Keysight FieldFox N9913 test equipment for antenna & tuner work

cpu_

Member
Hi folks. I've been a fan of tuners, receivers, and radios in general since I was a boy. I'm interested in building a little test stand for testing mostly vintage tuners, and for doing a little design work too.

Before I could collect any test equipment of my own, my buddy lent me a Keysight FieldFox. This is a portable network analyzer/tester for field work. This model supports vector S11 and scalar S21 measurements. Vector S11 is return loss magnitude and phase measurement of input ports. Scalar S21 is gain magnitude.

The S11 test can be used to measure return loss or VSWR on passive networks including antennas. I plan to test the return loss of various antennae I have laying around. The S21 tests can be used to sweep devices (amplifiers, filters, etc) from low VHF into microwave.

There have been some great postings here recently about building high performance antenna for FM, baluns for matching test equipment to tuners, etc. If someone has used a FieldFox or a network analyzer for antenna or FM tuner work. I'd love to hear about the kinds of measurements and analysis that can be done.
 
i've done scalar network analysis evaluating filter with a spectrum analyzer fitted with tracking generator. have thought of getting a return loss bridge for my setup for antenna work never gotten around to it. would love to have a real professional vector network analyzer (not any chinese kit toy) to play with. if prices aren't insane on these things, i would have one already. those Fieldfoxes with VNA and tracking gen capability are very nice and very pricey, wish I have one!.
 
Here is a scalar S11 plot I took of something I had laying around, a small antenna for use with GSM cellular modems. This is an example of one of the tool's capabilities.

TAOGLAS_TG.30.8113_HINGED_ANT_ANGLED_.png

This particular instrument is good down to 30kHz.
 
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