On 3/30/2014 7:37 PM, Mark Tellez wrote:
What is most important to me is accuracy, ease of use and of course giving me all the info I will need to adjust my antenna.
Do you own, and have you studied (a LOT) the sections of the ARRL Handbook and the ARRL Antenna Book on Transmission Lines and on the kinds of antennas that you want to "adust?" If the answer is no, do that before you buy an analyzer that will tell you things that you don't understand.
The AIM units are popular and highly advertised, sold by a reputable distributor, and are quite powerful, but they are of little use to someone who hasn't studied antennas and transmission lines a LOT. They are also expensive. My favorite of this sort of analyzer is the VNWA 3e, designed by DG8SAQ, an EE prof at a German university, and built and sold by a ham in the UK. It is more powerful, and more convenient to use than the AIM units, and at about $700, is half the cost of the comparable, but less capable, AIM 2180. It's also quite well supported online by the designer, who also wrote the software. All of these units work with a computer via the USB port to manage the measurement and display and process the data. A nice advantage of the VNWA 3e is that it gets power from the USB port. The AIM units need a power supply, which makes it more complicated to drag them into the field.
All of these units may "swept frequency" measurements, and can write data files of the data they have measured so that you use them in design programs like Sim Smith, and AC6LA's excellent Excel spreadsheets.
That's the nigh end. The low end are boxes like the MFJ-259-series, the latest version of which a C-model. The 259 has been ubiquitous for at least a decade -- it's very portable, it does a lot if you've studied those ARRL books, it's very portable (although it EATS batteries like an NFL lineman devours steaks) and you don't cry nearly as long when you drop it off the tower.
In the middle are newer dedicated "boxes" like those you've listed, and others. The more capable ones can do sweeps and generate data files, and they are relatively portable (like the 259) but they are likely to be a LOT less precise than the units that work with a computer.
Summary: None of these antenna analyzers will make your antenna work better, but studying those ARRL books WILL. And you won't understand what the analyzers are telling you if you haven't studied those books. And you can buy the books for a third the cost of the least expensive analyzer!
73, Jim K9YC ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
