looking for a spectrum analyzer/meter

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jowski

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Dec 1, 2009
46
0
the can
I'm looking for a spectrum analyzer that is under $800, can be purchased without paying the EU 17% VAT, provides info on QPSK & 8PSK signals that are DVB-S or DVB-S2, and a tv picture of the signal would also be nice. The Satlink WS-6912 looks promising but finding one in North America isn't happening. Does anyone have a suggestion or seven?
smile.gif
I'm not locked into a Satlink so any other boxes that can do the job are worth considering.

Thanks,
Jim
jowski_at_lavabit_dot_com
 
Ordered a 6912 last week for testing. Looks like a promising meter. Nothing else available in the price range with 8PSK and S2
 
Satlook

How about the SATLOOK MICRO HD 8PSK DVB-S 1+2 SPECTRUM at €599 (about $814)including vat @19%(went up in Germany and will be 20% in UK from Jan1st) If you speak to supplier they will ship vat free to USA but you may get charged your State tax. I have used one of these the past 6 months here in the US and previously the QPSK model and they are easy to programm for the US and the anufacturer (www.emitor.se )gives excellent support.

There are some good You tube demos on the unit certainly worth googling.

Brian may be able this confirm this but I believe for some reason Spec Analylizers are not so popular in the US as general sat meters and therefore not stocked. Personally I also have a birddog USB but whilst it is easy to program and use it does give errors and the SA in it is a joke.
 
How about the SATLOOK MICRO HD 8PSK DVB-S 1+2 SPECTRUM at €599 (about $814)including vat @19%(went up in Germany and will be 20% in UK from Jan1st) If you speak to supplier they will ship vat free to USA but you may get charged your State tax. I have used one of these the past 6 months here in the US and previously the QPSK model and they are easy to programm for the US and the anufacturer (www.emitor.se )gives excellent support.

There are some good You tube demos on the unit certainly worth googling.



Brian may be able this confirm this but I believe for some reason Spec Analylizers are not so popular in the US as general sat meters and therefore not stocked. Personally I also have a birddog USB but whilst it is easy to program and use it does give errors and the SA in it is a joke.

I talked to Brian this afternoon and got some great suggestions. Your Satlook, from what I've read so far, really stands out. I'm going to do some more research next week and hopefully have an idea of what I really want.

How's things in K'zoo? I miss Michigan, having grown up there, and did my student teaching in Battle Creek which is right down the road.


Jim
 
Most installers are not technicians. They are trained in a short time to produce a repetitive and predictable outcome on specific equipment without in-depth knowledge of satellite technology. Their trainers concentrate on the requirements to prevent chargebacks, reduced cost per job and least man-hours to complete the job. The training focuses on the specifics of the system and not on the fundamental principals of satellite technology. Many company installers are totally lost if they are not installing satellite equipment for a specific high power satellite DTH provider. The need for precise dish aiming for these high power satellites has not been very critical. They know what button to push to see the required signal reading, but usually don't know the how's or why's.

If your teacher doesn't use a tool to perform the job, how will you know how to use the tool? Most installers are not even aware what a Spectrum Analyzer is, let alone how to use it and understand how it could simplify the install procedure! If the company doesn't provide an advanced function meter, the current pay scale doesn't encourage an installer to purchase an expensive tool that will improve their productivity.

Most of us who have spent any time with a Spectrum Analyzer know the value of being able to recognize the unique look of each satellite on the display and optimizing skew by watching the carriers rise and fall. We pan the dish and recognize the satellite fingerprint knowing exactly where the dish is on the arc. Instantly identify potential interference from adjacent satellites or terrestrial. We don't need to see a digital display indicating the satellite name or "LOCK". No guessing if we are aimed at a correct satellite, incorrect skew or if the LNBF is functioning or even drifted LO frequency. Satellite ID meters don't provide useable results unless the LNBF LO is correct and skew is approx set.

Climbing off the soapbox...... LOL!!!

Now that Spectrum Analyzers are smaller, built into multi-function satellite ID meters, less expensive and there is an increased requirement for precise dish alignment for KA and S2 FECs, maybe there will be an increased awareness of this great tool! Hopefully this will provide a demand for a higher end product that North American vendors can stock with the knowledge that the product will sell.

Offered Jim to play with the meter when it arrives. Would be great to get feedback from a knowledgeable technician!
 
Thanks for the compliment but I'm really not a knowledgeable technician. I'm more of a frustrated techno-math guy in the body of a systems engineer.

<soapbox>
You're exactly right in how technical training can be geared towards repeatable success. When I ran my flightline avionics repair operation I had tech minded people with a little specialized training (six months) doing troubleshooting and box replacement. The replaced box was brought into the shop for repair by more knowledgeable and experienced techs with maybe three to ten years of experience. It was two different worlds that somehow worked together and got things done.
</soapbox>

I'm looking forward to spending some time with the meter and finding out more about my system and where it stands. Eventually I hope to be able to look for, find, and lock some difficult signals (DVB-S2 comes to mind immediately) because I've tweaked my dishes better than I could with the tools I have now.

(and yes, I'll provide feedback. If I can get my hands on a Satlook, I'll try to compare it to the Satlink and report back.)

Jim
 
Most installers are not technicians. soapbox...... LOL!!!

Nice one Brian , I totally agree.
.. Remember when SAs were around the 25lb mark, heck my Satlook NIT mkIV 8 years ago was about 8lbs and considered portable
having a strap to go around your neck. regards

Jowski > K,zoo is great especially in fall, but I return to Cyprus thursday for winter, don't do cold, regards
 
At the risk of seeming a heretic, I thought I'd weigh in with a different perspective. I started peaking dishes around 1980 as a broadcast engineer, but nowadays I mostly just play with them as a hobby. I've experimented with rolling my bench SA out to a dish, remoting it via a laptop, using a STB receiver with a portable screen, making mechanical measurements with everything from a sighting compass to a theodolite, using a PC tuner to make engineering measurements with custom software/drivers and using simple meters, one that ostensibly measures the CNR of a specified signal (First Strike) and one that is simply stupid (Accutrac). I have seven motorized, five fixed and three toroid dishes with 56 LNB outputs, so I have plenty of opportunities to tweak.

To get this out of the way, I will say that if I was an installer I would seriously consider getting a sophisticated portable unit with a SA. Not that it would always be the best tool for the job, but given one cannot haul a lab's worth of equipment on the road, it is a practical compromise that packs a lot of troubleshooting power into a small case.

I've drooled over quite a number of brochures for portable satellite test equipment, but I've pretty much come to the conclusion that one doesn't need much for FTA alignment. Unless one is constantly changing a fixed dish amongst different positions, we normally set up a dish once. We may change LNBs and feeds or realign the dishes because of wind/other factors, but these tend to be much smaller tweaks on a largely existing setup. During the process of putting up my 15 dishes, I've been curious about what is the most efficient approach of doing this, both in terms of time and monetary outlay.

A few weeks ago I helped a friend install a 1.2m offset and a 2.3m prime-focus, both motorized from about 45W to 139W. I decided to take a minimalist approach. We exclusively used an Accutrac meter, except for one case where I verified the ID of a satellite at an extreme end of the arc using my First Strike. The latter wasn't necessary, but I wanted to check the range the actuator was covering. The initial alignments were done quickly and the only issue was making extremely fine adjustments from a mechanical perspective. After it was over I attempted to estimate the alignment accuracy over the arc from beamwidths and what the Accutrac read. Both estimates were better than 0.1 dB of pointing accuracy, but there was no direct way of checking. Regardless, my friend has since tried a variety of high FEC, high SR S2 feeds and easily got everything on C and Ku.

Yesterday I decided to realign my 3.0m, as it had been slightly nudged by a high wind storm. I took out only the Accutrac and misadjusted the dish alignment so I would have to start from scratch. In short order I had it tracking everything from about 37.5W to 139W and subsequently duplicated the measurements/estimates I had done at my friend's. They were all in the same neighborhood, better than 0.1 dB. I then checked these with my SA and using the custom PC software/tuner driver I wrote. It's not that easy to accurately make such measurements, but with a lot of integration I established that I was within 0.03 dB of the peak at the extremes and center of the arc. I doubt I could do better if I tried. It was actually much easier and quicker to do this with a simple meter than if I had used the SA, and the same would be true with the PC software/driver. The one caveat is I did not adjust skew. Past experience is the First Strike meter is capable of doing this, as is the PC tuner, SA and STB. My conclusion was that the quality of the adjustment is more dependent on technique and mechanical accuracy than on the cost of the measurement tools.

I do use my bench SA a lot for feed-hunting and to measure/troubleshoot overall and component performance. The crude spectrum analyzers in portable meters would be very poor substitutes for these functions. I've sunk less into a used, top-notch bench SA than I would have with a new, high-end portable tool. If money was no object, it would be nice to have both, but on a budget I'd rather spend the money on the bench unit with the savings from less expensive meters.
 
Pendragon > You are not a heretic and I understand your prospective as I started in the late sixties (thanks for making me feel old LOL). I wish I had some of the bench SAs I've used in the past but they still maintain a high price particularly HP agilent and Tektronic
 
Brian,

I have a satlook super installer meter on the way. I'll let you know how it's working when I get a chance. It's supposed to have some new bells and whistles that should help with IP over DVB but I have to see it to believe it.

Jim
 
[/QUOTE=pendragon;2364746]At the risk of seeming a heretic, I thought I'd weigh in with a different perspective. I started peaking dishes around 1980 as a broadcast engineer, but nowadays I mostly just play with them as a hobby. I've experimented with rolling my bench SA out to a dish, remoting it via a laptop, using a STB receiver with a portable screen, making mechanical measurements with everything from a sighting compass to a theodolite, using a PC tuner to make engineering measurements with custom software/drivers and using simple meters, one that ostensibly measures the CNR of a specified signal (First Strike) and one that is simply stupid (Accutrac). I have seven motorized, five fixed and three toroid dishes with 56 LNB outputs, so I have plenty of opportunities to tweak………


My conclusion was that the quality of the adjustment is more dependent on technique and mechanical accuracy than on the cost of the measurement tools.[/QUOTE]

pendragon: Reading this post and a lot of your other post, I would attribute your years of experience in dish alignment as the prime factor for the quality of the dish adjustment and alignment then the meters themselves.
mikelib
 
jowski said:
Brian,

I have a satlook super installer meter on the way. I'll let you know how it's working when I get a chance. It's supposed to have some new bells and whistles that should help with IP over DVB but I have to see it to believe it.

Jim

Great! Drop by some time as I have the SatLink 8612. It will be interesting to look at some signals with both meters for comparison to two company's approaches.
 
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