Dave, W8NF has a good point. Often, though, spectrum analysers tell you
things you'd much rather not know! Other times, they can lie - but if you
know what you're doing, then you can twiddle the knobs to stop overloading
them, as Dave says.
FET probes overload as well.
The big danger with all the super dooper modern instruments with processors
is that the intelligence is moved from between the ears of the operator to
behind the front panel of the instrument. The result is that when the
display reads out to .0000001 of a dB (or of an ohm at 200MHz!) engineers
believe it implicitly. Then they get to the stage of not asking the question
'Is this answer reasonable - is it in the right order of magnitude?'
Which is why my favourite spec. an. is the HP 8568A. It's got the
flexibility, and it's better on phase noise. But at home, I can only afford
a 141! Even so, I doubt many hams will spend that on test gear.
Incidentally, a 141 with 11/110MHz plug in is about $1000 - $1200 over here.
73
Peter G3RZP
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