A major challenge of network analyzers for many of us is - they're complicated. Even less expensive devices have abilities that may not be clear. Most hobbyists and even some professional engineers have no one to mentor us on the capabilities of and use of complex instruments. Of course, there are many resources available on-line today - so many that it can be overwhelming.
anything that you "dont need" will be complicated, no matter how simple it is even such as stitching clothes or fishing at the sea. we started with simple thing that we "do need" such as antenna tuning, there was a time when VSWR meter is the recommended one and very affordable device, but it can only shows one thing... fast forward now we can have a cheap portable VNA to do the same job... and then later we figured that a VNA can do much much more, anything that we think we will need, or going to need, we study more slowly, and we gained knowledge. the rest of capabilities, and the many ways of rigging up for various purposes, we ignore. we only use, study and learn what we need.
LIBREVNA 100KHZ - 6 GHZ USB based full 2 port VNA
Available on Amazon. A bit cheaper on Aliexpress
I just got one but I have not unboxed it yet. A bit of info out there on it.
This thing looks pretty nice. Wouldn't mind hearing how good this actually is.
it caught my eyes earlier before i made a purchase on LiteVNA, because i need some features up to 6GHz version of (compatible) my NanoVNA V2, thats not available in my Deepace KC901V VNA (reviewed by Shariar few years ago before the name "NanoVNA" even exist), i wonder why you still want one that is stuck near a PC desktop, ie missing LCD screen for portabilitiness? when you can have one at same or cheaper price with LCD and built in battery? and recently forum member dislord even further squeeze the last bit of harmonics trick to extend the range of LiteVNA to 9GHz, i just simply was not expecting it even the slightest bit in my brain cell, i never thought its possible, i thought, thats it! 6GHz is the best bang per buck i can get today or for few years to come.. you dont find a 9GHz VNA anywhere near $1K, even you step up a bit to a Deepace brand.. their 6GHz KC901V is still $2K and 10GHz KC901M is $2.5K, above than this afaik we dont have anything in between, you have to jump really up to Keysight or R&S et al, i'm not sure if Siglent has their 6-10GHz version.
Nano/Lite VNA is imho an ideal and A+++ 4 flat success proof of university master project of "build a cheaper alternative of expensive XXX device" thesis. even my Deepace KC901V has lots to be desired, missing something compared to my Nano/Lite/VNA-QT SW, performance is not really great as well, not recommended by Dr Kirkby, now i understand why when playing with Nano/Lite/QT... except still, my KC901V still has something not available in Nano/Lite, ie more polished and more usable/practical GUI such as vertical LogScale impedance Z plot (we can see 0 to Inf ohm impedance) in one screen, so i think KC901V is not fully obsolete yet, but for Deepace company, i think they are dead meat with the emergence of LiteVNA...
to OP unfortunately, with your $1K budget, you have to accept that what you are looking for is "toy" grade of Nano/Libre/Lite/Deepace VNA etc et al as someone termed it. quality brand new cal kit alone is already more than that cost. my Kirkby budget cal kit is half that, let alone the nice to touch Gore cables and attenuators collections. if you think you can get by with cheaper $10 china cal kit and coax cables, then you are fooling yourself around if what you want to do is beyond antenna tuning/vswr/return loss. before i bought KC901V 5 years ago, i waited in ebay for about a year for the used HP boat anchor VNA price to go down below $2K, there was no luck, and mostly they are missing the s-parm module that need to be hunted separately. i was really desperate there seemed to be no hope, so i bite the bullet on Deepace brand, on loan money for $2K. so if someone mourns about toyish or lowish grade of $100+ Nano/Lite, they are just amusement to me. if you complain, please give other alternative if not 5-6 digits price Keysight or R&S?
edit: maybe your argurment is that Libre is full 2-port. but are you really sure thats what you want? have you figured that by flipping DUT on 1-1/2 port VNA to get S22/S12 have limitation thats crippling you ability to measure? arent you going to miss the fun of measuring rf/antenna on the field? OwO mentioned that he's on progress to build a full 2-port NanoVNA V3 6GHz with better than -100dB noise, this will be an interesting wait, but i dont desperate so badly since i already have LiteVNA to do a job that i need. if i need full s-parm characterization, i'll wait for OwO. fwiw..
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