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| Kirkby calibration kit alternatives? |
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| G0HZU:
--- Quote ---edit - G0HZU - the plot you made looks great. Do you know what(if any) kind of averaging or smoothing your analyzer is doing? --- End quote --- RBW is 1kHz and averaging and smoothing both set to off. |
| mgberry:
Great thread on the Kirkby kit. I thought I would throw in my experience as well. I purchased one his kits awhile back and did some measurements using my 85052b and N5221A. My observations were that for a low cost kit it performed pretty well below 3Ghz. I found some challenges above 3Ghz that were basically what you guys have observed. The two things that stood out were inductance issue and connector repeatability. Overall I thought it was a reasonable buy for a low cost kit....of course this is prior to the price hike. Matt ...Would be glad to make some measurement for anyone that needs additional data points of the kit. |
| G0HZU:
Hi Matt Could you use both the male and female parts of the Kirkby kit to do a 2 port cal for an insertable device? i.e. measure something like an inline SMA 6dB or 10dB attenuator up to 6 or 7GHz? Then maybe repeat using a different set of SMA test cables to see if the results are repeatable across different mating SMA connectors. You may have done this already and it would be interesting to know what results you got. I'm not convinced that an SMA cal kit will give repeatable results up in the 3-7GHz region when mated with various makes of SMA cable because of the undefined air gap between the solid dielectrics once the connectors are mated. I think it will be fine to about 3GHz and it already looks like you have reached similar conclusions. |
| TheSteve:
Just as a quick followup here is what I have been able to achieve using the Kirkby out of spec SMA cal kit(good to 3 GHz, not 7 GHz) with my N9912A FieldFox handheld analyzer. Port 1 OSL performed, then normalized to port 2. Mini Circuits VAT10+ 10dB attenuator. First capture with 5% smoothing, no averaging. Second capture no smoothing, no averaging. edit - added the same captures with VAT20 20 dB and VAT30+ 30 dB attenuators, I only have one of each to measure. |
| rfspezi:
I could need some advice on what i am doing wrong with my Kirkby cal-kit. (Please appologise stupid questions, since VNA measurements are totally new to me ;) ) My setup consists of: -) HP 8753E VNA (6 GHz) -) Kirkby 85033 SMA calkit -) 50 cm RG316D koax I followed the instructions on the Kirkby 8753 page here: http://www.kirkbymicrowave.co.uk/support/VNAs/HP-Agilent-Keysight/8753/ On the floppy disk there are 3 files (SMA, SMA_M_M, SMA_F_F). I selected "SMA" and loaded it with "RECALL STATE". Is that the correct file to choose? After that, the frequency range is automatically changed to 300 kHz ... 3 GHz. Shouldn't it be set to the full range of 30 kHz - 6 GHz of my VNA? Next, i start a "S11 1-Port" calibration. When selecting "OPENS", a new menue appears and asks me for "OPEN (M)" or "OPEN (F)". Since i am using the female-open, i guess selecting "OPEN (F)" is correct here? The same applies to the SHORT. Just the "LOAD" does not open a sub-menue for (F) or (M). Ok, so after i finalize the calibration by pressing "DONE 1-PORT CAL", i set the VAN to Smith-chart to verify if calibration is correct. I do this by attaching the SHORT again and check if the Smith-chart gives me a point at the short-position. However, i don't get a dot at the short position but a line reaching from short to almost infinit on the upper, outer pure inductor circle. Similar, just mirrored is displayed when the OPEN reference is connected. For compensation, i applied a port extension of 58.14 ps and get the expected results (dots) with all 3 calibration standards. I thought that with the complete calibration data on the floppy disk, there would be no need for manual port extension entry? Or maybe i am doing something completely wrong here? Thanks :) P.S.: Another thing that irritates me is that the 50 Ohm references are 49,5 and 51,1 Ohm instead of "50,0". I would expect to get better quality references for that price? |
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