I have had an AA-230 Zoom for a couple of years, pretty much since it
was first available and I rate it as excellent.
The screen is not huge but it is reasonably bright. If I choose the
right colour set it is even readable here in the Thailand sun.
The keypad operation lacks a little intuitiveness initially but once you
get the hang of it it is quick and easy to drive.
I prefer the earlier version of the desktop software which is available
and integrates nicely.
I curse the use of AAA batteries and would have preferred the larger AA
size. In its defence it runs on USB when plugged in.
I have used the TDR function and it seems to work well enough. On my 40m
dipole it shows the discontinuity at 56.78m which is close to what I
know it really is. It is certainly in my experience good enough to
identify within about 6 inches or so a bad connection or damaged cable.
I recently cut a lot of stubs and used the technique in the AA-230 Zoom
user guide to determine cable lengths using R and X, this also works
very well. Compared with my VNWA3E and SimSmith it was very well correlated.
I haven't found much use for its Smith chart function.
It creates Touchstone s1p files for use with various other analysis
tools such as AC6LA's superb Z plots, AE6TY's superb SimSmith and others
of course.
The SWR meter function is quite useful.
It is light and easily carried though do protect it. Mine came with a
cheap pvc type case that has kept it well so far.
I think it is a super field tool. I have a DG8SAQ VNWA3E which is
excellent on the bench and for a lot more different things but the
AA-230 Zoom I find to be an equally good single port antenna analyser.
All round I give it 5 stars but just a slight moan about the batteries
being a bit short lived.
Mine is not the BlueTooth model but I can see where that might be useful
if you need the galvanic isolation. You can achieve the same by using it
standalone, storing a sweep and importing to a pc in slow time. Even if
you store one sweep you have all the available data to display other
parameters.
Martin, HS0ZED
On 08/12/2019 05:10, Terry Burkholder, N4TB wrote:
Looking to replace my aging MFJ-239 with something that will do a bit
more. Looking at the Rig Expert AA-230ZOOMBT.
In particular the TDR function to analyze cables/feedlines. Does
anyone have any experience with one? Looked at the archives and lots
of info on analyzers but couldn't find any info on the AA-230.
Thanks,
Terry N4TB
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|