Cheap Network Analysers

GNU Radio
1

Anyone know of any reasonably-priced network analysers, up to 2 or
3GHz? Basic S21 and S11
measurements would be a good start.

Has the SDR/DSP world produced something that is more reasonable for a
lowly engineer
to purchase for himself than an Agilent Behemoth? I don’t have $20K
to spend, and they
rent at over $1200/month!!!

–
Principal Investigator
Shirleys Bay Radio Astronomy Consortium

2

(copied to list as it might be useful for others)

Marcus,

I built the SDR-Kits VNWA v2: http://www.sdr-kits.net/. It is spec’ed to
1.3GHz, which doesn’t meet your 2-3GHz spec, but I believe some users
have built downconverters for use at higher frequencies, and the
hardware is (marginally) useable out to 2+GHz when overclocked (can be
done in software). It uses SDR techniques to greatly simplify the
hardware requirements. Look for the Yahoo group at
Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos. It has proven quite accurate for
me, and certainly worth the cost (around $400).

Hope this helps,
Nick

http://www.sbrac.org

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3

On Fri, 2010-04-23 at 14:58 -0400, Marcus D. Leech wrote:

Anyone know of any reasonably-priced network analysers, up to 2 or
3GHz? Basic S21 and S11
measurements would be a good start.

I’ve been contemplating trying such a thing using using a WBX
daughterboard. It hasn’t got past the “taking up space in the back of
my mind” stage though.

Maybe PLL rx/tx phase ambiguity would be a show stopper for vector
operation? Sweeping a narrow range by DDC (or baseband signal) seems
doable, but restrictive.

Perhaps using overlapping PLL tuning bands and then doing phase
alignment between each tune using the overlapping frequencies?

Does anyone have any thoughts on any of this?

–ETS

4

On 04/24/2010 02:47 PM, Eric S. wrote:

Maybe PLL rx/tx phase ambiguity would be a show stopper for vector

I’ve thought of this as well. I haven’t acted on it, because, well my
“list of things to do before the Sun goes out” is already quite long :frowning:

A WBX or two, a USRP1, and a couple of broadband bi-directional
couplers.

–
Principal Investigator
Shirleys Bay Radio Astronomy Consortium