TSP #49 - Teardown, Repair and Analysis of an Anritsu MS2721A 7.1GHz Portable Spectrum Analyzer 

Great work Shahriar, You guessed things very accurately. I was part of the Analog team that made it almost 15 years ago. The ADC and the 100 MHz sits in that metallic section on Digital board. Nice video, great presentation.

I am subscribed to over 250 RU-vid channels spanning a wide range of topics, but it is your videos that I look forward to most. I can't adequately express how great they are. You have an understanding of all these systems and subsystems, and an uncommon ability to place them in context. It is the latter quality that I think puts you well into the "genius" domain. Plenty of people know about electronics or microwave system design, but how many can look at a PCB full of surface-mounted components and immediately recognize all the subsystems from a block diagram? How many can bodge up a completely different circuit on a PCB to replace unavailable components? I wouldn't be surprised to see you build a spectrum analyzer out of stone knives and bearskins if the need arose. You operate at such a high level that it is an honour to watch you work, sir. You may be working with electrons and waveguides, but you're a real-life Sherlock Holmes. Is this odd behaviour a red herring? How many blind alleys will you be led down? Is this bad component colluding with another? Will you catch the perpetrator before he-or it, rather-does more damage? Will all the loose ends get tied up this week, or is this episode going to be a 2-parter? Okay that's enough of that. I will never approach your level of ability, but I consider it a success if I leave each of your videos with more knowledge than I arrived with. Thanks for the brush with greatness, Shahriar.

31:00 Held my breath. ahhah!The benefits of self testing gotta love it. Your repair analysis of the SRAM was spot on. Great repair.

I always enjoy your videos with the way you present them. This is considering that I don't understand 90% of what you are saying! Still, I always watch them. Thanks for the repair videos.

As usual, I am in awe of your repair skills. Very impressive.

Thank you for taking the time to re-shoot the lost footage for us!

Excellent as always...a highlight of the day. Cannot thank you enough for sharing your knowledge.

Love love love seeing the troubleshooting stuff that you do!

Ahh.. Friday night and new episode of total awesomeness :) It's time to pour beer in the glass and start relaxing. Thank you for these wonderful videos!!!

Great and very interesting work Shahriar!

You are Mastermind, Brother. I love these videos. please upload more.

Well done, and excellent video, as always!

Yeah do that! I would love to hear a rant on DC-DC buck boost converters. Great video as always.

Dude, you're a bad ass...! Nice work!

Good Video; Thanks for showing this repair.

Excellent video & outcome

I found this very interesting and informative.

Another great repair! I think it would be nice if you made a video about building a DC/DC converter using a microcontroller instead of a dedicated IC and go over the theory of it.

Good job! Nice repair video.

Well done sir!!

it's amazing how replacing the RAM chips fixed the firmware you corrupted ;)

The large IC next to the two memory chips is the main CPU, a Hitachi SH3. There are actually two CPUs; the second is implemented in one of the two FPGAs and is most likely a SuperH based softcore.

You have a good logic repair :) As advise, you should glue some heatsink on top of these SRAM. I'm pretty sure that a thermal design issue common on this series of Spectrum Analyzer.

Another cool repair job! How about using some of your GHz-range gear to do a survey of a typical EM envt? What all is out there? Cell phones, wireless routers, motors, fluorescent ballast, garage door openers ... It would be interesting if we could "see" in this range.

Update to the model year, in the front of the user manual, the compliance declaration is what showed the 2004 date.

looks so easy when u are doing it :D

Well done!

I think the reason for the delay on boot was correction for halting the previous update so you could find the menu for error errata table.

Awesome!

EXCELLENT.

👍👍 very inspiring

good job

Nice repair, but you can stop pretending now, we all know it's really the cat finding the fault. ;-)

6:31 xD Btw very interesting to watch, tnx! :) Where do you find these instruments? Not exactly in a dumpster I would guess?

Hi Shahriar! Here is your new fan from India. I loved the way you described the things and made them very easy to Understand. But Still I am Stuck in Upgrading the firmware of my Spectrum meter as it’s Ethernet port was damaged badly ( On Board PCB Prints are not there for fixing new Ethernet Port.) I tried very hard to get firmware on web but couldn’t find it. So I request you to send the weblink for its firmware.

May I ask how you replaced those chips? Was it with a hot air gun?

Please ( should you find the time ) do make a video on the DC to Dc converters

Great review, a few comments/questions; 1. I would of tried it with just the one memory chip replaced first, you can always replace the others later if it still failed. 2. I would of also done a test boot (not recorded) after you replaced the memory instead on a live 'discovery', 3. This model apparently came out in 2004 according to the owners manual. 4. What I don't understand is why would those voltages be at or near zero off the PS given this type of failure? Thanks.

How did you corrupt the firmware to access that hidden menu, got this exact model on the bench with the same sort of boot loop.

The datasheet is dated 2006. :)

Do you only show us the successful repairs? Because it seems you can always get the things you touch working again ;)

Hi SignalPath.Your channel has no logo/picture. Is it a bug or a feature?=)

Theres another one of these for parts only on ebay . US $1400.00 .

You are a freeeeeeeaky lucky guy :) Simple power failure. Daaammm... :) like find a gold on the street

I would give it a good home if you don't need it!

is that a russian blue cat?

Your cat's name is Bush?

First!

We have a hardware failure. YAY...