Rigol RSA3015N hacking or cheap options

[drew23]

Hi All,

I have a Rigol RSA3015N spectrum analyser and was wondering if there are any hacks to access the optional capabilities.

Alternatively, is there anywhere to buy cheap option keys?

The RSA3015N is a great spectrum analyser, especially in its real-time mode.

Regards Drew VK4ZXI

[EE-digger]

I think the lack of response speaks volumes about the state of this topic.  The reason, I believe, is the super low prices on the Siglent products and their seemingly endless hackability.  From what I've seen with my hands on an RSA3030E I suggested a client buy last October, it's a well built product, not up to Agilent / Keysight standards, but very nice.  My concern on the N models is the very limited cal kit support.  Only 3 kits consisting of one of their kits, a second one with zeroes for all constants and a third, custom.  That's pretty poor as you'd have to store a STATE setup for your kit X, run a cal and save under "cal with kit X" for instance, same for Y and Z, etc.

How do you like your unit? 

[drew23]

Hi

Thanks. I have been surprised at the lack of interest too. The RSA3015N is a very capable spectrum analyser. I bought it to replace a Siglent SSA3021X Rev A, itself not a bad instrument. For me, it was the performance for a limited budget. I did think it could be hacked as per Rigol DSOs, but sadly not.

The real-time SA of the Rigol is very good. I can see all sorts of things that are just not shown in sweep mode.

Most recently I have been using it to investigate phase noise of oscillators. I believe it to be wise to look at an oscillator's signal on an SA in conjunction with a phase noise analyser. I was surprised at the amount of spurious noise from big-name vector signal analysers, as well as cheap frequency synthesizers. If you are interested I have done a couple of posts to my blog.

The Rigol SA has an excellent OCXO, on par with my R&S and Anritsu signal generators, with low phase noise and very accurate frequency compared to a Rubidium-GPSDO.

I wonder how many people on EEVblog work with RF. There are endless discussions on oscilloscopes but very little on SA. I am a radio amateur and rarely use a DSO, whereas I use a SA or VNA all the time.

Regards Drew VK4ZXI

https://vk4zxi.blogspot.com/2023/07/an-economical-way-to-measure-phase.html

https://vk4zxi.blogspot.com/2024/02/pn2060a-ghz-phase-noise-measurement.html

[tv84]

I have a Rigol RSA3015N spectrum analyser and was wondering if there are any hacks to access the optional capabilities.

There are.