Great ferreting of the fault on a rather complex instrument from which you don’t have the schematics. Nice creative high dynamic range measurement technique too!
I'm currently forming a pitch to budget roughly $70-100k for a used 13GHz FSW (which I used at my last company, and absolutely loved). Your phase noise measurement caught my attention, similar performance for a much lower price. It's an interesting option to consider! Used equipment from rental companies take a lot of abuse from all that shipping. Though, a used factory demo at least gets a factory refurb and factory warranty. And, my company is not a traditional company with traditional equipment needs (like ISO, or standard waveforms & modulations, or external customers, etc).
It is kind of freaky to think that the reason this instrument isn’t even more capable is because it might cross over into being regulated as munitions under ITAR restrictions
Only "in the door" and I learned something... ☺️ 1:00... this was a revelation for me, I often wondered at the ever-increasing frequencies... why ?? ... I never thought about the accompanying wide bandwith transmission abilities... 😎👍☘️🍺
Excellent review and demo, thank you! Secret R&S instrument sitting sideways on a shelf? Do you have a hi-res photo of the RF board for inspirational wallpaper? :)
@@pauldenisowskiFunny enough I was thinking given that Shahriar used R&S equipment in some of the experiments with the Signal Hound, maybe he should be provided with a R&S FSW/FSWP as well to compare. Maybe to also complete his bench ecosystem. 😅
@@pauldenisowski Thank you for the consideration. I'm sure the vast majority here loves seeing high end equipment in action. I greatly appreciate your videos as well. The explanations and details you provide about RF topics have helped me immensely.
Stellar review as always. The level of integration in RFICs lately has made so many amazing and agile instruments possible using clever pcb design. The days of discrete architecture seem to be ending very quickly since so much can be crammed into a single mass produced IC, even up to mmW frequencies.
@@Thesignalpath My only guess can be that I watched the video before it was meant to send out. But that was a good 3 hours after you published. Will test the theory when I see your next one.
43.5GHz with 160MHz of bandwidth and an optional 800MHz IF output Jeeze, this is something i would have expected to take up a whole rack i would not know what to do with one (not that i could afford one) however i would find some excuses to use one
A phrase from marco reps comes to mind: "these are not first world problems these are ivory tower problems" we mortals are very far away from soething like this hahaha but we can dream
Excellent review as always. I'm stuck with an old HP that works up to 50 GHz with an external harmonic mixer, but I'm only looking at narrowband signals. The bundled software looks neat, and how nice that it's not an expensive licenced add-on. It's an expensive way to make a downconverter for that MXR and the Tek MSO though!
@@nickstanley5064 Windooze devalues even faster. Then somewhere in the accounting department "Oh no, there are no drivers for that for Windooze 14, lets trash it" Then somebody goes dumpster diving, finds it....
Browsing the product data sheet, there are two sets of specifications for image rejection, one with Image reject off, and one with image reject on. This implies that some sort of software image cancellation can be used. There is nothing about this in the instrument manual. The instrument manual is full of useful information, and is unfortunately is as close to the real thing as I am likely to get. It is extraordinary how spectrum analyzer design has changed over a working lifetime. My first SA was a 141T , alas long since sold on ebay.
The amount of kit you have is breathtaking and I'm sure makes a lot of engineers cry! On a specific point, at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-af2HJjrmb0I.html the AMvs Time plot has a suspiciously flat top. Could that be limiting somewhere?
My 'peers' tend to consider me both knowledgeable and intelligent. In order to keep any latent arrogance under control, I only need to watch 10mins of a typical TSP video and I'm rapidly humbled!
Lol, will be fun fixing that stuff, in like 20years, when it lands on ebay for cheap, somewhat phucked and you have find out why. Somewhat fun on well designed 1980s instruments, not so much here, I guess.
I think this is easyer to repair that the older style of instrument eith individual modules. No more wirebonded bare dies that are almost impossible to replace
@@Thesignalpath ne denke dass dies Nicht so ist was sind den 1 Hz oder 1 Mhz ? Wieder irdische masstaebe angesetzt? Definiere sekunde. Schwigung pro sekunde faktoren basierend
„Seit 1967 ist eine Sekunde das 9.192.631.770-fache der Periodendauer der Strahlung, die dem Übergang zwischen den beiden Hyperfeinstrukturniveaus des Grundzustandes von Atomen des Nuklids 133Cs entspricht.“ @GREENBAY Bitteschön, da hast du die Definition von einer Sekunde.
How does TSP fund all the new equipment purchases? There must be millions of dollars on your bench. Is there a company behind the channel, or maybe you're a bored billionaire?
The 435C is an excellent device, I am happy owner of the device, got it around 6 weeks ago. I even bought a notebook reserved for the interface using usb-c and a optical interface. I dont have the IF out option which is also a great extension, maybe later if possible.
Thats the normal way of building dependencies in libraries today. Instead of configuring the code by use you configure by reference. The result is that most of the code will be never come to execution on the machine.
Just some thoughts - this software- absolutely sweet. It's just begging for some sort of command-line/Lua/Python interface. 0: Guys, if you're coin-flipping between the Tek RSA and the SH equipment, go SH. Support small businesses (Apple in 2014 paid literally .005% tax via transfer-pricing[1] 1: Thanks for taking the time to break this down. Do you have any of the parts (specifically the mixers [I want to build a transfer-relay DC-4GB DPDT for cheap-ish without having to go to Pasternak and drop $800] and the ocxo? [All the cheap rubidium stds are gone sadly]. Oh and the AD DC-14 synth? 2: Thanks for the experiments! I know these take *tons of time* to think up, and setup. And I know you're the director of your team, so that's gotta be stressful, along with making time for girl/brother. 3: That looks supppppper rugged. The connectors that are screwed into the PCB etc. Pretty confidence inspiring. Are those type K's? (I've never gone past SMA since I don't do RF professionally, forgive my stupidity!) 4: Did you ask them why they didnt move to USB 3.2? Having those isochrony guarantees seem like they would certainly help, and I'm almost 100% sure Intel will have IP cores available for sale out of the box. 5: What does the thermal profile look like compared to the previous revisions? 6: You and Joe Smith have just...amazing channels hahaha. How close to an ITAR violation is this? I know the DOJ has already prosecuted (convicted?) at least two espionage agents trying to exfiltrate trade-secrets from Boeing...and...hmm. [1] Multi-national corporations solicit services from Ernst-Young, and the like, in order to minimize tax bills, while average folk like us pay 30% marginal federal, state, and muni. (Look up the Double-Irish-Dutch-Sandwich.) "Transfer pricing" is basically moving revenue generated in one taxable domicile to another domicile with the intention of lowering your overall effective tax rate. Nike is notorious for this with their "Swish" logo- effectively claiming the value of their $120 shoes are not in the materials or labor, but rather the Swish (which is certainly true to an extent, if you look at the cash flow re: Air Jordans and endorsements). The Swish would be intellectual property that belongs to a Nike owned subsidiary in, say, Ireland. Ireland would then give Nike an exclusive tax incentive, bringing their already low corporate tax rate of 15% or whatever to 1% under the pretext of "this is generating revenue for the state". The EU has been cracking down on this -- Apple specifically. It was adjucated and Ireland was found in violation of not offering the same benefits that Apple had to similiar companies.
Catching the leakage from the radar with PA turned off is amazing, but the NFC like nature of the input stage switching makes me wonder if the spectrum analyzer can be turned into a data transmitter (especially, when there is an API in it)
Based on the annotations it could be the ADF4372 which is a VCO/PLL chip with 4 VCO cores up to 8GHz and a X2 multiplier for 16GHz. To get to 43.5GHz the multiplier path left is likely X3 because requires less filter banks for the multiplier spurious at LO and 2xLO. A critic is on Shahriar is that he still use the wording "sweeping". The ADF43.5GHz could not sweep over the instrument settings. Instead it is a step synthesizer and sample process. So there is instrument blind time by the bandwidth to span and also the synthesizer settling time. Analyzers in the analog stone age sweep a synthesizer.
@@reinerfranke5436 I have tested the ADF4372, and I do not believe that it is possible to achieve the phase noise spec of the SM435C with a single loop synthesizer. The instrument manual talks about a transfer loop, so it is more likely they are using the ADF4401A. For a phase noise of -136dBc/Hz at 10kHz offset a dual loop or translation loop is the only way. The ADF4401A costs £582 in 1 off from Mouser!
@@cosmolittle1395 Yes, ADF4372 is not achieving the -136dBc/Hz at 10kHz offset and 1GHz carrier. The ADF4372 spec give -234+10*log10(500e6)+20*log10(2)=-141dBc for the flat noise reference component but -127dBc/Hz for the 10kHz flicker. This assumes using a 500MHz reference. The ADF4377 seems an PFD update. There we get -239+10*log10(500e6)+20*log10(2)=-146dBc/Hz and -147dBc/Hz flicker. The PFD in the ADF4377 is -20dB better at flicker and -5dB at the flat component. So for -136dBc/Hz at 10kHz there is no need for a translational loop. Anyway the reference input of the translational loop need an additional source up to the max of the VCO. To generate this you must multiply any low PN source like a high performance SAW oscillator and run into the same PFD performance limit. Instead you can drive the RAM/DDS/DAC to generate direct the 500MHz reference. If we get some higher resolution pics or a simple annotation we know more.
@@reinerfranke5436 I was not aware of the ADF4377. This is an integer N synthesizer, so unsuitable for a lot of applications. However for this instrument, where the LO only needs to tune in large steps, it might be suitable. A high resolution photo of the PCB would answer these questions. In a transfer loop or downconvert loop synthesizer, the LO phase noise is directly transferred to the output VCO. The LO usually has only a few frequencies, often derived by harmonic multiplication and filtering of a SAW oscillator around 1GHz. The IF usually covers an octave, and is one input to the phase detector. The other input can be a DDS or fractional N synthesizer. A
