Can't you send a DIY cal kit to a calibration lab for measurement? I don't have a VNA yet, but that was what I was planning to do unless I manage to stumble across someone who will do it for me for free.
I was reading papers on VNA cal last night trying to find copies of Engen & Hoer, 1979 and Eul & Schiek, 1988 that didn't cost an arm and a leg from IEEE. Sadly now joy there though I did find some good papers.
Take a look at:
Advances in Radio Science (2003) 1: 21–25
Calibration of vector network analyzers on the basis of the LRR-method
Rolfe and Schiek,
which is available via google scholar. They show 4 microstrip calibration standards that should be very amenable to DIY construction.
There's a huge amount of algebra in the paper , but it's all trivial. It's just presentation of all the details of least squares (L2). One can do better using least summed absolute error (L1). In either case, reading the math is far worse than actually doing the computation.
Have Fun!
Reg
