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Advantest R3477 9kHz to 13GHz spectrum analyzer
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nctnico:
A short play with my latest toy: an Advantest R3477 9kHz to 13GHz signal analyzer spectrum analyzer which I got from Korea though Ebay for $1400 ex. shipping. All the recent talk about spectrum analysers made me want to upgrade my Advantest R3131 (9kHz to 3GHz with monochrome screen) to something with a color screen and preferably the ability to write screendumps to a USB stick. After some hunting on Ebay I found the R3477 but since it is called a signal analyzer instead of a spectrum analyzer it might fly under the radar of people looking for a spectrum analyzer. It seems several Korean sellers are unloading a whole bunch of these machines so this may be a good opportunity to get a good deal. However it does not (seem to) have typical EMC measurements like quasi peak detection but so far I have not really needed that for EMC pre-compliance testing. BTW I didn't look specifically for a spectrum analyzer from Advantest but it turned out my third spectrum analyzer is from Advantest as well. I also didn't need anything over 3GHz but getting more is never a deal breaker.
Front:

Rear:


This machine is based on a PC (Pentium 3 AFAIK) and it runs Windows XP embedded. It has a 800x600 TFT touch screen. Unfortunately the touch screen in my one is (was?) slightly damaged which made the pointer to stick in one spot. I think it is easy to replace (it is just cheap resistive touch screen) but first I tried to heat it a little with some hot air and that seemed to have done the trick. Deformed plastic usually goes into it's original shape when heated (think about heat shrink tubing) so a dent in the plastic film could just level out enough. Due to the internal PC it does use quite a lot of power so it needs lots of airflow and thus the R3477 produces a significant amount of fan noise.

A disadvantage is that this spectrum analyzer doesn't have internal DC blocking capacitors so for general purpose use I ordered a DC blocker just to be safe.

Time for some play. First a 3GHz carrier with a 5Hz AM modulated signal. For this test I connected the references of the generator and the spectrum analyzer (in to out) otherwise the frequencies would wander way too much.

Oh and let's see how busy the Wifi band is:

Advantest is also very candid about the expected life of various parts in their equipment:

I tried to find some information about the number of hours it has been on and the number of attenuator cycles it has been through but I have not been able to find that yet. There is a service menu and I expect to find the information there but this is protected by a password which -ofcourse- isn't in the manual.

When I have more time I'll open it up and take some pictures from the inside. I most definitely want a working backup image of the hard drive (according to the manual it is a flash drive) in case it fails or gets corrupted.
uncle_bob:
Hi

If it's like it's HP Cousins, the calibration info is all stored in ... wait for it ... battery backed up RAM. The thing to watch out for is the life number on the lithium battery.

Bob
nctnico:
My current/previous two Advantest spectrum analysers both needed the backup batteries replaced but the self calibration (for which the calibration output is necessary) seemed to do just fine to get the calibration constants back to where they need to be. But still the battery and what it backs up is a concern to me on this one as well. I will investigate that as well.
uncle_bob:

--- Quote from: nctnico on July 13, 2016, 12:22:49 am ---My current/previous two Advantest spectrum analysers both needed the backup batteries replaced but the self calibration (for which the calibration output is necessary) seemed to do just fine to get the calibration constants back to where they need to be. But still the battery and what it backs up is a concern to me on this one as well. I will investigate that as well.

--- End quote ---

Hi

On some of the HP devices, once you loose the calibration information, there is no going back ....

Bob
rf-loop:

--- Quote from: nctnico on July 12, 2016, 10:36:22 pm ---
Time for some play. First a 3GHz carrier with a 5Hz AM modulated signal. For this test I connected the references of the generator and the spectrum analyzer (in to out) otherwise the frequencies would wander way too much.



--- End quote ---
Quite a spectacular at that price.



In my room ~1GHz AM5Hz50% looks like this with undefined Sig SA  and HP8644B.  (but my modulation is sine)
Swt <3s.  Gen and SA not synched to same f ref.
(borders can also see my gen terrible 50Hz sidebands)
Pity this gen can not go to 3G.
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