This video demonstrates some mistakes you can make when doing measurements with the tinySA and, where possible, explains how to prevent them. For more information on the tinySA go to: tinysa.org
It is probably worth mentioning that these problems can occur not only with the tinySA, but with any spectrum analyzer, even the high dollar professional ones. If something doesn't seem right, find out why! Thanks for another great video, Erik!
Thank you Erik for the recent help you gave me (on the Tiny SA Ultra Firmware) and for this fantastic piece of test equipment. To know of some of the common mistakes is very helpful in not making the same mistakes one's self. I blew the front end/attenuator of my first Tiny SA only a few months ago due to using the Tiny SA on a telescopic whip and at the time I didn't know there was a very strong signal source in the building next to us, this resulted in the Tiny SA's internal attenuator being irreparably damaged. (Unfortunately, my hands are no longer steady enough to work on SMA and replace the attenuator chip and I now have a useless Tiny SA). A lesson learned from this was that my new Tiny SA Ultra ALWAYS has a 10 DB sma attenuator attached to the RF input and as long as you tell the Tiny SA that it has an external gain of -10 db, the readings are as Erik demonstrates here and there is a greatly reduced risk of blowing up the Tiny SA's internal solid-state attenuator. Does anyone feel like replacing the attenuator in a Tiny SA? A GBP 10.00 attenuator is much preferred to a dead Tiny SA. Thank you again Erik. Regards, K W.
Thank you for taking the time to explain why these things happen rather than just stating that they do. Harmonics when it comes to any spectrum analyzer can definitely bring a whole new set of headaches into the mix for sure, knowing how to figure out their origins can be quite useful. All around I find the Tiny SA to be one of my most valuable pieces of test equipment for sure. If I had to choose 1, I'd be pretty torn between it and my Oscilloscope. When working on radios the SA gets way more use, hands down. The ground issues you pointed out is another very useful thing to keep in mind with a lot of test equipment, when it comes to electronics bad ground can cause many strange symptoms to emerge. It reminded me of some of the crazy things I've seen happen with a vehicles 12vdc lighting circuits, and in the end a bad ground was the only issue. A good solid ground is very important where electronics are concerned, it's something I find myself repeating a lot when teaching others, and here again is just another example of what can happen when a solid ground connection isn't achieved. Thanks again, time is valuable, so you sharing yours is very much appreciated.
These are really great tips, thank you. The tinySA is capable of a lot more than I initially thought. While it may be a bit more sensitive to these things than a full sized SA, these things can be adjusted for, and the performance this has compared to its cost is amazing. It brings SA use into the hands of people that could not otherwise afford it.
Thank you for the total video, especially the harmonic section. That explains why in my harmonic tests yesterday the harmonics where a good bit higher than expected. Now I can redo the harmonic tests and get about what I was expecting.
I wonder if a future version could use opto isolators for a second USB port (not the charging port, obviously) to allow data transfer without a physical connection? Do ferrite chokes help with the USB noise? Thanks for the great product and videos!
I don't have a Tiny SA (yet) but I do find ferrite cores very effective with other similar instruments that I have. I take a long USB cable, 2m or more and thread it through three cores, one at each end and one in the middle. I put several turns through each core, using up about 1m of the cable length in the turns. I use large ferrite toroids salvaged from switch mode power supplies so that I can get several turns of cable into it. I tried the split cores that are purposely made for suppression but I found them not to be very effective. They do help a little but nothing like the large toroids with multiple turns.
The problem is the pulsed power supplies, especially the PC PSU. The data flow is also an issue but small compared to pulsed PSUs. When you connect your cable , you only need to make the grounds in contact to see the big noise bump. Place your cable near the PC and run some CPU demanding application like a game on full details etc. You will see even higher 'bump' on the spectrum.
Great video thank you. I discovered those problems quite quickly, but it's very helpful to those that didn't. It's amazing little instrument for the money. Looking at getting the ultra now
Valuable video. Thank You. This simple inexpensive device could be very usefull if used properly. Is it new Tiny SA 0.1 - 950MHz or an old one 0-350MHz?
Thanks for informative clip. I also noticed the same problem of USB connection to computer. To solve the problem, I am designing isolated ground and power supply on a board that goes in between tinySA and the computer. To isolate the data lines of the USB, I am using two opt-couplers ( one on each direction) , which only passes digital signals. The side that interfaces with TinySA uses a battery and the side that goes to computer uses the computer power. I was thinking to use fiber to isolate them, but I do not think that is necessary. I will let you guys know , how it turns out.
@@digitalchaos1980 I noticed that they have USB-C to fiber and vice versa module already available in the ebay. So one can attach one to TinySa and another to computer and connect them with fiber, to see if this would resolve the issue.
Your idea will work for the Data lines of the USB connection, but, I think you are still, likely, to end up with noticeably increased levels of ‘background floor noise’ on the TinySA with such a design, with the noise still, coming into it through, the DC side of the USB connection, because even if you make the intermediate PSU with a completely isolated, ‘floating Ground’ unless, the output DC of the intermediate PSU is, itself, completely, noise free, ..and, the intermediate PSU, itself, is completely enclosed in a Faraday Cage, ..and, the entire length of the DC ‘feeders’ are entirely balanced, and, RF shielded, then ‘the entire DC side’ will still, simply act as another, Antenna, and will still, pick up any spurious ’noise’ in the vicinity, and inject it into the TinySA via its DC power port.
@@wa7215 No DC connection if you use fiber or opto-couplers. Dc supplies are isolated. There is a software fix too. that is measure first and save the data then stop the measurement and transmit the data, then stop the transmission and measure and save and repeat again.
Very useful short video, thanks a lot. I’d like to think I would have worked out the first two issues, but the third would likely have been a gotcha :)
The HW design is not public but you can follow the input signal and see if it arrives at the mixer. This will give you a first clue of what is broken. Join the tinySa support groups.io for more support
Mr. Erik, I'm trying to figure out what I can do with Tinysa. Although Tinysa can detect in a certain frequency range, I want to ask, what can I do to detect at low frequency values? I really need this. For example, I want to see frequencies between 10hz and 30hz on the screen. What can I do for it? there is no possibility to download a suitable software?
Hi Eric, I am a bit of a novice , I thought I woukd test a 100mhz AM at -100dBm out of my Marconi 2019A to my Tiny SA , the 100mhz spike on my TinySA is kind of bouncing around 3dB from -100dB on the TinySA vertical scale? am I doing something wrong ? or is this just the loss in the 1ft patch lead I am using? Much appreciated. PeaceFromOz 🇦🇺.
what setting did you use, for those markers to suddenly pop up, and populate new signals from 8:46 with only 1 marker active to 8:51 and 3 markers active.. none of the settings seems to give that standby aspect as I can see you only have tracking active on marker1? how did marker 2 and 3 suddenly got activated? is it a threshold?
Hello, in the "attenuate" part you explained towards the end of the video, the signal strength for 60Mhz is seen as -56dbm. Can we set a level in this section with the manual Attenuate setting? For example, if we do not want to see signals weaker than -40dbm on the screen, do we need to adjust it from this section?
You can always set the attenuation to the optimum between sensitivity, seeing small signals, and avoiding internal distortion by increased attenuation. Hiding weak signals can be an extra benefit
Led lights ! I have seen noise up to 200mhz from led lights. The spectrum is full of crud. Try antenna outside on the roof or better still switch off the mains to test for noise.
Is there any way of using the TinySa app to capture data, wtihout introducing noise through the usb-c? Ive tried ferrites, Opto-Isoltors and Lowpassfilters...But it seems nothing realy cleans up the signal well. Its so sad, because its a neat little device, but when youre not able to pick up stuff and record the data at the same time its fairly useless... Thanks in regards!
What is the source you are capturing from? Is it a small antenna of a well through a good quality shielded coax to a source isolated from ground to avoid ground loop through USB?
@@ErikKaashoek Im using the supplied antenna. Capturing EMI of other USB-Cables. Should I use another antenna? Another idea of mine would be to use a AOC (active otpical cable) USB-C cable to connect to the pc, so it cant act as an antenna. But im not sure if this will work. What type of USB is used in the tinySa? 3.0? Thanks for your reply!!
@@youri2361 As the supplied antenna is a monopole antenna (like any end fed antenna), the USB cable becomes part of the antenna. This causes ALL noise from the USB cable to end up in the tinySA input. For best EMI capturing you should use a loop or dipole antenna. Preferably with an extra amplifier The tinySA uses max 12MHz USB
just a question, I know this is an older video but since i just ordered a tiny sa, would a ferrite bead on the usb cable do anything or little to calm the noise?
I have a genuine Tiny SA supplied from a NL vendor. I'm using it as a low level signal generator at 1MHz. I find that the indicated attenuation accuracy is good down to approx. -30dBm but errors creep in at greater attenuation levels eg at --45dBm indicated on the TinySA the actual attenuation is approx -50 dBm. Is this normal? Thanks, Mike
@@ErikKaashoek Thanks Erik. I connected the Low and High together and went to Config, Level Cal, Calibrate and the Tiny SA responded with Calibrate complete. Unfortunately it still reads incorrectly below -30dBm. e.g for an input of -45dBm the Tiny SA reads -40dBm. The 5dBm error is constant down to -60dBm. My other test equipment cannot measure below -60dBm. My test frequency is 1MHz. Can I do anything to correct the error or do you think I have a faulty unit? Thanks, Mike
@@mfwwhelan7561 please check this page tinysa.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.USBInterface. and in particular the leveloffset command. First correct the low output level around -10dBm using the "leveloffset low output" command and then correct the level around -50dBm using the 'leveloffset switch output" command
I will make a video in the coming days. Click on "TRACE 1" to select one of the traces and the other menu items in the TRACE menu to set the options for the selected trace
@@ErikKaashoek Thank you! It would be best if there were English subtitles, as youtube automatically translates incorrectly (Dutch->English), making it impossible to understand what you are saying.
@@jinjinchen4177 You tube generated dutch subtitles from my English commentary so those subtitles were completely wrong. The video language was set correctly to English but maybe my accent confused google speech to text?
A usb opto isolator should solve the first problem. To some extent Looping the 'C' end of the usb cable couple of times through a ferrite toroid can also help.
![[UA] NAVI vs MOUZ | BO5 | IEM Rio 2024](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CMBYk0cbGoA/mqdefault.jpg)
It is probably worth mentioning that these problems can occur not only with the tinySA, but with any spectrum analyzer, even the high dollar professional ones. If something doesn't seem right, find out why! Thanks for another great video, Erik!
Thank you Erik for the recent help you gave me (on the Tiny SA Ultra Firmware) and for this fantastic piece of test equipment.
To know of some of the common mistakes is very helpful in not making the same mistakes one's self.
I blew the front end/attenuator of my first Tiny SA only a few months ago due to using the Tiny SA on a telescopic whip and at the time I didn't know there was a very strong signal source in the building next to us, this resulted in the Tiny SA's internal attenuator being irreparably damaged. (Unfortunately, my hands are no longer steady enough to work on SMA and replace the attenuator chip and I now have a useless Tiny SA).
A lesson learned from this was that my new Tiny SA Ultra ALWAYS has a 10 DB sma attenuator attached to the RF input and as long as you tell the Tiny SA that it has an external gain of -10 db, the readings are as Erik demonstrates here and there is a greatly reduced risk of blowing up the Tiny SA's internal solid-state attenuator.
Does anyone feel like replacing the attenuator in a Tiny SA?
A GBP 10.00 attenuator is much preferred to a dead Tiny SA.
Thank you again Erik.
Regards,
K W.
Thank you for taking the time to explain why these things happen rather than just stating that they do. Harmonics when it comes to any spectrum analyzer can definitely bring a whole new set of headaches into the mix for sure, knowing how to figure out their origins can be quite useful. All around I find the Tiny SA to be one of my most valuable pieces of test equipment for sure. If I had to choose 1, I'd be pretty torn between it and my Oscilloscope. When working on radios the SA gets way more use, hands down. The ground issues you pointed out is another very useful thing to keep in mind with a lot of test equipment, when it comes to electronics bad ground can cause many strange symptoms to emerge. It reminded me of some of the crazy things I've seen happen with a vehicles 12vdc lighting circuits, and in the end a bad ground was the only issue. A good solid ground is very important where electronics are concerned, it's something I find myself repeating a lot when teaching others, and here again is just another example of what can happen when a solid ground connection isn't achieved. Thanks again, time is valuable, so you sharing yours is very much appreciated.
These are really great tips, thank you. The tinySA is capable of a lot more than I initially thought. While it may be a bit more sensitive to these things than a full sized SA, these things can be adjusted for, and the performance this has compared to its cost is amazing. It brings SA use into the hands of people that could not otherwise afford it.
Thank you for the total video, especially the harmonic section. That explains why in my harmonic tests yesterday the harmonics where a good bit higher than expected. Now I can redo the harmonic tests and get about what I was expecting.
Have you tried clamp on ferrite chokes on the USB cable?
Yes, it made at most a couple of dB difference
I wonder if a future version could use opto isolators for a second USB port (not the charging port, obviously) to allow data transfer without a physical connection? Do ferrite chokes help with the USB noise? Thanks for the great product and videos!
I don't have a Tiny SA (yet) but I do find ferrite cores very effective with other similar instruments that I have. I take a long USB cable, 2m or more and thread it through three cores, one at each end and one in the middle. I put several turns through each core, using up about 1m of the cable length in the turns. I use large ferrite toroids salvaged from switch mode power supplies so that I can get several turns of cable into it.
I tried the split cores that are purposely made for suppression but I found them not to be very effective. They do help a little but nothing like the large toroids with multiple turns.
The problem is the pulsed power supplies, especially the PC PSU. The data flow is also an issue but small compared to pulsed PSUs. When you connect your cable , you only need to make the grounds in contact to see the big noise bump. Place your cable near the PC and run some CPU demanding application like a game on full details etc. You will see even higher 'bump' on the spectrum.
You are very smart and this presentation shows it. Thanks for sharing, Erik.
Thanks for your videos Erik. Lots of mistakes I've been making explained. You are a real asset to the art of electronics! :)
Erik - Great tips- Thank you so much for this amazing and affordable device. It’s so versatile!
Eric
Thanks for share that valuable knowlegdment.
Great video thank you. I discovered those problems quite quickly, but it's very helpful to those that didn't. It's amazing little instrument for the money. Looking at getting the ultra now
Good job ! 20MHz = 15m wave length. Lambda/4=3.75m so telescopic antenna is short for perfect receive of 20MHz signal, but it's good enough.
Absolutely fantastic video, thanks Erik!
The 3rd mistake was awesome thanks for that.
Valuable video. Thank You. This simple inexpensive device could be very usefull if used properly. Is it new Tiny SA 0.1 - 950MHz or an old one 0-350MHz?
All tinySA have same frequency range
This Video ist very helpful to understand, how a SA works and its impact for the measured results. Thank You,
Great video Erik. 👌
Id like to say Thank you. Ive never seen so small thing so huge. Awsome. Greate product.
Hi. I bought this product but the antenna is missing. Only two cables. What should I do?
Contact the seller
I am learning! Thanks!
Very good Erik. Thanks you
Thanks for informative clip. I also noticed the same problem of USB connection to computer. To solve the problem, I am designing isolated ground and power supply on a board that goes in between tinySA and the computer. To isolate the data lines of the USB, I am using two opt-couplers ( one on each direction) , which only passes digital signals. The side that interfaces with TinySA uses a battery and the side that goes to computer uses the computer power. I was thinking to use fiber to isolate them, but I do not think that is necessary. I will let you guys know , how it turns out.
Very interesting project! I don't see why it wouldn't work honestly. 😎
@@digitalchaos1980 I noticed that they have USB-C to fiber and vice versa module already available in the ebay. So one can attach one to TinySa and another to computer and connect them with fiber, to see if this would resolve the issue.
Your idea will work for the Data lines of the USB connection, but, I think you are still, likely, to end up with noticeably increased levels of ‘background floor noise’ on the TinySA with such a design, with the noise still, coming into it through, the DC side of the USB connection, because even if you make the intermediate PSU with a completely isolated, ‘floating Ground’ unless, the output DC of the intermediate PSU is, itself, completely, noise free, ..and, the intermediate PSU, itself, is completely enclosed in a Faraday Cage, ..and, the entire length of the DC ‘feeders’ are entirely balanced, and, RF shielded, then ‘the entire DC side’ will still, simply act as another, Antenna, and will still, pick up any spurious ’noise’ in the vicinity, and inject it into the TinySA via its DC power port.
@@wa7215 No DC connection if you use fiber or opto-couplers. Dc supplies are isolated.
There is a software fix too. that is measure first and save the data then stop the measurement and transmit the data, then stop the transmission and measure and save and repeat again.
Only clean power supply for sensitive, fine measurement is battery... even today we do not heave super clean supply thought ac network...
He should also test it with a powerbank USB connection. Probably the noise comes from his usb power supply.
Being the design engineer of the tinysa, I appreciate this. I have watched several youtube videos where the bozo had his plugged in while testing.
Great presentation. Where do you git one of these devices?
See tinysa.org
Much appreciated, thanks !
Very useful short video, thanks a lot. I’d like to think I would have worked out the first two issues, but the third would likely have been a gotcha :)
My unit has a dead Low input and fails self test 3. How can I troubleshoot this, is there a schematic available?
The HW design is not public but you can follow the input signal and see if it arrives at the mixer. This will give you a first clue of what is broken. Join the tinySa support groups.io for more support
@@ErikKaashoek OK thanks.
Mr. Erik, I'm trying to figure out what I can do with Tinysa. Although Tinysa can detect in a certain frequency range, I want to ask, what can I do to detect at low frequency values? I really need this. For example, I want to see frequencies between 10hz and 30hz on the screen. What can I do for it? there is no possibility to download a suitable software?
You better use the audio input from a PC and audio analysis software on a PC to do that
The TinySA is not the tool for such low frequencies.
terimakasih informasi nya erik
GOLD! This is all "gold" Thank you for these videos. Cheers from So.Ca.USA 3rd house on the left (please call before stopping by:)
Hi Eric, I am a bit of a novice , I thought I woukd test a 100mhz AM at -100dBm out of my Marconi 2019A to my Tiny SA , the 100mhz spike on my TinySA is kind of bouncing around 3dB from -100dB on the TinySA vertical scale? am I doing something wrong ? or is this just the loss in the 1ft patch lead I am using?
Much appreciated.
PeaceFromOz 🇦🇺.
AM modulation makes it jump up and down
@ErikKaashoek thank you very much Erik.
Thanks for sharing.
Due to fact that there are many imitations of these devices, can you suggest a site where we can surely purchase an original one?
tinysa.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.Buying
what setting did you use, for those markers to suddenly pop up, and populate new signals from 8:46 with only 1 marker active to 8:51 and 3 markers active.. none of the settings seems to give that standby aspect as I can see you only have tracking active on marker1? how did marker 2 and 3 suddenly got activated?
is it a threshold?
I used MEAESURE/HARMONICS
Hello, in the "attenuate" part you explained towards the end of the video, the signal strength for 60Mhz is seen as -56dbm. Can we set a level in this section with the manual Attenuate setting? For example, if we do not want to see signals weaker than -40dbm on the screen, do we need to adjust it from this section?
You can always set the attenuation to the optimum between sensitivity, seeing small signals, and avoiding internal distortion by increased attenuation. Hiding weak signals can be an extra benefit
@@ErikKaashoek Thanks for answere. That is, we can eliminate weak signals from the "attenuate manual" tuning section. Is it correct?
Led lights ! I have seen noise up to 200mhz from led lights. The spectrum is full of crud. Try antenna outside on the roof or better still switch off the mains to test for noise.
Is there any way of using the TinySa app to capture data, wtihout introducing noise through the usb-c?
Ive tried ferrites, Opto-Isoltors and Lowpassfilters...But it seems nothing realy cleans up the signal well.
Its so sad, because its a neat little device, but when youre not able to pick up stuff and record the data at the same time its fairly useless...
Thanks in regards!
What is the source you are capturing from? Is it a small antenna of a well through a good quality shielded coax to a source isolated from ground to avoid ground loop through USB?
@@ErikKaashoek Im using the supplied antenna. Capturing EMI of other USB-Cables. Should I use another antenna? Another idea of mine would be to use a AOC (active otpical cable) USB-C cable to connect to the pc, so it cant act as an antenna. But im not sure if this will work.
What type of USB is used in the tinySa? 3.0?
Thanks for your reply!!
@@youri2361 As the supplied antenna is a monopole antenna (like any end fed antenna), the USB cable becomes part of the antenna. This causes ALL noise from the USB cable to end up in the tinySA input. For best EMI capturing you should use a loop or dipole antenna. Preferably with an extra amplifier
The tinySA uses max 12MHz USB
@@ErikKaashoek thank you very much! I will look into it ;)
just a question, I know this is an older video but since i just ordered a tiny sa, would a ferrite bead on the usb cable do anything or little to calm the noise?
Don't know. Maybe you can try?
@@ErikKaashoek I will try it and if there is any difference I shall let you know~
Would a ferrite core around the USB cable help?
If the right ferrite it could reduce the noise yes
So it means you can not do measuring and view live graphs in the PC while USB i plugged in?
Yes you can. It depends on the antenna used and the USB cable
@@ErikKaashoek Tnaks for reply. Btw your channel is outstanding!
Are you using a USB-C cable with ferrite bead?
No
I have a genuine Tiny SA supplied from a NL vendor. I'm using it as a low level signal generator at 1MHz. I find that the indicated attenuation accuracy is good down to approx. -30dBm but errors creep in at greater attenuation levels eg at --45dBm indicated on the TinySA the actual attenuation is approx -50 dBm. Is this normal?
Thanks,
Mike
There is a config setting to correct the low level non linearity
@@ErikKaashoek Thanks Erik. I connected the Low and High together and went to Config, Level Cal, Calibrate and the Tiny SA responded with Calibrate complete. Unfortunately it still reads incorrectly below -30dBm. e.g for an input of -45dBm the Tiny SA reads -40dBm. The 5dBm error is constant down to -60dBm. My other test equipment cannot measure below -60dBm. My test frequency is 1MHz.
Can I do anything to correct the error or do you think I have a faulty unit?
Thanks,
Mike
@@mfwwhelan7561 please check this page tinysa.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.USBInterface. and in particular the leveloffset command.
First correct the low output level around -10dBm using the "leveloffset low output" command and then correct the level around -50dBm using the 'leveloffset switch output" command
Thank you
What difference between tinasa and tinysa ultra?
tinysa.org/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=TinySA4.Comparison
hello, after changing the settings in the menus, when I close tinysa and open it again, these settings are reset. How can I save my settings?
Using PRESET/STORE/STORE x you can save all settings and with PRESET/xxxxx you can recall them
@@ErikKaashoek thanks Erik
Many thanks ! 73 !
How do I use the new Menu feature TRACE? Can you give a tutorial?
I will make a video in the coming days. Click on "TRACE 1" to select one of the traces and the other menu items in the TRACE menu to set the options for the selected trace
@@ErikKaashoek Thank you! It would be best if there were English subtitles, as youtube automatically translates incorrectly (Dutch->English), making it impossible to understand what you are saying.
@@jinjinchen4177 You tube generated dutch subtitles from my English commentary so those subtitles were completely wrong. The video language was set correctly to English but maybe my accent confused google speech to text?
So using the PC software to comunicate with the SA is useless.
No, no just should be aware of the interaction between the monopole antenna and the USB cable. When using a loop antenna this problem would not occur
The tiny Sa shown is a counterfit unit. The real product has different markings.
Its one of the early production models. Markings changed a bit over time
You don't even know who's video you're watching! 🤪
A usb opto isolator should solve the first problem. To some extent Looping the 'C' end of the usb cable couple of times through a ferrite toroid can also help.
Please activate your video translator. At least it really helps us
How to tell it I'm speaking English?
@@ErikKaashoek I don't know how. but I've watched that youtube... ' there is a translation option..
@@MahiraAudio23 What ‘language’ do you want Erik’s spoken English, to be translated into…?? 🧐
Design flaws
🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹👍
Is it possible to create English subtitles? The UA-cam auto-translation is wrong and unreadable.
Thanks for sharing.