They got it right and they put a nice soft amber LED around the port, field people love soft amber as its real easy on the eyes. But then they went and made the D.U.T. graphic bright white
I use the 18GHz version and it's largely pretty great and recommended. Only things I don't like 1. Slow SA sweep. You mentioned it but the difference between this and the Signal Hound I use is several orders of magnitude. I can have the SigHound do a full 20GHz sweep in 80ms with the noise floor at -120dbm. The F'fox noise floor is about -60dBm for a slower sweep. 2. Cost of the options 3. Slow switching between modes. E.g. VNA to SA 4. Screen resolution. 5. Battery life doesn't feel like 4hrs. The CalReady feature is very handy, especially out in the field. For many VNA tests you don't really need to get out the cal kit.
400 years I think... perhaps your great grand children will buy them as vintage equipment for cheap. In our lifetime they're gonna cost an arm and a leg
Yeah, people braking copyright rights with TV/Films spoilers get more in one day. This is ridiculous. Put a cat in a gym with two girls doing taekwondo and millions of views
The blackest of the black arts in analog electronics indeed. You really should work together with CuriousMarc on that Apollo 11 comm system restoration! :)
Nice vid, thanks! I had older 6GHz N9912A one, pretty fun unit but it hadn't much love in my DC/LF lab :) At 9min mark you mentioned 10 MHz band, but actually display shows 100 MHz :)
Heh, I also have a N9912A that I found on ebay for a "reasonable" (albeit still expensive) price a few years ago. It's amazing that the 50GHz one basically has the same external connectors (well besides the RF connectors) and the UI looks identical despite this one being a much much newer unit. Also mine has hardly any options enabled - I was planning on "working" on that, and haven't had the time - I also picked up an 8753D 6GHz not too long after.
Very nice instrument, I used an older 3GHz model a few times at school, it seems pretty useless compared to this one but it also was very easy to use. Can you maybe do a video on load pull tests at some point? My personal interest would be on what kind of impedance tuners are used for it and how they are constructed. Maybe a short basic video on impedance tuners would be pretty cool as well, I find that there isn't to much practical content out there.
Very nice Shahriar! I didn't know that the VNA models of the FieldFox had independent source control of the internal synthesizer over the full band. Do you think the Spectrum Analyzer only models have a different tracking generator or would the performance be similar?
We have one of these and a keysight PNA in the lab at work. I use the fieldfox more often because of how convenient it is, and I can set up my testing quicker (and move it to a different part of the lab: preferable to getting a long cable). My biggest issue with it is that it is very hot in the USB area and will frequently overheat a USB drive. If the USB overheats, best case scenario is that it disconnects and fails to save your data. However in many cases it will crash the unit and you will have to reboot it, losing your data and calibration (if it is not saved). I keep a few old metal USB2 drives around that work. The second issue is that saving files to the USB is a huge pain without a keyboard. A minor issue is that it's harder to do a triggered power sweep. However you can plug in a keyboard and use the up and down arrows to go up and down 1 dBm at a time.
I love the Fieldfox we have at work. My only complaints are the screen resolution is a bit low and that Keysight kinda nickel-and-dimes you for all the options. With the U2020 series power sensors, the Fieldfox offers some very nice peak power measurement capabilities with a nicer UI than the software that comes with the sensor.
Agree. And some of the options are actually really expensive. I would not be surprised if the fully enabled unit is twice the price. I like how companies like Signal Hound and Copper Mountain do it. You get all the features as well as regular software updates for free.
The phase shifter with the RF coupler is interesting. Now I am curious to if the tunable terminators could just be two banks of small FETs and some resistors, likely in an ASIC.
Without options the device is not useful, The analyzer itself is expensive.. but the options are just abusing :) mine have only Spectrum analyzer function (basic feature) and the paid options are almost the equivalent price of the device itself.. We need options !!! :D
I am curious: Why does the bandstop filter not appear to improve the noise figure when placed after the amplifier? Why does this not appear like a reduction in amplifier output noise at this frequency? Has it been calibrated out?
I don't include the prices because they are often not directly available and require a "quote" request. Not to mention that prices change regularly, differ from country to country and various institutions have discounts. They also depend a lot on the installed options.
@@Thesignalpath true but you can use a comparator say US. Transparency is important and one can argue whether a piece of equipment built offers value for money for what it does and the applications it has. You can definitely do better and your detail analysis on the technical parts why we watch your channel we need to make it known how that technical capability is reference to the price points.
Literally can’t watch your channel because I get so freaking jealous. I know that’s childish but the only reason I got into metrology and electronics troubleshooting work was to fund my addiction to test equipment… So I just have to stay away because literally get pissed 😂🤬🤷♂️
