Update to Testing evening January 31

Testing Night 31^th Jan 2024

I plan to bring the following test equipment to the Malew Scout Hut on the evening of the 31^th Jan.

1. A Signal Hound SB44B spectrum analyzer which covers 1Hz to 4.4GHz complete with TG44A signal tracking generator.
2. A signal Hound VSG25A vector signal generator.
3. Directional couplers good to 3GHz.
4. Peak reading Bird Thruline power meter with assorted slugs.
5. Fluke Multimeter.
6. Agilent LCR meter.
7. Dummy loads.
8. Lots of adaptors and test cables.

What sort of thing can be measured?

1. Signal quality; intermod products and harmonic output.
2. Phase noise but only if the equipment is very poor.
3. Losses in coax-cable and connectors.
4. Filter band pass and insertion loss.
5. Power output and how it effects signal quality.
6. Return Loss (S11) against frequency of antennas and filters etc.
7. Insertion loss and isolation of coaxial relays.
8. Small signal gain of pre and power amps against frequency.

What sort of thing cannot be measured?

1. At my shack I can measure noise figure but this equipment does not travel well so best done there.
2. Very accurate frequency as I will not be able to get a GPS signal in the Scout hut so the spectrum analyzer will be running on its internal 10MHz reference signal which is not very accurate.
3. Low level phase noise < -100dBc/Hz, still work in progress on this challenge.
4. No vector network analyzer so no compound impedance.
5. Difficult to measure Rx performance in the time available.

If you have any specific request outside those mentioned above please e-mail me at GD8EXI@manx.net before the meeting.

Richard

GD8EXI