Poll

How many of you have spectrum or network analyzers at home?

Yes
21 (33.3%)
No
42 (66.7%)

Total Members Voted: 57

Author Topic: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home  (Read 9935 times)

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Offline nyoTopic starter

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How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« on: July 14, 2011, 01:02:37 am »
How many people here actually have a netwok analyzer or spectrum analyzer at home?
Felipe
 

Offline ivan747

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #1 on: July 14, 2011, 03:20:53 am »
Make a poll for these kind of boolean questions  ::)
 

Offline EEVblog

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #2 on: July 14, 2011, 07:13:17 am »
I used to have two Dynamic Signals Analysers, but I sold'em.
I don't have a RF spectrum analyser.

Dave.
 

Offline Precisiontools

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #3 on: July 14, 2011, 09:13:49 am »
Had a Marconi 2955B RF test set at home up until recently. Sold it after I moved out of RF repair.
 

Offline tekfan

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #4 on: July 14, 2011, 09:43:34 am »
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.
One can never have enough oscilloscopes.
 

Offline jahonen

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #5 on: July 14, 2011, 10:15:39 am »
I have Rohde&Schwarz FSV7 with 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 about paralleling bypass capacitors or ground 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, and oscillator phase noise/spurious measurement 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 a HP 8753D vector 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
 

Offline rf-loop

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #6 on: July 14, 2011, 03:47:16 pm »
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)
I drive a LEC (low el. consumption) BEV car. Smoke exhaust pipes - go to museum. In Finland quite all electric power is made using nuclear, wind, solar and water.

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Offline gregariz

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #7 on: July 14, 2011, 04:34:36 pm »
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.
 

Offline tecman

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #8 on: July 14, 2011, 06:09:02 pm »
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
 

Offline DaveW

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #9 on: July 14, 2011, 08:58:59 pm »
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
 

Offline tekfan

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #10 on: July 15, 2011, 12:27:57 am »
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.

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)

How 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***
One can never have enough oscilloscopes.
 

Offline w2aew

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #11 on: July 15, 2011, 02:59:26 pm »
I've got an older Agilent ESA-L E4411B.  It's a nice thing to have for RF work.
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Offline sacherjj

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #12 on: July 15, 2011, 03:26:04 pm »
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.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2011, 03:28:57 pm by sacherjj »
 

Offline slburris

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #13 on: July 15, 2011, 04:15:23 pm »
I have the circuit boards mostly built for this spectrum analyzer, good up to about
3Ghz:

http://www.scottyspectrumanalyzer.com/

I'm still accumulating the hard coax with SMA connectors to get this all
put together, but maybe sometime this year it will be operational!

Scott
 

Offline Mechatrommer

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #14 on: July 15, 2011, 04:41:39 pm »
I have the circuit boards mostly built for this spectrum analyzer, good up to about
3Ghz:
http://www.scottyspectrumanalyzer.com/
I'm still accumulating the hard coax with SMA connectors to get this all
put together, but maybe sometime this year it will be operational!
Scott
dude! 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.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2011, 04:51:41 pm by Mechatrommer »
Nature: Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness (Stephen L. Talbott): Its now indisputable that... organisms “expertise” contextualizes its genome, and its nonsense to say that these powers are under the control of the genome being contextualized - Barbara McClintock
 

Offline slburris

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #15 on: July 15, 2011, 05:14:25 pm »
Try this document for a quick explanation of how it works:

http://www.wetterlin.org/sam/SA/MSAOverview.pdf

I agree the main site is a bit disorganized.  This site has
a 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 buy
of the PCBs so I got those.  Then someone offered a group
buy of the components so I got those too :-)

I'm finding doing the mechanical construction to be the
hardest for me.  I wasn't sure I could ever build the cavity
filter correctly, but then someone in Australia (not Dave)
offered to do a run on filters on his wife's kitchen stove, so
I jumped on that offer too.

Then there was a group buy for the SMA (RF) connectors and I've
been scouring Ebay for the hardline cables to connect this all up.

I'm seriously analog challenged, so I only partly understand the
theory behind all of this, but reading some of the documents on
Sam's site as well as Scotty's has helped.  And you can always
ask on the Yahoo group.  They have been very helpful.

If I could have found a spectrum analyzer on Ebay that worked
for a decent price, I would have, but all I can find in my price
range are repair units, and I think there's too much analog
mojo for me to have confidence in fixing these.  Plus I've heard
some are *very* difficult to fix.

Scott
 

Offline nyoTopic starter

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #16 on: July 15, 2011, 09:38:19 pm »
I didn't expect a lot of people having spectrum and network analyzers at home because of the high cost, very interesting
Felipe
 

Offline Mechatrommer

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #17 on: July 16, 2011, 03:02:03 am »
sounds dreadfull scott. i'm scared! :P
Nature: Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness (Stephen L. Talbott): Its now indisputable that... organisms “expertise” contextualizes its genome, and its nonsense to say that these powers are under the control of the genome being contextualized - Barbara McClintock
 

Online vk6zgo

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #18 on: July 16, 2011, 06:09:49 am »
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! ;D

VK6ZGO
 

Offline Ernie Milko

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #19 on: July 16, 2011, 09:33:12 am »
I've got two Wave Analysers; a Marconi and a Thorn.
They both work, and I use both of them!
 

Offline dfnr2

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #20 on: July 16, 2011, 02:56:46 pm »
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
 

Offline Ernie Milko

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #21 on: July 16, 2011, 03:05:48 pm »
Processing power for Wave Analyser:>

 

Offline jahonen

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Re: How many have a spectrum or network analyzer @ home
« Reply #22 on: July 16, 2011, 06:37:50 pm »
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
 


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