new killer scope in town - a true game changer from R&S - RTB2002 & RTB2004

[tautech]

To have it valid you have to make it sure that the scope is calibrated from a lab totally independent from you(your work) and from the manufacturer.

Says who ?

If all instruments used to verify accuracy meet or better the factory Cal instrument spec and they are within their Cal period then what is the problem ?

[nctnico]

Question is what is a valid cal cert...
The fore-printed one sheet of paper from siglent for example surely not.
To have it valid you have to make it sure that the scope is calibrated from a lab totally independend from you(your work) and from the manufacturer.

That doesn't sound plausible to me at all. For as long as the calibration result is traceable to a standard and the lab has been accredited, the calibration is legally valid. Big test equipment manufacturers typically have their own accredited calibration labs. Take a look at Keysight for example: https://www.keysight.com/nl/en/products/services/calibration-services/iso-iec-17025-accreditation.html Personally I strongly prefer to send my equipment to the manufacturer for calibration IF they have an accredited calibration lab. They know their own equipment best and likely have the tools to do the calibration most efficiently.

To have it valid you have to make it sure that the scope is calibrated from a lab totally independent from you(your work) and from the manufacturer.

Says who ?
If all instruments used to verify accuracy meet or better the factory Cal instrument spec and they are within their Cal period then what is the problem ?

See above. It is not that simple. The way the calibrations are performed (procedures) also need to be verified by an external party. Siglent makes no mention of being actually accredited to perform calibrations properly.

[tautech]

Question is what is a valid cal cert...
The fore-printed one sheet of paper from siglent for example surely not.
To have it valid you have to make it sure that the scope is calibrated from a lab totally independend from you(your work) and from the manufacturer.

That doesn't sound plausible to me at all. For as long as the calibration result is traceable to a standard and the lab has been accredited, the calibration is valid. Test equipment manufacturers typically have their own accredited calibration labs. Take a look at Keysight for example: https://www.keysight.com/nl/en/products/services/calibration-services/iso-iec-17025-accreditation.html

To have it valid you have to make it sure that the scope is calibrated from a lab totally independent from you(your work) and from the manufacturer.

Says who ?
If all instruments used to verify accuracy meet or better the factory Cal instrument spec and they are within their Cal period then what is the problem ?

See above. It is not that simple.

Yes of course, an accredited Cal lab that most companies that make test equipment and provide an instrument Cal sheet already are.
It's not rocket science.....does it meet or better datasheet spec ?

[skander36]

I had an RTB arrive recently and just today had the opportunity to grab its cal cert for record keeping. I was a bit surprised that it was calibrated around 650 days before my order was placed. I have no cause for any actual concern (so far, at least).

It was interesting to see what they use for the RTB (plain-old factory) cal process:

• R&S NRP-Z91 power sensor
• Keithley 2601A System SourceMeter
• a trusty 34401A

I'd guess they dogfood the NGUs these days in the plant's cal lab...

For RTB 2004 they used different gear between factory and service.

[pdenisowski]

Personally I strongly prefer to send my equipment to the manufacturer for calibration IF they have an accredited calibration lab. They know their own equipment best and likely have the tools to do the calibration most efficiently.

We also strongly prefer you send your R&S instruments to us for calibration     

Actually, there can be significant differences between a manufacturer and a third-party calibration:  for example, are adjustments always performed to bring the instrument as close as possible to optimal values, or only when the values fall outside of the tolerance range? 

Often the calibration interval is based on the instrument starting the cycle with near optimal values:  an instrument that just barely passed a third-party cal (and was not adjusted) may go out of cal much more quickly than an instrument that was optimized (as we always do) during the last cal.

[Martin72]

Says who ?

If all instruments used to verify accuracy meet or better the factory Cal instrument spec and they are within their Cal period then what is the problem ?

It´s not that easy...
We´re Iso certified(not only), everything we use in the testfield* must be fully traceable calibrated from an external DAkkS certified lab.
DAkkS are worldwide accepted even in MIL/Aero ranges(It will be enough when our equipment is calibrated according to ISO, but this must be done from a lab with "higher" Standard (DAkkS) ).
To be clearer, as I´ve bought the siglent scopes for our testfield the first thing was to send them to the lab for calibrating.
Because with the one sheet of cal-cert paper which lies in the package you can wipe your a** with.
For private usage it´s ok because you don´t need any certified things.
When we buy a scope from lecroy, there is always a complete calibration protocol with individual values attached.
Fully traceable including a cal-sticker (valid until...).
Even the "cheap" Wavesurfer come with it.
R&S, Keysight, Tektronix also.
It´s a "Pro-Standard", of course you can´t expect that on the "low-cost" models from siglent, so it was no surprise they came with nothing in this way.
But if we would buy for example a SDS6000A model, we would expect the same individual documentation we get from the "Pros".
And not only a fore-printed one sheet of paper which says nothing, this is not pro-standard.

[arcitech]

Long shot, but might anyone be able to confirm the SoC in the RTB2000? I'm guessing i.MX 8 (biased by familiarity, for sure), or a less familiar Altera/Intel offering like the Arria or Stratix...

[tv84]

Long shot, but might anyone be able to confirm the SoC in the RTB2000? I'm guessing i.MX 8 (biased by familiarity, for sure), or a less familiar Altera/Intel offering like the Arria or Stratix...

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/rs-rtb2004-snooping/

[RBBVNL9]

There are new versions of the manuals.

It's a good habit of R&S to update their manuals, also when new firmware versions are released.

The new manual v12 is for FR2.4, but the v11 manual was already for FR2.4 as well.

I did a quick check and, apart from typographic changes, page shifting etc, I only found the following differences:

• §2.1.2 Delivery includes RT-ZP03S probes (instead of RT-ZP03).
• §2.1.4.1 Small changes concerning the placement of the device on a bench (weight).
• §4.4 Text change concerning probes. Seems the old manual had a text copied from the RTM3000 or RTA4000 relating to probes with the R&S probe interface, which the RTB does not have. This text is removed.
• §7.2.2.1 for the ‘phase’ category, 'S1' and 'S2' in the picture (instead of '1' and '2').
• §10.7 Small text chance concerning the need of a device ID for registering licenses.
• §12.2.1 Removed a text on trigger possibilities for SPI.
• §16.1 small change on cleaning the device (solvents, etc.).

That's it... So no need to rush and read this new manual ;-)

[Neurosurg]

Can You hear about coming out for about 2 weeks +/- realese a new generation of scope on R&S, I think it can be something on middle level just nezt to RTE1000 which I planned to buy when I collect money and find full version. RTE1024, i wa0nna give a full wersion of MDO3054 with HV ori probes for RTE1024 eh ...

Inteeresting what R&S have as an AS card

[pdenisowski]

Can You hear about coming out for about 2 weeks +/- realese a new generation of scope on R&S

Yep, just two weeks away!

https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/us/products/test-and-measurement/oscilloscopes/promotion/next-generation_255909.html

I have one here in my office right now (and it's very nice) but I can't share anything about it until launch. 

[Miles Teg]

Hmmm...

Looking for a scope now.
Was looking on the R&S side and I'm tempted by going all in for the RTB2004 Full package at 4.300€

Offer ends 30 september.

Will I wait for the release news in 10 hours? 

[tautech]

Hmmm...

Looking for a scope now.
Was looking on the R&S side and I'm tempted by going all in for the RTB2004 Full package at 4.300€

Offer ends 30 september.

Will I wait for the release news in 10 hours? 

You might be well advised to study this thread:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/functional-comparison-of-rs-rtb2000-siglent-sds2000x-and-keysight-dsox1000/

[nctnico]

Hmmm...

Looking for a scope now.
Was looking on the R&S side and I'm tempted by going all in for the RTB2004 Full package at 4.300€

Offer ends 30 september.

Will I wait for the release news in 10 hours? 

I have a feeling that the new R&S scope is going to be aimed at the higher end market. Probably above their RTA4000. Likely several GHz of bandwidth with tens of Gs/s.

[pdenisowski]

I have a feeling that the new R&S scope is going to be aimed at the higher end market. Probably above their RTA4000. Likely several GHz of bandwidth with tens of Gs/s.

In about 6 hours I can post a picture of the one on my desk ....

[nctnico]

I have a feeling that the new R&S scope is going to be aimed at the higher end market. Probably above their RTA4000. Likely several GHz of bandwidth with tens of Gs/s.

In about 6 hours I can post a picture of the one on my desk ....

Looking forward to that picture... 

[pdenisowski]

I have a feeling that the new R&S scope is going to be aimed at the higher end market. Probably above their RTA4000. Likely several GHz of bandwidth with tens of Gs/s.

In about 6 hours I can post a picture of the one on my desk ....

Looking forward to that picture... 

[jjoonathan]

Sweeet! 4M wfm/s, 40k FFT/s, lively updates with deep memory... I love the focus on speed, it makes a scope so much more pleasant to use in every situation.

Does "independent settings" mean what it does on the current generation RTO, where adjusting span/rbw/etc translates into a settings adjustment on FFTs of the time domain acquisition data, or does it imply a completely separate path where I could, say, have a 902-928MHz FFT open at the same time as an 18 bit low bandwidth time domain measurement?

[pdenisowski]

Sweeet! 4M wfm/s, 40k FFT/s, lively updates with deep memory... I love the focus on speed, it makes a scope so much more pleasant to use in every situation.

Does "independent settings" mean what it does on the current generation RTO, where adjusting span/rbw/etc translates into a settings adjustment on FFTs of the time domain acquisition data, or does it imply a completely separate path where I could, say, have a 902-928MHz FFT open at the same time as an 18 bit low bandwidth time domain measurement?

The short answer is that you configure spectrum parameters similar to the way you would on a spec an:  center, span, RBW.  However, these parameters can be changed without affecting the time domain representation of the signal.  In other words, spectrum settings are independent of time domain settings, but the two domains are still correlated.

We have quite a few demo videos, etc. that will be appearing in the next few days (I believe) and this is one of the features that we show.

[RBBVNL9]

Nice!

It seems to me that the user interface is a – significant –  further development of that in the RTB2, RTM3 and RTA4 series, which I really like. And which allows the instrument to startup in mere seconds, talking of speed. (I might be wrong, though.).

The MXO 4 series is described as “the first of a new generation of oscilloscopes”, so I am curious to see what other products R&S has in store!

[capt bullshot]

The short answer is that you configure spectrum parameters similar to the way you would on a spec an:  center, span, RBW.  However, these parameters can be changed without affecting the time domain representation of the signal.  In other words, spectrum settings are independent of time domain settings, but the two domains are still correlated.

So similar to what the RTB2k does regarding the FFT?

[CRTbrain]

MXO 4 FFT is way better than RTB FFT...or anything I've seen on any scope before.  Time and freq settings are completely independent.  I tried the MXO 4 on some slow audio signals (had issues doing this with all other scopes) and it was able to show the tones with very fine RBW.  I don't think R&S specs THD or other audio...but I've never been able to see audio this well on a scope.  Really impressive.  (RTB FFT doesn't work well on audio tones).

[EEVblog]

Can You hear about coming out for about 2 weeks +/- realese a new generation of scope on R&S

Yep, just two weeks away!

https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/us/products/test-and-measurement/oscilloscopes/promotion/next-generation_255909.html

I have one here in my office right now (and it's very nice) but I can't share anything about it until launch. 

Oh, looks nice.

Here is a video just released:

[Miki6]

Dear forum.
Sorry, I'm writing with google translate.
RTB2002 70Mhz base scope bad square signal representation in 200mV/div and higher positions.
100mV/div and lower is good, but not perfect either.
A square signal is definitely good, with several generators,
also examined with other scopes. I think it's a divisive problem in these jobs.
Running self alignment, it won't be good.
Can they all be like this, or is it a unique error?
Thanks.

[KrzysztofB]

Well if they had that crazy nice promo as RTB2004 had when was launched, would regret buying Keysight DSO804.
But with prices starting at 9K euros without anything, I guess it will be out of reach for most of us.
Looking nice though.

But it says: The first of the neXt generation

Maybe we will see something more reachable