Towertalk
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [TowerTalk] Portable analyzers

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Portable analyzers
From: Jim Brown <jim@audiosystemsgroup.com>
Reply-to: jim@audiosystemsgroup.com
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 09:59:00 -0700
List-post: <towertalk@contesting.com">mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
On Sat,7/9/2016 4:52 AM, Bill Cotter wrote:

Attached is a marketing analysis of several handheld analyzers I did for our ham club. It has links to the technical details.

The Tower Talk list does not support attachments.

Hardy,

You said you wanted something to drag to the top of a tower, but with this analyzer, you can easily get good data from anywhere on the feedline, including the shack.

http://sdr-kits.net/VNWA3_Description.html

I no longer climb anything higher than a stepladder, so I do all my measurements from the shack. It needs no power supply, getting its power from the USB port that connects it to the computer that processes the data. As an engineer, you will really appreciate it.

It does TDR by computing the inverse FFT of a sweep, which can be set for any range that you choose for the level of detail you need. There's some math built into the control software, and it exports data in several formats, including s1p Touchstone files, which can be imported by SimSmith and ZPlots, among others. It's a full vector network analyzer, so it also measures S21.

I paid $740 three years ago, shipped to my W6 QTH, with calibration loads and a case that I wouldn't order again. With the Pound in free fall, my guess is that you could buy it for about $650 today. It's a real winner. Well supported by the mfr (some hams in the UK) and the designer, DG8SAQ, a university EE prof who also wrote the software.

73, Jim K9YC
_______________________________________________



_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>