[time-nuts] DIY VNA design

Bob Albert bob91343 at yahoo.com
Sun Aug 21 02:37:25 EDT 2016


Well that's a start.  Thanks for the link!  I would need more information, as this project goes into areas that are new to me.  And there is no clue as to the cost of construction.
But I'll study what's there and if nothing else, learn something.
Bob
 

    On Saturday, August 20, 2016 10:46 PM, Orin Eman <orin.eman at gmail.com> wrote:
 

 To 60MHz: http://n2pk.com; PCBs available here: http://www.makarov.ca/vna.htm
To 500MHz, lower dynamic range to 1.3GHz: http://sdr-kits.net/VNWA3_Description.html
OK, so the latter isn't build it yourself anymore.
I have version 2.6 of the latter and it works really well to about 575MHz.  Traces can get noisy after about 575MHz.  
Remember these VNAs are only as good as the calibration kit you use with them!
Orin.

On Sat, Aug 20, 2016 at 9:46 PM, Bob Albert via time-nuts <time-nuts at febo.com> wrote:

I was interested in this, but my needs are mostly below 100 MHz.  I wonder what could be done similarly for this lower range...
Bob


    On Saturday, August 20, 2016 8:54 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist <richard at karlquist.com> wrote:


 Another great posting, Attila.

When I was with Agilent, we looked at all kinds of
simplified network analyzer architectures, and I
would have to say the author is really well informed.
One issue he doesn't seem to be aware of is that the
ADL5801, when driven single ended, has some quirks
below 100 MHz that I discovered experimentally.
(The data sheet is silent on this).  IMHO, it
would be worth 7 Euro's to use a balun, however,
I would like to know the part number of this
supposed component.  I am not so sure about MCL
actually covering 30 MHz to 6 GHz in the same
balun.  Sometimes their advertising is confusing,
and when they say .03-6 GHz baluns, they mean
that the range can be covered in several bands
by several model numbers.

Still, quite impressive work by an individual
practitioner.

Rick

On 8/20/2016 7:19 PM, Attila Kinali wrote:
> Moin,
>
> I stumbled over a new open hardware/source VNA design:
> http://hforsten.com/cheap- homemade-30-mhz-6-ghz-vector- network-analyzer.html
>
> Unlike other designs out there, this one is very well done and has very
> little room for improvement, without increasing the price considerably.
>
> About the only things i would do different is to use two receiver
> channels, one fix connected at the TX source to be able to do a
> difference measurement between TX and the RX channels and thus
> improving precision. And the other would be to use a dual ADC
> with an FPGA for the data processing, again in order to increase
> performance.
>
> But as I wrote, both changes would increase complexity and price.
>
> Other than being a well thought through design, the website also
> explains all the big design choices and why this or that has been
> done instead of one of the many alternatives. That alone makes it
> worth reading, IMHO.
>
>             Attila Kinali
>
>
>
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