[TenTec] OT: Rob Sherwood's impression of the FLEX 6x00

[Jim Brown]

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