It is my understanding that earlier versions of the DSA815-TA did have some
issues. These have seemingly been corrected in current production units.
Mine is about 3 mos old.
73
Bob, K4TAX
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Brown" <k9yc@audiosystemsgroup.com>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2014 11:32 AM
Subject: Re: [TenTec] OT: Rob Sherwood's impression of the FLEX 6x00
On 4/25/2014 6:21 AM, Bob McGraw - K4TAX wrote:
Personally, I went a different direction and purchased a RIGOL DSA815-TG.
Now this cost a good bit more, less than $1500 delivered, but does a LOT
MORE in terms of being a piece of test equipment thus allowing one not
only to "see" their signal but make other analysis of their signal. It
has a tracking generator or signal generator that is quite nice for other
work as well. This product was reviewed in QST some months ago.
Performance wise and feature wise it compares favorably to my $30K HP
Spectrum Analyzer, except the DSA815-TG weighs 9 lbs and the HP some 45
lbs. and it is about 1/8the the size of the HP.
I also had the HP 8590D, but added the same Rigol a year or so ago. It's a
convenient tool. but when I was using the Rigol to poke for emissions from
a switching power supply, the emissions from the Rigol's own switching
power supply was a limit on what I could measure. Before I figured that
out, I had also bought a Rigol sampling scope, and am using that to look
at transmitted waveforms, etc.
For monitoring band activity and looking at other transmitted signals,
the P3 on the receiver IF is a winner.
In any event, understanding how to use and analyze the data presented
from any piece of test equipment or station equipment is the advanced key
to success.
Yes.
As to a computer to run the radio and to do logging -- at least part of
the problem is screen real estate. I use the DXLab suite of software to do
logging, process spots, and so on, and it fills most of my screen, so I
would need another screen for the SDR. My ancient Thinkpads running XP Pro
can support that, but if I want to run anything else, like propagation
prediction software, or a browser, I'm out of horsepower and screen space,
and have overflowed to another laptop.
73, Jim K9YC
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