Just to highlight the phase noise issue have a look at the two plots below. One is from the Rigol from somebody who tested it on a narrow span of 2kHz. You can see that the analyser has a lot of difficulty resolving any detail on a narrow span like this because it is limited by the 100Hz RBW filter and also there is a lot of stopband noise caused by the noisy synthesiser used in the Rigol. This noise manifests itself as a raised noise floor and it limits the visible signal to noise ratio on narrow spans like this.

The Rigol has 30dB attenuation and no preamp selected but this would still allow a typical DANL of about -85dBm with a 100Hz RBW filter so the noise you see is phase noise from the synthesiser. The plot below it is taken from a very old 1500MHz HP analyser (this model dates back nearly 35 years) and you can clearly see how much cleaner the response is. Now this was a top class HP analyser in its day but the margin by which it outclasses the Rigol here in terms of signal to noise and resolution on a narrow span is quite marked. It's actually better than this by several dB but the 134MHz sig gen I used introduces some of the noise you can see. As a further comparison here's another old analyser from about 25yrs ago (1800MHz model made in Japan) This time I've put in a basic 10MHz crystal oscillator as a test signal and I've set the attenuator to 30dB and the preamp is off to match the Rigol settings. The span is 1kHz.

C Map Nt Selector Download Skype. Again you can see far more detail and far more dynamic range because the RBW is lower and the synthesiser noise is much lower. You can see some tiny 100Hz sidebands on the oscillator signal caused by the 50Hz PSU. The Rigol can't display this info despite it having modern DSP at its disposal. However, if you aren't too concerned about looking on very narrow spans for modulation issues or 100Hz (120Hz?) PSU ripple on signals or carrier noise then I guess this phase noise issue isn't that relevant. Sorry, I think I forgot to post an edit I made to that post '. More extensive review.

Dec 24, 2012 Spectrum Analyzer - Rigol DSA815 - Page 6 EEVblog. A unusual feature of the tracking generator this 'Power Sweep' where the output of the generator. This is my first message here. I bought new spectrum analyzer Rigol DSA815-TG. I woluld like to unlock Advnced Measurement Kit option. I used webside to generate license key on the basis serial number. The license code is in format RAJ9JBB-N3AWWUS-xxxxxxx-xxxxxxx, but I.

Because you have another SA to compare it against.' In a query IP2 = SHI on the manual: Is that suppose to mean it isn't good?

If so, what should I be looking for? Purely in theory, IP2 calculated by harmonics, SHI = second harmonic intercept, are higher by ~ 5dB compared to IM, IM used for estimating IP3. I see G0HZU point fairly clearly, but here other amateur radio users demonstrate how they can push the noise floor down further or compensate for it.

Here via signal averaging: or here showing the effect of turning on the preamp, removing the 30dB attenuation and further changing RBW. Yes but the phase noise issue affects narrow spans the most. The solutions you posted up above are on wider spans.

As a rough rule of thumb the phase noise issue gets less significant by 6dB every time you double the distance from the signal. At a 1kHz offset it is highly significant as you can see in my earlier post.

You can see it spoils the noise floor on a 2kHz span. No amount of messing with the attenuation or preamp will fix this on a 2kHz span. The dynamic range in the 2kHz plot is limited by phase noise and not the settings for the preamp or attenuator.

Hope this helps. Thanks GOHZU, again, you've pointed that out very clearly; that's at least one other of this SAs limitations.

But, like the Rigol 1052e is to DSOs, a buyer of this SA has to decide if this is enough for its intended application. I think most of the video youtube posts on the 815 have been by ham radio users, as they've taken to this unit favorably but other applications, detailed EMC testing perhaps?

It won't be as applicable but maybe EMC pretesting? On T&M World recently: I think Rigol is on to something here, as its exploiting a niche that's been filled until now mostly with used eBay SAs that are affordable by the ham community, or by EE looking for gear for more field level testing. You now have a new unit that offers some competition to used units, with several caveats as you've noted. The ARRL has about 150,000 members, and would constitute at least one market segment, not sure how many of them would want a new SA or have never been able to get one until now. By comparison, the US Bureau of Labor estimates there are ~ 300,000 EEs in the USA, so the ham community alone as another market for T&M gear other than EE's is sizeable. Yes but the phase noise issue affects narrow spans the most.