Electronics > Beginners

Why are spectrum analyzers so expensive?

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codingwithethanol:
Anyways the reason I started this thread is because im working on student budget here. I had gotten a decent tek and psu and function generator for <$200 and couldnt justify shelling out more than that for ONE piece of equipment. Im taking all the suggestions made into consideration, also I found this thing:
 https://www.ebay.com/itm/U-V-UHF-VHF-Dual-Band-Spectrum-Analyzer-w-Tracking-Source-136-173MHz-400-470MHz/292520566371?hash=item441b959e63:g:gBoAAOSwQFVapi2a
But it looks like it'd shit itself and blow up if I so much as looked at it wrong. Also I found a Hameg SA at auction just now but it was a little over the $200 mark so I didn't pull the trigger.

HB9EVI:
Most things were already pointed out. I think, analyzers nowadays are quite affordable;
first it was the Rigol DSA815TG, today it's the Siglent with better technical data than the Rigol for entry class.

After having twice time tough luck with 2 older storage Tek scopes breaking down irrepairably, I decided to not buy anymore old measurement devices, so I went for the Rigol which does an ok job here; if you know about its limits you can fairly work with it and I'm using it rather often - it's certainly much better than all those FFT functions modern DSOs offer, what can imo not be seen as 'measurement'.

If you personally see a need for a SA, new or second/third hand go for one with a tracking generator; it's a must-have for many measurements

Bicurico:
I would not recommed wasting money in this device.

For your budget you can only buy a SMT/NWT device, which requires a PC.

All options with a display is money thrown away.

Regards
Vitor

Theboel:
I think You don't give information about how high You want to go 100MHz, 2GHz ?

based from Your post :
"I've recently been making myself a mini lab so I can move past arduino and do some actual engineering. I wanted to get a spectrum analyzer to view frequency response of components, but I looked at the prices of the cheapest analyzers and had a stroke. What makes these things so expensive, are they made out of platinum and diamonds? Not saying that I don't understand why the super serious business pro models are expensive, but where are the budget hobby tier models?"

You can try to use Arduino for made Your own spectrum analyzer, something like this perhaps

Mechatrommer:

--- Quote from: bd139 on June 09, 2019, 10:26:03 am ---
--- Quote from: T3sl4co1l on June 09, 2019, 10:15:46 am ---Which, on that note -- a DSO with FFT functionality isn't much different.  It won't have the spectrum-related features that a DSA does, but if all you want is to see some peaks, it's a good deal.

--- End quote ---
Yeah they're not too terrible at that actually. Not a bad solution.

--- End quote ---
with PC aided SW, one can do much more... GSps and vertical bit resolution are the only limitation.

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