On 18 June 2016 at 21:01, John Miles <j...@miles.io> wrote: > > and looked at what was used to make the phase noise measurements. It was > an > > Agilent E4406A. The noise floor is nowhere near as low as the more > > expensive instruments, but the E4406A is available for under $500, which > is > > more than two orders of magnitudes cheaper than an E5052B. > > It appears that Leo's using a notch filter to remove the carrier before > measuring it with the E4406A, so it's not quite a plug-and-play sort of > measurement. But yes, the E4406A is a really cool piece of gear given the > prices they sell for. It's not meant to be a general-purpose spectrum > analyzer -- and Agilent went well out of their way to make sure of that -- > but it can still handle many common SA measurement tasks including SSB > noise. >
Thank you. In which case it may or may not be better than the HP 70000 series SA I have, consisting of: * 70004A display, * 70905A 50 kHz to 22 RF GHz front end * 70902A (10 Hz to 300 kHz) IF * 70903A (100 kHz to 3 MHz) IF * 70310A precision frequency reference. + some irrelevant bits. I was not looking for a general purchase SA, as I have one of them already. > The plot on that page came from my freeware phase noise app from > http://www.ke5fx.com/gpib/pn.htm , which is a (very) distant ancestor of > TimeLab. The last two FAQ entries at http://www.ke5fx.com/gpib/faq.htm > offer some hints for suppressed-carrier measurements that can be used with > the E4406A and other analyzers. There's nothing special about the E4406A > with respect to this type of measurement, except that it's an unusually > cost-effective way to get the job done. > I note your software works with the HP 70000 too. As I say, I already have one of them, but was thinking the E4406A would be a worthwhile addition. But perhaps not in that case. Although maybe it will outperform my 70000 system for phase noise measurements. I expect you will know the answer to that. BTW, the link to the "Wenzel Associates, BluePhase 1000 Phase Noise Test System Operations Manual <http://www.wenzel.com/pdffiles1/BP1000Manual/BP_1000_v101_2_.pdf> (30 pages, 1.3 MB)" PDF is broken. > The E5052A/B's most immediate predecessor was probably the HP 4352A/B. > They were made specifically for VCO and PLL transient analysis and noise > measurement, and they've been selling in the $1K-$3K It seems the HP 4352Bs are available for a little under $1000 now, but are but still twice the price of a E4406A. neighborhood for several years. Their measurement floor is better than a > conventional spectrum analyzer, but still not adequate for "time > nuts"-class measurements on 10 MHz sources. > OK, I will give this idea a miss. I was actually looking to compare 116 MHz oscillators. but I guess the same principles apply. Cheers John. > > -- john, KE5FX > Miles Design LLC > Dave, G8WRB _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.