[time-nuts] HP 53310A modulation domain analyzer

[Grant Hodgson]

Jose

As with most things, it depends.  The 53310A was designed and marketed at the
RF design community where there was a need to be able to display parameters
such as settling time of PLLs and to display frequency-based modulation modes
in the time domain.  To this end, the 53310A is a superb instrument.  It
performs these functions by acting as a time interval counter, but has the
rather interesting feature of a very large display, combined with X and Y markers.

It can be used as a stand-alone TIC - I'm not sure how it performs against
other, more popular TICs, such as the SR620, HP5370, CNT-90 etc. etc.  From
memory the single-shot resolution is about an order of magnitude worse than
the 5370 - that may, or may not, be relevant to you.

The 53310A is not generally regarded as an easy instrument to use, certainly
by RF engineers familiar with 'classic' user interfaces such as on HP spectrum
and network analysers.  However, the 53310A has a very useful Auto Scale
feature, which for repetitive waveforms tends to work very well IMHO - simply
connect the signal to be analysed, and the 53310A works out X and Y scaling
factors and DC offset/trigger levels.  From that point it is easy to apply
markers and zoom functions, and otherwise tweak the parameters that were auto-set.

The one thing that the 53310A won't do as-is, is display ADEV or related
parameters - to do this you would need to download measured data and
post-process using a PC, just as with most other TICs.

I've never had to use histograms, std dev etc., but my use has been primarily
for PLL measurements.

Option 31 is highly desirable and well worth paying a bit extra for.

Nice instrument, bit quirky to use.

regards

Grant



> 
> Does anyone use an HP 53310A modulation domain analyzer (it is like 
> an oscilloscope for frequency - displays frequency in Y and time in 
> X, also does histograms, stdev, etc.)
> 
> What are gotchas, drawbacks and advantages using it as a counter, stability
> measurements instead of a simple counter?  It certainly is a nice 
> tool for rf debug of sweepers, plls, etc.
> 
> Ebay has a nice one, with 2.5GHz option 031 for 750 or best offer.
> 
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