Hi all
I've been working on impulse radar designs and I've really felt the need for a high speed (>3 GHz) oscilloscope to look at the signals in time domain. We are sometimes dealing with one shot signals so a sub-sampling scope is out of the question.
We have a budget of about $7000 so I'm pretty sure we'll have to buy a second hand one.
Any recommendations?
Thanks!
Keysight Certiprime are usually good value, and stock comes up all the time, and you can bargain them down:
I've been working on impulse radar designs and I've really felt the need for a high speed (>3 GHz) oscilloscope to look at the signals in time domain. We are sometimes dealing with one shot signals so a sub-sampling scope is out of the question.
We have a budget of about $7000 so I'm pretty sure we'll have to buy a second hand one.
Any recommendations?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/LeCroy-DDA-3000-XL-3Ghz-4-Channel-Digital-Oscilloscope-20GS-s-100Mpt-/301409747557?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item462d6bc265
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Tektronix-TDS694C-3Ghz-10Gs-s-5-in-stock-/231281969989?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35d97acb45
Keysight Certiprime are usually good value, and stock comes up all the time, and you can bargain them down:
http://stores.ebay.com/keysight
This 6GHz one is hard to beat:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Keysight-DSO80604B-Infiniium-High-Performance-Oscilloscope-Agilent-DSO80604B-/171363959684?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27e6168384
Might get it for $8K?
They also have a Keysight DSO81204B listed
12 GHz, 4 channels
List price: $106,377
You save: $90,420.45 (85% off)
Now: US $15,956.55
You might even get that one in to your budget
I had an opportunity to play with one of these DSO81204B a few weeks ago on our local calibration lab.
And suddenly a MSO-X 3000A is a toy in comparison of all the stuff that can be done.
Hi all
I've been working on impulse radar designs and I've really felt the need for a high speed (>3 GHz) oscilloscope to look at the signals in time domain. We are sometimes dealing with one shot signals so a sub-sampling scope is out of the question.
We have a budget of about $7000 so I'm pretty sure we'll have to buy a second hand one.
Any recommendations?
Thanks!
I would not buy the Tektronix TDS694C if I need to depend on it. One of the problems is that the chip which deals with the triggering can overheat and fail. Ofcourse this chip is made from unobtanium so if the trigger chip is dead you are left with a dud.
The classic workhorse for stuff like this is the old Tek TDS7404 and these can be purchased within your budget. I'm pretty sure this is the model we have at work for capturing data for stuff like this.
So I would suggest that you should consider the TDS7404 as the initial benchmark for performance for your task as it is (was) a proven tool in this field. I'm sure there will be better suited scopes available today but maybe not within your price budget.
Some notes on the Keysight eBay store:
The Premium scopes come with all the accessories as new. They also offer full warranty typically. Haggling room is about 15% below listed price.
Plain used scopes are bare scope only. I'm not sure about the bargaining room on these. Hopefully it's more than 15% otherwise these are pretty poor values.
I'd write to them via eBay and make sure they know you're academic, because they might swing a super deal. Software upgrades are usually negotiable with the sale. You'd quite likely get them to toss in the 2M point upgrade on the Infinium.
As I understand it, the OP will still need additional budget for probes with sufficient bandwidth.
For example, a Keysight Premium Used MSO9404A 4 GHz scope is supplied with 4 N2873A passive probes which are rated at just 500MHz.
I suggested the TDS7404 because the task appears to be radar related. At work we are always interested in through wall radar technology and in recent years the Tek TDS7xxx seemed to be a popular tool for capture of UWB radar signals.
I think we have the TDS7404 model at work and it is very good in terms of being able to capture and dump out data for post processing. For UWB radar research this is probably the main feature that it needs to be good at.
Well, any better scope can dump out data for post processing, that's not a special feature (even Rigol scopes can do that).
But that's my point... I assume that for UWB radar analysis it just needs to be able to capture and dump data efficiently. You sold the LeCroy in your first post because it offers 'invaluable' tool options like serial decode. What has serial decode got to do with UWB radar?
I mentioned the TDS7404 because it has been used and proven in this field in the past. The TDS7404 also has decent quality input connectors (i.e. not BNC) and I assume this is one feature that would be good for UWB technology.
But I'm just guessing. I've read quite a few papers on radar design over the years and the Tek TDS7404 was a popular choice as a research tool.
That must have been pretty old papers I guess.
Don't get me wrong, the TDS7k is a good scope (and better than some of the other alternatives suggested here) but a lot of stuff needed for modern UWB RADAR development simply isn't possible with it, and most of the more demanding UWB RADAR work these days is done with either a LeCroy's SDAs (which are WavePro/WaveMaster running the SDA/SDA2 package) or with something like an Agilent/Keysight DSOX90k plus some EDA software, simply because of their toolsets.
QuoteThat must have been pretty old papers I guess.
Don't get me wrong, the TDS7k is a good scope (and better than some of the other alternatives suggested here) but a lot of stuff needed for modern UWB RADAR development simply isn't possible with it, and most of the more demanding UWB RADAR work these days is done with either a LeCroy's SDAs (which are WavePro/WaveMaster running the SDA/SDA2 package) or with something like an Agilent/Keysight DSOX90k plus some EDA software, simply because of their toolsets.
There's only a $7000 budget available...
As I understand it, the OP will still need additional budget for probes with sufficient bandwidth.
QuoteThat must have been pretty old papers I guess.
Don't get me wrong, the TDS7k is a good scope (and better than some of the other alternatives suggested here) but a lot of stuff needed for modern UWB RADAR development simply isn't possible with it, and most of the more demanding UWB RADAR work these days is done with either a LeCroy's SDAs (which are WavePro/WaveMaster running the SDA/SDA2 package) or with something like an Agilent/Keysight DSOX90k plus some EDA software, simply because of their toolsets.
There's only a $7000 budget available...
A 3GHz WavePro 7300A with all these options often goes for around $5k (I'm not the only one who got one at around that price, although sometimes a bit of patience is required). A loaded 5GHz WaveMaster 8500A sometimes goes for only little more (i.e. around $6k).
Most people only think "Tektronix" and "Agilent" when thinking about big brand scopes, which keeps prices of their 2nd hand gear high, often way beyond reason.
You aren't being consistent here...
The 'more demanding' UWB work 'today' would typically require very high scope bandwidths. You mentioned the 90000 Agilent scopes above but they cost a fortune and offer bandwidths that are ten times higher than your used $5k LeCroy with its BW of just a few GHz.
or are you suggesting the OP can buy a 90000 series Agilent for $7k? If so I think I'd like one too
Didn't you just state that a 4GHz TDS7404 would be a good choice for UWB development even though there's absolutely nothing special on that scope aside from the fact that you read about it in some papers?
OP, not sure what requirements you have. I would be interested in hearing more about what processing you would need to do for this application.
Are probes included in budget? Probes can add up depending on what you need.
I dug out an old paper on UWB pulsed radar that used this scope and they achieved a 50ps timeslot with this scope. This is directly related to the 20GHz sample rate on a single channel. Presumably this rate offers a decent range resolution. This performance is pretty good although this old school scope obviously uses interleaved ADCs to get this high sample rate. The processing was done externally in this case.
I'm not familiar with the LeCroy scopes so I'll leave it to Wuerstchenhund to show the single shot performance and timeslot (and therefore range resolution?) the LeCroy model(s) can expect to achieve for a similar cost budget.
Just to clarify, I'm referring to the time interval at the real time sampling limit of the scope. So are you saying the $5k used Lecroy can sample at 50GHz on one channel (and in single slot) in real time to get that 20ps?
So what real time sampling rate can the LeCroy deliver on a single channel and in single shot mode?
It would be interesting and helpful to hear some system info from the OP what the sampling and range requirements are. It could be that the requirements demand a modern scope with a better sampling system. Or the opposite could be true.
Nothing from the OP on what they need other than >3GHz?
go with the R&S RTO series or the Keysight S-Series.
The RTO has the best hardware based FFT in any scope on the market, you get a low end usable spectrum analyzer for free.