Rohde&Schwarz FSB (extremely heavy! and big, outlook is not so nice (I do not understand these designers) but what is better... it is really good with signals. Only 5GHz but minimum 6Hz RBW.And of course: some well known old lab work horses:HP8568B, heavy old high-end, but still beats most of today grabs, so in hobby use just ok.HP5595E, this is light weight, so it can take also to trawel. (not for precision works.. onlu for normal signal harmonics and so on measurements)Old 141T system just for "I want it" becouse... it is nice.. many plug ins from low to 18GHz.. I have hear that still after tens of years some labs want use this.. but mainly this in my house just for keep as curiosity)Have not yet real network analyzer. (middle class not wanted and better ones are still... simply, extremely expensive)

author: gregariz
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2011, 04:34:36 pm
content: Have a Network Analyzer, SpecAn & Noise figure analyzer at home... Not enough time these days at home but are handy on occasion.. similar stuff at work.

author: tecman
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2011, 06:09:02 pm
content: I've got an HP 3560A portable and Advantest R9211C benchtop FFT analyzers and a Tek 2714 that take me up t0 1.8 GHz. Have occasion to use all of them.paul

author: DaveW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 14, 2011, 08:58:59 pm
content: Yeap, an HP 8558B-can't beat having a proper spectrum analyser for RF work. £300 on ebay, amazing the price of test equipment now

author: tekfan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2011, 12:27:57 am
content: Quote from: rf-loop on July 14, 2011, 03:47:16 pmHow big is the R&S compared to the 141? I'd love to see a picture of all of those beasts together.BTW 6Hz-5GHz holy s***

author: w2aew
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2011, 02:59:26 pm
content: I've got an older Agilent ESA-L E4411B. It's a nice thing to have for RF work.

author: sacherjj
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2011, 03:26:04 pm
content: I've been wondering if it would be possible to have a computer controlled VFO for a Software Defined Radio, sending direct conversion into a 192 kHz (or 96kHz to save money) audio interface. Then set the scan range and get the computer to "scan" a spectrum for a poor man's Spectrum Analyzer. The software would accumulate the FFTs and make a wideband plot from each small band segment.Without Spectrum Analyzer, it is really hard to see if your home built transmitter has spurious emissions. This would be slow to scan, but for a carrier wave into a dummy load, you can take all day to make sure you aren't blasting the ether with crazy harmonics.

author: slburris
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2011, 04:15:23 pm
content: I have the circuit boards mostly built for this spectrum analyzer, good up to about3Ghz:http://www.scottyspectrumanalyzer.com/I'm still accumulating the hard coax with SMA connectors to get this allput together, but maybe sometime this year it will be operational!Scott

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2011, 04:41:39 pm
content: Quote from: slburris on July 15, 2011, 04:15:23 pmdude! is that for real? iirc you kept suggesting the site few weeks/months back and thought its just a random or googled suggestion. tell me when its completed, i want to make you my master, understanding that site, particularly the circuit (even the single section) is a torture for me, very hard to keep track. i dont see any proper flow in that site on where to start, description for "dummies" like me on what each section do, step by step on how to build one. it kept talking "basic unit", "extended unit", "this site", "another site another builder" etc etc quite intuitive imho, made me leave that site.

author: slburris
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2011, 05:14:25 pm
content: Try this document for a quick explanation of how it works:http://www.wetterlin.org/sam/SA/MSAOverview.pdfI agree the main site is a bit disorganized. This site hasa lot more information on it:http://www.wetterlin.org/sam/I highly recommend joining the Yahoo group:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spectrumanalyzer/I joined the list and found someone offering a group buyof the PCBs so I got those. Then someone offered a groupbuy of the components so I got those too :-)I'm finding doing the mechanical construction to be thehardest for me. I wasn't sure I could ever build the cavityfilter correctly, but then someone in Australia (not Dave)offered to do a run on filters on his wife's kitchen stove, soI jumped on that offer too.Then there was a group buy for the SMA (RF) connectors and I'vebeen scouring Ebay for the hardline cables to connect this all up.I'm seriously analog challenged, so I only partly understand thetheory behind all of this, but reading some of the documents onSam's site as well as Scotty's has helped. And you can alwaysask on the Yahoo group. They have been very helpful.If I could have found a spectrum analyzer on Ebay that workedfor a decent price, I would have, but all I can find in my pricerange are repair units, and I think there's too much analogmojo for me to have confidence in fixing these. Plus I've heardsome are *very* difficult to fix.Scott

author: nyo
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 15, 2011, 09:38:19 pm
content: I didn't expect a lot of people having spectrum and network analyzers at home because of the high cost, very interesting

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2011, 03:02:03 am
content: sounds dreadfull scott. i'm scared!

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2011, 06:09:49 am
content: Of course,it all depends on what your budget is.There are some quite reasonable Chinese spectrum analysers for about $A1500 from a local supplier in Oz,& a fair bit less from China,My old work had a nice IFR Spec An that would often get dragged out of the workshop & used to make sure that the transmitters we were using (in an ISM application) were still on frequency.This meant we couldn't use it while fixing stuff,so we bought one of the Chinese ones.Last time I visited,it was still going strong.Obviously,the IFR was a much more powerful unit,but if had its problems.We had a PLL which would lose lock,with the frequency rapidly defaulting to about 476MHz.The IFR,being digital,displayed this problem as a number of carriers spread over the frequency range from 434MHz to 476MHz.With the Chinese Analog unit the rapid change was obvious.Once you know this can happen,you aren't fooled,so if somebody offered me both,I'd take the IFR one in a heartbeat!VK6ZGO

author: Ernie Milko
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2011, 09:33:12 am
content: I've got two Wave Analysers; a Marconi and a Thorn.They both work, and I use both of them!

author: dfnr2
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2011, 02:56:46 pm
content: I have an agilent 8594E spectrum analyzer, with a tracking gen, and fully decked out--really a nice unit. I love it. I also have an HP 8505a VNA--old, but still works great. Back when those were new (more than a decade apart), their combined cost would have been more than 2 years salary for a starting engineer. What's amazing is that the newer units have LCD screens and USB, but otherwise similar performance, and due to technology improvements (especially in RF), now only cost about one year salary. The interval improvements in the embedded processing power don't make a huge difference for the spectrum analyzer, but have made VNA's much easier to use since the advent of the 8505A. You can get an 8505A stack, including the must-have storage normalizer, fully working for the cost of a chinese 150MHz scope. Simply astounding.Dave

author: Ernie Milko
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2011, 03:05:48 pm
content: Processing power for Wave Analyser:>

author: jahonen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 16, 2011, 06:37:50 pm
content: Some of modern spectrum analyzer modes rely heavily on the processing power, like the real-time spectrum on R&S FSVR:Also, the IF section is digital nowadays, the last IF signal is digitized and then processed to form the display. That makes it (relatively) easy to make stable narrow RBW//VBW filters. Other advantage is that FFT can be used to speed up the sweep considerably.Regards,Janne