Selecting a Spectrum analyzer
I'm going to buy a spectrum analyzer. I get confused about selecting one of these spectrum
http://www.aaronia.com/products/spec...trum-Analyzer/
S 1,765
http://www.gwinstek.com/en-global/pr...lyzers/GSP-730
S5,799
why GSP-730 is more expensive than HF-60100? and what do you suggest instead of these spectrum analyzer?
Thanks
Hi,
How can we give this? You don′t give any requirement.
Klaus
dear KlausSt
Thanks for your comment.
Actually I want something more affordable for a small home laboratory. For example operating frequency up to 10Ghz is excellent(6 8 9 Ghz are also acceptable) but I need something that be able to measure RF power also and price is less than 2,100S. Because I'm student and maybe I want to do some projects for future I want to select something good with the lowest price.
Aaronia devices aren't regular spectrum analyzers. They have a special design and don't work well for a number of standard applications. Review respective Edaboard threads like https://www.edaboard.com/showthread.php?t=346623
Surprisingly affordable:
https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/de/pro...93-363458.html
i would be careful buying a 2nd or 3rd tier spectrum analyzer IF you plan on doing quality work in the future. Lets say you want to do an antenna radiated emissions test....unless you have a spectrum analyzer that you can send out to be CALIBRATED...your results could easily be many dB off, which is way too sloppy for modern work.
Another path is to buy an older HP/Agilent/R&S one...but in my personal experience they can be maintenance headaches. A lot of the older models, which are very affordable, are no longer suported by the manufacturer. So fixing them, calibrating them, getting windows 10 software to talk to them....can be exasperating.
I would go with a new, bottom of the line, Keysight/R&S/Tektronix one. There are USB spectrum analyzer "boxes" that use your laptop as the screen...you can shave off some bucks using those.
The software question is important, may make older
equipment "unsuitable" even if the box itself is capable.
I got a lot of mileage off the HP8561E that I pulled off
the red tag ("uneconomical to repair") shelf of my last
employer's headquarters lab, to try and fix up for my
remote office. Turned out to need one video trim pot
tweaked (deep inside the multiple planes of TTL series
logic boards) and I got a 6GHz classic specAn for nada.
But hardcopy and data transfer, got no clue.
If you look around on eBay, you can find some of the old R&S boxes for very good prices. It is another thing to know if all is well with them. Don't buy one with no return option or not-working condition. I picked up a 7 GHz FSEB unit with digital/analog demod options for under S2k. You just have to set up a search and make an offer when it pops up. Stay away from the ones with the reddish faces as I am told by R&S service that you can't clone/copy the operating system. The blue faced ones you can copy the hard drive in case that crashes.
Another box that I use frequently is the Tek RSA306. They go sometimes on eBay for under S1k. The -B model is a bit more expensive.
There USED to be some neat screen capture programs out there...but they work on windows XP.
http://www.ke5fx.com/
and
http://www.ke5fx.com/gpib/7470.htm
has some good programs for Spectrum analyzers and VNAs, but you need to have a National Instruments GPIB card in your computer.