Gedas, what you are seeing is "phase wrap".? The detectors in the VNA's can't resolve more than 360 degrees... 370 degrees looks the same as 10 degrees!
The only way you can do it is to count how many "wraps" you have, IF you can do it in a continuous sweep with no bridges over the wraps.
Hope this gets you started in understanding that!

Daun

On 11/17/2018 8:45 PM, Gedas wrote:

Can someone point me to some reading material to help me understand how to measure phase on my ENA?

I have the operators manual but it is not at all helpful. In short I chose a simple ~19" length RG-223 coaxial jumper as a starting point to help me better understand my instrument. I am having difficulty in getting the display to show phase shifts great then 180 degrees even though the Y-axis is indicating I have plenty of latitude, i.e., +/- 450 degrees etc.

I.e., below is a screen capture where I am showing the phase shift thru that jumper at 104MHz.....back of the napkin calculations show that in fact ~19" length of V.F. 0.66 cable should provide -90 degrees phase shift:

Things even work well when I double the frequency to 208 MHz and obtain a ~180 degree phase shift:

The issue is when I go slightly higher in frequency I would like to display phase shifts great then? -180 degrees. As soon as I go higher in frequency the plot jumps up to a positive 180 degree phase shift.

I would like to know if I can setup my ENA to display say -270 or -400 degree phase shifts. I have been using PHASE under the display options and do see options for POS PHASE, & EXPANDED PHASE. I was hoping expanded phase would do what I wanted but it did not. The manual does not discuss how to use these formats.

Gedas, W8BYA

Gallery at

Light travels faster than sound....
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

--
Daun E. Yeagley II, N8ASB

Indeed!

Yeah, unfortunately, the ENA won't do it.? Not sure if some of the new ones will or not..... I've been retired too long!

Still have to get back up your way... maybe in the spring!

Daun

On 11/17/2018 9:06 PM, Gedas wrote:

Hi Daun....long time no chat. Yup understand 100% but was hoping that the ENA had a function to do that for me. There are some "VNA's" that will do that for you. I guess this one will not hi-hi.

Gedas, W8BYA

Gallery at 
Light travels faster than sound....
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

On 11/17/2018 8:54 PM, Daun Yeagley wrote:

Gedas, what you are seeing is "phase wrap".? The detectors in the VNA's can't resolve more than 360 degrees... 370 degrees looks the same as 10 degrees!
The only way you can do it is to count how many "wraps" you have, IF you can do it in a continuous sweep with no bridges over the wraps.
Hope this gets you started in understanding that!

Daun

On 11/17/2018 8:45 PM, Gedas wrote:

Can someone point me to some reading material to help me understand how to measure phase on my ENA?

I have the operators manual but it is not at all helpful. In short I chose a simple ~19" length RG-223 coaxial jumper as a starting point to help me better understand my instrument. I am having difficulty in getting the display to show phase shifts great then 180 degrees even though the Y-axis is indicating I have plenty of latitude, i.e., +/- 450 degrees etc.

I.e., below is a screen capture where I am showing the phase shift thru that jumper at 104MHz.....back of the napkin calculations show that in fact ~19" length of V.F. 0.66 cable should provide -90 degrees phase shift:

Things even work well when I double the frequency to 208 MHz and obtain a ~180 degree phase shift:

The issue is when I go slightly higher in frequency I would like to display phase shifts great then? -180 degrees. As soon as I go higher in frequency the plot jumps up to a positive 180 degree phase shift.

I would like to know if I can setup my ENA to display say -270 or -400 degree phase shifts. I have been using PHASE under the display options and do see options for POS PHASE, & EXPANDED PHASE. I was hoping expanded phase would do what I wanted but it did not. The manual does not discuss how to use these formats.

Gedas, W8BYA

Gallery at

Light travels faster than sound....
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

--
Daun E. Yeagley II, N8ASB

--
Daun E. Yeagley II, N8ASB

Gedas wrote: "Can someone point me to some reading material to help me understand how to measure phase ..."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look for references on "unwrapped phase" measurement / display.

Like:

_._,_._,_

---

Thanks for that. It does in fact say phase is measured +/- 180 degrees. Earlier I ran a quick test using the expanded phase format and I think it is in fact exactly what I want. Below is the same cable swept from 100 MHz to 300 MHz. The -90 degree and -180 degree points appear to be at the right frequencies. So if it will help others, un-wrapping phase or wrapping phase is very closely related to the expanded phase display format option of this ENA model. Too bad the users manual is useless in discussing these and so many other neat features.

<expand-phase-enabled.png>

Gedas, W8BYA

Gallery at 
Light travels faster than sound....
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

On 11/17/2018 10:10 PM, nj902 wrote:

Gedas wrote: "Can someone point me to some reading material to help me understand how to measure phase ..."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look for references on "unwrapped phase" measurement / display.

Like:

Have you tried displaying your results on a Smith chart?

Check out Dr Joel Dunsmore’s book, “Microwave Component Measurements” for more than you ever wanted to know on the subject.?

On Nov 18, 2018, at 01:00, Gedas <w8bya@...> wrote:

Thanks for that. It does in fact say phase is measured +/- 180 degrees. Earlier I ran a quick test using the expanded phase format and I think it is in fact exactly what I want. Below is the same cable swept from 100 MHz to 300 MHz. The -90 degree and -180 degree points appear to be at the right frequencies. So if it will help others, un-wrapping phase or wrapping phase is very closely related to the expanded phase display format option of this ENA model. Too bad the users manual is useless in discussing these and so many other neat features.

<expand-phase-enabled.png>

Gedas, W8BYA

Gallery at 
Light travels faster than sound....
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

On 11/17/2018 10:10 PM, nj902 wrote:

Gedas wrote: "Can someone point me to some reading material to help me understand how to measure phase ..."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look for references on "unwrapped phase" measurement / display.

Like:

Dear Gedas,

There is a way round this you might find useful- reference line extension function; I used this on an 8753B to take out the delay in a long optical delay line.

Essentially, you sweep over a frequency range that the DUT is phase linear over.?

Then adjust reference line extension until you get flat phase.?

Then read off the extension in ns.?

Then calculate the phase shift from frequency and delay.

I have n’t checked whether the same function is available for E series analysers; it would be a pity, if not.

Regards,

Alwyn

??

_____________________________________________________

Alwyn Seeds, Director
SynOptika Ltd.,
114 Beaufort Street,
London,
SW3 6BU,
England.

Tel.: +44 (0) 20 7376 4110


SynOptika Ltd., Registered in England and Wales: No. 04606737
Registered Office: 114 Beaufort Street, London, SW3 6BU, United Kingdom.

_____________________________________________________

On Sun, 18 Nov 2018, 01:45 Gedas <w8bya@... wrote:

Can someone point me to some reading material to help me understand how to measure phase on my ENA?

You could save the data as a Touchstone file the import it into the software used for the VNWA.



and display as "c. phase" which is the phase unwrapped - I assume the c is for continuous.

Does your ENA support any sort of macro/programming? If so, you might be able to program something in there to unwrap phase.

There's no doubt the ENAs are pretty poor compared to the PNAs. The ENAs were developed in Japan and the PNAs in the USA. Support on the older ENAs on the Keysight forums is almost nonexistent.? The latest ENAs run the same firmware as the PNAs, so things are different.

I have the firmware of an ENA running on a PC (actually a virtual machine) as an emulator, but the ENA software is quite poor.

Dave, G8WRB.

Have you tried displaying your results on a Smith chart?

Check out Dr Joel Dunsmore’s book, “Microwave Component Measurements” for more than you ever wanted to know on the subject.?

On Nov 18, 2018, at 01:00, Gedas <w8bya@...> wrote:

Thanks for that. It does in fact say phase is measured +/- 180 degrees. Earlier I ran a quick test using the expanded phase format and I think it is in fact exactly what I want. Below is the same cable swept from 100 MHz to 300 MHz. The -90 degree and -180 degree points appear to be at the right frequencies. So if it will help others, un-wrapping phase or wrapping phase is very closely related to the expanded phase display format option of this ENA model. Too bad the users manual is useless in discussing these and so many other neat features.

<expand-phase-enabled.png>

Gedas, W8BYA

Gallery at 
Light travels faster than sound....
This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

On 11/17/2018 10:10 PM, nj902 wrote:

Gedas wrote: "Can someone point me to some reading material to help me understand how to measure phase ..."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look for references on "unwrapped phase" measurement / display.

Like: