I'll tell you the units that I currently own, I would recommend any of these models depending upon your intended use:
HP 8642B, 100 kHz to 2.1 GHz, extremely high quality signals produced. Perfect with regards to frequency display resolution, amplitude control, and modulation signal quality, excellent frequency sweep capability
HP 8665A, 100 kHz to 4.2 GHz, same as above except the frequency sweep is not continuous, it consists of the frequency hopping from one frequency to the next in a bunch of steps moving from the low to high frequency in the sweep. You can set up a continuous sweep only within a fairly limited frequency range. This may not be good depending upon what you are doing with your device under test. This is a newer model.
HP 3335A, 200 Hz to 80 MHz, precise frequency and amplitude control, specified for use in aligning some HP spectrum analyzers at lower frequencies. There is no modulation capability and the attenuator range does not go down to the same low levels as typical HP signal generators. But this is not a function generator because it does not produce signals other than sine waves. So consider this to be a very specialized signal source.
HP 8782B, 1 - 250 MHz, vector signal generator, interesting to play with various digital signals such as various QAM and PSK modulation choices. This is fun if you have a spectrum analyzer that can display I/Q constellation displays.
Back to function generators for a moment. If you can get your hands on an arbitrary waveform generator, you might find that to be fun. The idea is that in theory, you can produce any weird (i.e., arbitrary) signal that you can imagine. I have a LeCroy LW410A which among its features, can produce signals based upon a mathematical equation that you enter. It has a CRT display so that you can see the waveform that the unit plans to produce.
Have fun,
Patrick Wong AK6C
---In TekScopes@..., <kcrossett@...> wrote :
Thanks for the info Patrick. So what about a signal generator?
