Re: Budget RF lab equipment list
Speaking as someone with some skin in the game, Youtube is a platform for selling advertising. Any side-benefit of it being slightly useful as an educational resource is entirely coincidental to its
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Neil Smith G4DBN
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#2061
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Re: Budget RF lab equipment list
In my experience there is a great deal more noise than coherent signals on 'YouTube" when it comes to anything of a technical nature, especially when it comes to R.F. design for some reason... on the
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Trevor Gale
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#2060
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Re: Budget RF lab equipment list
I tend to agree with David on S/N ratio of this yutube stuff. There's plenty of smart clever people putting stuff up, but the yutubes seem to be way too long - probably to keep viewers on-site to
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Ed Breya
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#2059
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Re: Budget RF lab equipment list
wrote: I think the signal to noise ratio on YouTube is exceedingly low. YouTube seems a magnet for people to explain what they don¡¯t understand, then be worshipped as experts by many others. ? I
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Dr. David Kirkby, Kirkby Microwave Ltd
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#2058
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Re: Budget RF lab equipment list
I'm a bit of an instrumentation nerd these days. I rarely need to do RF measurements at near-DC frequencies (that is < 2 GHz) but I can't afford a VNA that will cover my ranges of interest.? I have a
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Neil Smith G4DBN
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#2057
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Re: Budget RF lab equipment list
I quite agree it's "an analog DSO". The short memory makes the FFT update *much* faster than my 20+ Mpt DSOs. But a 465 is mentally what I'm comparing it to. One that can do a good FFT and overlay
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Reginald Beardsley
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#2056
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Re: Budget RF lab equipment list
Can't say where other's went to EE school; but.. IMO... and in my university... it might have been different. I'd say that tech talk on YouTube is mostly edutainment (nothing wrong with that for
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Roy Thistle
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#2055
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Re: Budget RF lab equipment list
Besides being 'light' on memory (Which... IMO... seems odd... but is probably for 'reasons?') [ Don't ask me what 'reasons' means; but, apparently some people think it explains 'stuff' ...not sure.])
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Roy Thistle
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#2054
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Re: RF cal club?
The trimming is only worthwhile if you are doing a first principles calibration using a sensitive null detector and water bath power measurement to calibrate the binary ladder. Otherwise buy stable
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Reginald Beardsley
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#2053
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Re: Budget RF lab equipment list
Here the DOS1104 compares the F***Elec FY6900 and a Keysight 33622A generating 10 MHz square waves. The faster risetime is the Keysight. Both 128 trace averages. I should note that a flaw in the
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Reginald Beardsley
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#2052
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Re: Budget RF lab equipment list
I neglected to mention I priced the list out on Aliexpress last night at about $600. I think that is fantastic as it's a sum a student can afford. And actually move easily at the end of the school
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Reginald Beardsley
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#2051
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Re: Budget RF lab equipment list
People seem to be skipping over the " absolute cheapest acceptable quality RF suite" part. I have a nanoVNA H4. It's nicer, but more money. This is as cheap as I know of with quality verified against
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Reginald Beardsley
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#2050
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Re: Budget RF lab equipment list
Reg, I would upgrade to: NanoVNA-H2 tinySA-Ultra If operating portable outdoors I would upgrade to SAA-2N. It has a brighter screen and push buttons which are far less cumbersome than the thumbwheel
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Mike N2MS
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#2049
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Re: Budget RF lab equipment list
Hi Reg, Certainly the TinySA Ultra. Well worth the difference over the standard one. Also I would look seriously at the Rigol DHO802/804 much better build quality than anything Owon has to offer.
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Sam Reaves
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#2048
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Budget RF lab equipment list
Before I realized I was old and could afford the good stuff, I was very focused on low cost T&M kit. Here's my current absolute cheapest acceptable quality RF suite: Hanmatek DOS1104 F***Elec
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Reginald Beardsley
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#2047
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Re: RF cal club?
[email protected]> wrote: Clearly trimming values adds to the time & cost, and personally I feel it would be better to spend the money on better quality capacitors. From my own perspective, I could
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Dr. David Kirkby, Kirkby Microwave Ltd
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#2046
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Re: RF cal club?
Erik, No sense calibrating a $100 Chinese counter with a GPSDO. The OXCO will do for that. A lot depends upon how this is done, mailing or meeting. Calibrating a 5386A needs a GSPDO People with lots
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Reginald Beardsley
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#2045
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Re: RF cal club?
Because that gets you a range of precision values all of which are precisely related. A log detector chip makes a great null sensor for a capacitance bridge. Cal one of the set and they are all done.
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Reginald Beardsley
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#2044
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Re: RF cal club?
Reg, Maybe it is good to be explicit on accuracy ambition level for the RF cal club. As examples: For some people a frequency reference using an OCXO which have been tuned to 10MHz and is shipped cold
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Erik Kaashoek
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#2043
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Re: RF cal club?
drkirkby@...> wrote: Agreed. However for anyone that doesn't yet have a GPSDO, i have a number of the RFTG-u ref 0 units (the one with no receiver) in the UK and therefore with
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Adrian Godwin
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#2042
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