[time-nuts] Weird Stuff WareHouse shutting down

[jimlux]

On 4/8/18 8:20 PM, Glenn Little WB4UIV wrote:
> The USB stuff has no front end and stability and calibration is highly 
> questionable..
I'm thinking here of the $1K sort of device - traceable cal, quite 
stable, etc.

Not the $20 RTL-SDR


> How can you discriminate between mixes within the USB device and the 
> signal of interest?

The same way you can distinguish on a full up analyzer - you change the 
input attenuator and see if the relative heights of the peaks change.



> I will take my 141T or my 8566 over USB every time.
> Rather lug a little weight around and know what I am seeing on the 
> display is what is really out there.

A little?

> There is a reason that usable SAs have weight to them and USB devices do 
> not.

Monolithic RF ICs have made it possible to get very good performance in 
a smaller package.
Your 141T or 8566 have a fair bit of size and mass to run the CRT and 
user interface.

To be fair, one should take the size&mass of the computer you're running 
the USB pod with and add that.

One thing where the USB pods don't necessarily do as well is on the 
tunable preselector filters or on the number of attenuator steps.


I'd have to go look at something like a Keysight/Agilent FieldFox or the 
Anritsu equivalent to see what sort of front end design they use - for 
all intents and purposes these are a tablet computer and 2 port 
VNA/Spectrum Analyzer in one (two)hand-held device.





> 
> Glenn
> 
> 
> On 4/8/2018 6:58 PM, Andy ZL3AG via time-nuts wrote:
>> On 9/04/2018, at 3:52 AM, jimlux wrote:
>>
>>> Test equipment tends to be aged - Unless you have a particular need 
>>> for a HP 600 series microwave signal generator, there are probably 
>>> better sources available much cheaper that use more modern 
>>> components. In this day and age, I don't think people should suffer 
>>> through 141T spectrum analyzers or even a 8568- Spend your money an a 
>>> nice USB unit instead.
>>>
>> Blasphemy!
>>
>>
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>