One of the nanoVNAs is what you want to do that. There are a couple of groups.io groups for those. I¡¯m a co-owner of the nanovna-users group and if you join that group there is a ton of information about using those to do various things. There is also the nanovna-f group which deals with another nanovna, but I know less about those than I do about the one associated with the nanovna-users group.
DaveD
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On Oct 12, 2021, at 18:23, James Belcher <theburp@...> wrote:
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Thanks Dave,
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Can you recommend a book for the types of measurement I want to do.? Evan suggested that I am using the wrong instrument.
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Jim
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Morris Engelson¡¯s book on spec ans from the Tektronix Measurenents series is good, and downloadable from the TekWiki site. Also, Dan Welch¡¯s book from the Tektronix Concepts series is good and also downloadable from TekWiki.
On Oct 12, 2021, at 17:48, James Belcher <theburp@...> wrote:
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Thanks Evan and Clyde,
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I would like to read up on SAs but can find no decent book on them on Amazon.? If you have a reference I would be interested.
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That being said, I do not really plan to do much in the RF range, mostly in the audio range for study.
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I actually have a very strong back ground in electronics.? Its just that I have never spent any real time in this kind of electronics, and wish to improve my knowledge.
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The idea was to build a simple filter (bandpass, band reject etc) as low to moderate frequency mainly to learn to use the equipment.
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Jim
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Hi James,
There are two different "nano" based devices that are cheap and available for RF and RF circuits measurement.? Each has its own strengths and weaknesses.? To simplify (ALWAYS dangerous, so please take with a grain of salt); the NanoVNA is good at measuring
circuits that do not supply their own RF and the TinySA is used to measure outputs of circuits that do generate their own RF.
For what you are stating that you want to do, the NanoVNA is the best tool.? You can use the TinySA to do the measurements per the video from Erik.? It takes more fiddling and may be less accurate.? It also takes an external noise source to generate the RF
for the TinySA to measure.? The RF generator is built into the NanoVNA and is calibrated across the frequency range of measurement within the capabilities of the device..
By the same token, you can use the NanoVNA to do spectrum measurements with less accuracy and more fiddling.
I would have less confidence in the measurements that the device was not designed to do.? With that said, if you understand the details of the limits of the measurement device, you can use it.
I would suggest that you read up on spectrum analyzers and vector network analyzers to get an understanding of how they work.? This is more so as you are studying electronics, and a deeper understanding of how the measurements are made will help.
Above are just suggestions.? Have fun learning about RF circuits and measurements.
73
Evan
AC9TU
