Topband: Handheld Impedance Analyzer

[Jim Brown]

On Tue,3/29/2016 7:40 AM, Mike Waters wrote:
> Interesting! I had no idea that anything was available with that capability.

And the AIM2180 is not even the best (or the cheapest) of the units that 
do it. The winner, by far, is the VNWA 3e. Less than $700 with shipping 
cables, case, and calibration loads (priced in British Pounds), goes to 
1.3 GHz, self-powers from the USB port of the computer that runs it. And 
it has all the software transformational capabilities of the AIM boxes, 
including AC6LA's Excel spreadsheets (which is what the AIM boxes use). 
Well supported both by the designer, DG8SAQ, and SDR-Kits, the small 
group of British hams who build and sell it. Both are active on a Yahoo 
group. The VNWA writes the Touchstone files needed for export to other 
software (like SimSmith) directly; those produced by the AIM 4170 must 
be translated to Touchstone by AC6LA's Zplots.

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

Several years ago, N0AX was writing a rave review of it for QST (along 
with other VNAs), but WX0B killed it by threatening a patent fight. So 
most US hams don't know about it.

73, Jim K9YC