Any cheap commerical unit to measure SWR over range 45 MHz to 6 GHz?

Does anyone know of a cheap commerical tool which will measure SWR over the range 45 MHz to ideally 6 GHz, but 3 GHz would do at a push. The accuracy does not matter. I looked at the MFJ (More ****ing Junk) range of antenna analysers, but they don't seem to have anything to cover a side frequency range.

I know of a company that has a semi-decent HP VNA they don't make full use of it - it is literally used as a VSWR meter. So I'd like to make them an offer for the VNA, but it would mean I have to find some way for them to measure SWR.

Hi DeboraHarry,

While it's not an all-in-one-solution, I can vouch for the (most impressive *and cheap*) Signal Hound spectrum analysers (http://www.signalhound.com/) which work over the frequency range of interest. They've just released a tracking generator (http://www.signalhound.com/TG44A.htm) which could be combined with a directional coupler to achieve the desired |S11| measurements, although I suspect you'd have to create an interface to the whole assembly using the (provided) software API.

The Signal Hound website refers to a Minicircuits ZFDC-10-5-S+ directional coupler, but that only covers 1MHz - 2GHz. (Affordable) broadband directional couplers seem to be hard to come by, but I've seen others have success achieving VSWR measurements with Wheatstone bridges over several decades of frequency.

Wiltron 560A with a reflectometer can be picked up used on ebay for maybe S300. You need to hook it up to a sweeper, but you can get a cheap HP or wiltron one for maybe another S500. HP 8757a is a step up, but a little more expensive, especially for the reflectometer head.

These things are known as "scalar network analyzers"

reflectometer head looks like this:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Anritsu-Wi...item3a7540d13a

85 MHz-4.2 GHz, S11 only
http://www.coppermountaintech.com/pr.../PLANAR%20R54/

300 kHz-8 GHz, full S parameters
http://www.coppermountaintech.com/pr...LANAR%20804/1/

Both of these will be more expensive than Biff's suggestion, but they are another option.

If you only need to sweep for SWR and you have a generator, we used to simply use a directional coupler and hot-carrier diode with a DMM back in the 70's for under S10. Couplers have 20~25dB return loss flat to 6GHz now. (VSWR 1.11~1.22) Is that sufficient?

http://www.minicircuits.com/products/Couplers.shtml cheap S2 for low power antenna tests.

For low levels you can amplify the return port with http://www.minicircuits.com/pdfs/GVA-63+.pdf S2. and detect that. But then calibration is required for accuracy.

I also like the solutions proposed for cheap VNA's.. I once borrowed a S100K Anritsu VNA (for 6mos !) while I calibrated my test jig for the front end IC of an Iridium Satphone. It was the LNA BPF Pin Switch chip in production and I calibrated the VNA to 0.1dB accuracy to 50MHz to 6GHz for all s-parms.