Rohde & Schwarz RTM3000 review

[Hydron]

RTB2k user here. The buttons on the left are probably larger than needed, but the info on the right needs to be sized appropriately for touchscreen use (e.g. stuff like acquisition mode can be accessed very quickly using these controls rather than going through menus). Note that the header with model number, time, date etc is NOT present on the screen, it is automatically added to screenshots along the top.

I do agree that it would be nice to have as much room as possible for the waveform - potentially some tweaking and shuffling could help (along with addition of a few missing details to the top info display, like trigger holdoff and number of samples!), but in use I don't have too many complaints. Maybe the easiest improvement would be to offer an _option_ to spread the controls/info currently on the right hand side across the whole width but at half height? You would lose the quick access toolbar, but it might be a good compromise for some, especially when using a function that splits the screen horizontally and reduces the waveform display area.

[Fred27]

One detail: the top menu seems very large (consequence of the touch interface). Can it be collapsed to get more waveform realstate?

I can't see any way to do this. You can change which items are on the left hand side of the top toolbar, but it's not possible to change size or hide it. I agree with Hydron that any smaller then touchscreen usage would be impaired.

[nctnico]

One detail: the top menu seems very large (consequence of the touch interface). Can it be collapsed to get more waveform realstate?

I can't see any way to do this. You can change which items are on the left hand side of the top toolbar, but it's not possible to change size or hide it. I agree with Hydron that any smaller then touchscreen usage would be impaired.

True. On touch screen you need large enough area to touch. IMHO this is why user interfaces initially designed for a mouse don't work very well with a touch screen.

[rsjsouza]

One detail: the top menu seems very large (consequence of the touch interface). Can it be collapsed to get more waveform realstate?

I can't see any way to do this. You can change which items are on the left hand side of the top toolbar, but it's not possible to change size or hide it. I agree with Hydron that any smaller then touchscreen usage would be impaired.

True. On touch screen you need large enough area to touch. IMHO this is why user interfaces initially designed for a mouse don't work very well with a touch screen.

Keep in kind I didn't mean permanently collapsed or smaller, but easily collapsible/expandable to make room for the waveform if required. I understand that UI designed for precision pointing devices is rarely translatable to touch.

[TiN]

Very nice and juicy review, thank you. 

I see Sony PG pod, I'd assume TLA7PG2 was used ? I'd be interested if you find some time to write user experience about that, since I got myself proper LA unit finally (7012 turned from 6204) and my 7AC4 and 7BB4 working happily now. Adding PG into that mix would be an useful option. 

[station240]

Thanks nctnico I was beginning to wonder if anyone was going to do a proper review of the RTM3000, given how patchwork the reviews of many features of the related RTB2000 are.
The serial decoder options was an obvious one.

I do like that you actually fed signals into the scope and test the Power analysis features on a switch mode PSUs.

I'm sure there are a lot of uses for a Oscilloscope, Spectrum Analyser, Signal Generator, Digital Logic debugger, etc in one box.
It's just right now, most of those uses involve small work benches or in field use, and the price isn't there yet.

[nctnico]

Just a quick note: I've noticed that the digital pods are powered down when the digital channels are not in use. Nice! It saves power and probably helps the digital pods to have a longer life.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Those pods do make nice hand-warmers though 

[nctnico]

Time to revisit this review. R&S has released new firmware and the biggest addition is a 'Boadie plot' function as R&S tends to call it in their video. Other manufacturers call it frequency response analysis (FRA). The firmware has been out for a while but until now I didn't had time to give it a spin.

Let's start with something simple: an amplifier swept from 10Hz to 25MHz (which is the maximum range):



The frequency range can be set at the top left side of the screen. The rest of the parameters (like amplitude and number of points per decade) can be set in the setup menu. An interesting feature is that it is possible to divide the frequency sweep in sections and set a difference amplitude for each section.

Another interesting test is a 7th order eliptic high-pass filter.



The attenuation in the stop band is too big for the oscilloscope to get any signal out of it (despite having 10 bit ADCs) so the phase is jumping allover the place. This test also showed that the RTM3004 is scaling the input attenuation to try and get the maximum resolution.

Last but not least I tried an 8MHz crystal (connected to a pi-network).



This is where things get a bit ugly. The setting for the sweep is limited to a number of points per decade and doesn't increase when a limited span is selected. This means that it is not possible to get a detailed analysis of circuits which have sharp peaks in their frequency responses. This is probably easy to fix though because it doesn't make sense to be able to set a narrow span but not getting an adequate number of measurement points. Another limitation is that is works for one channel at a time. It could be handy to analyse more input/output relations at the same time.
 

[metebalci]

@nctnico, in your first post in noise floor measurements, for 0.5mV/div you measured 110-115uV rms. The spec of RTA (not RTM, RTA) says it has 0.11mV and 0.13mV, so very similar to yours but in an RS video it is mentioned RTA has significantly lower noise floor. What do you think I am missing here ?