TSP #97 - Rohde & Schwarz 4.0GHz Portable Spectrum Rider FPH Review, Teardown & Experiments
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- Опубліковано 15 жов 2024
- In this episode Shahriar reviews the Rohde & Schwarz 4.0GHz Spectrum Rider FPH. The new design of the FPH series is aimed for ease of use in outdoor situations as well as offering several software features for data collection, analysis and debugging of standard wireless communication protocols. The review is organized as follows:
1:10 - Model comparison of R&S portable spectrum analyzers.
5:44 - Instrument hardware overview and GUI characteristics.
22:24 - Using the FPH Spectrum Rider to analyze unknown wireless signals including a multi-tone, QPSK modulated signal, AM/FM demodulation analysis and frequency hopping.
46:46 - FPH teardown and analysis.
55:33 - Overview of the Instrument View remote connection software.
57:42 - Concluding remarks.
The Signal Path
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Thanks for the detail on the experiments. Good to see the interface and the capabilities captured on video. Besides equipment repairs I think your reviews are excellent. I'll definitely send engineers to your channel to see what instruments look like in operation.
50:39 I just picked up a used spectrum rider. When it arrived, I heard some parts ratting around inside. The ferrite bead for the lcd flat flex broke and pieces of it were in the bottom of the case. Something to watch out for, it may affect more than one unit!
R&S/Hameg make some fantastic gear and I have several pieces of their gear in my lab and enjoy using them every time. I'm drooling over the new remote display/control features they're building into the the newer gear... I can only hope that they'll be offering that as a firmware update to some of the models of their gear that are still current. Was also impressed by the RBT2004 reviewed by mikeselectricstuff recently.
Thank you for the review Shariar, i was about to record a review and my thoughts on the FPH, but you were first so i make my comments about it here :)
I have had the R&S FPH for about 9 months now and i am overall very pleased with the instrument.
As always with all newly released R&S instruments there are usually some bugs and issues to be expected in the first SW/FW-releases so if any R&S instrument is intended (but not very likely with the FPH) to be used in ATE it's potentially a very expensive choice.
One, for me, major problem is the leakage from the LCD, take a close look with a short antenna or a EMC-probe on 240MHz and you will see spurs every 30MHz up into UHF. There is supposedly a fix for this in development right now.
Regarding the FPH, R&S released some new options not listed in the shop, for example the superb implementation of the spectrogram as you mention, the preamp B22 is of course also recommended.
Overall, the FPH is fast booting, responsive, great for fast checks on the bench or in the field,
I have a lot of great results using it when interference hunting.
The option for using NRP-Z series powersensor was limited in frequency, at least in the first firmware.
So if you expect to be able to measure power at 10GHz be sure to check with R&S to be sure that your powersensor is not limited to you instruments maximal frequency (eg. 2, 3 or 4GHz.) as it was in the first FW's.
As for the GPS, you can use pretty much any USB-based GPS as the Globalsat BU-353.
I looked at the spectrogram option, it´s called K15 and costs approximately USD1100.
You need to get some soft furnishings in the new lab - so much echo!
Hey Mike, yeah it is on my list. The intro is recorded with the camera's built-in microphone (lots of echo) the rest I use a headset so it has a lot less echo. If you have a good suggestion for a mic please let me know.
Check out Rode video mics theyre made for all kind of difficult situations.. and as mike said, treating the room a little bit would improve greatly... some diffusors, foam absorbers or even carpets in the right spot will do :)
Acoustically treat the room first, then worry about the mic.
@TheSignalPathBlog even good shotguns are useless in echoic rooms at greater than about 1m. If further than that you will need a long wired lapel mic or a *good* wireless mic. Sennheiser EW 112-P G3 Wireless mic is the minimum I would recommend. Cheap wireless mics suck, but are probably better than echo.
I use the internal camera mic for all behind camera work because I'm only 30-50cm from it.
I *just* get away with the internal shotgun on my Sony camera at about 1m, any further and I use the wireless.
A whole herd of cats would probably accomplish the same thing :-)
OMG it's Shahriar!
Cheers for the vid, great as always.
woot, thanks for the video Shahriar!
At 29:57 i think the small tone is the carrier leakage of the transmitter. This two-tone signal is the result of a double sideband suppressed carrier modulation of a 2.2GHz carrier with a 1MHz tone. Due to imperfections in the symmetry of the modulator circuit (a double balanced mixer), the carrier doesn't cancel itself perfectly at the output of the mixer.
what a wonderful bit of kit, not much use to me but quite useful for some!
But im not sure how useful a capacitive touch screen is when gloves are involved, i know they have conductive tipped gloves but those are not exactly something one should wear when messing with high power transmitters
unless they use high gain capacitive sensing like samsung does in glove mode
Thanks for another great video..
I would like to get a tour of your lab, showing all instruments
I believe he has done that before, but his crazy state of the art equipment has changed quite a bit since.
Hi Shahriar, seeing that you have reviewed a few portable analyzers so far, I would be happy if you also checked Keysight's Fieldfox models as well. We have one in the lab that we use as a VNA, and other than a few quirks I think it is one of the most powerful handheld analyzers.
Hi , i want to ask a question that in FPH spectrum when we use the marker option the marker shifts right and left when we change the frequency.
I want to know that how can we fixed the marker to the middle of the screen for example if we change freq the marker should always be a the middle.
Looks like the marker is snapping to the nearest peak at 20:50 btw.
Yes! I mentioned it later in the video.
Great review, thanks! Interesting to see swiss cheese large RF shielding vias, usually they are filled/smaller diameter. I have a question, as I've noticed you used SMA cable with adapters. Is it so you keep same cable system and just use adapters for your experiments, instead of keeping all different cable sets for N, BNC, SMA, K, etc? Maybe a short episode about keeping RF cabling system in lab sane, without spending lots of money? :)
Crazy cat leaving easter eggs. :-)
I would really like to know what that hdmi? port (49:06) does and if it is for some diagnostics why they chose that connector. It looks like there are not many pins connected.
Yeah, I am also very eager to find out.
Probably just used standard connector for some high-speed test signals, like clock or JTAG/Trace. And HDMI is cheap and usually better impedance/loss controlled than general purpose headers/connectors.
Hi Everyone - in a previous episode, Shahriar used an online schematic capture doodad - can anyone remember what it's called, or, failing that, which episode it was in?
Looks nice. But how well does the LCD perform in daylight?
I would think the display is an AFFS type, because AFFS is very sunlight-readable and has even less off-angle contrast deviation than IPS or PLS.
Hi, What is the "Vendor ID" and "Product ID" to connect with USB cable ?, the automatic search did not find it?
The vendor ID of Rohde and Schwarz is 0x0AAD (AFAIK)
regarding the device id
theres a tool called USBView available from microsoft within the windows SDK docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/usbview
it will list you your whole USB device tree which you could use to find the device id ID
This instrument is from the Swiss local R&S resellers ("mine"). Any reason for this? :)
Where I can download the remote software?
Um... I think you fixed one like this by R & S, but only 3 GHz with preamp... back a couple of years TSP #58, I think.
Question: I have been encountering a random, momentarily disappearing peak on the spectrum analyzer, when trying to measure the frequency of pulsed radar signals using a Agilent 9344C. I am not used to seeing this happen and wonder what could be causing it. I have resorted to adjusting the center frequency using the thumbwheel until the peak is appearing/disappearing at the center of the scale, so frequency = whatever I have set for center frequency. I should not have to do this. Any suggestions? Thanks.
I am no expert; not by a long shot but maybe the signal is bursted and just "doges" the sweep? you probably solved it by now. What was the issue? :D
Very interesting video, thanks!
I have to say, for a device with huge and handy buttons, and such a giant and bright looking screen, a lot of the menus and text look really really small. All the text and labels on the main screen look like they could all be about 2-3 pixels bigger, and all the sub menus look like they have a ton of dead space. Are the font sizes adjustable in the settings?
As far as I can tell the font size cannot be changed.
If you review the RTB2004 then please concentrate on how much you can do with it in terms of characterizing filters
Would be fantastic if you could get your hands on their handheld oscilloscope too, like the RTH1002. Been drooling over that for months ..
TheAmmoniacal I've got the 1054 - not in vain do you drool, friend...
gimme
WB is correct this time ... but auto-focus a little bit jittering on first minutes?
Can you get to review the MaxTester 940/945 Fiber Certifi er OLTS ?
Keep up the good work .
:) Thanks Great review.
great video thanks
did you not fix an r&s once?
Yes I did, an FSH 3GHz model.
and only $7000! perfect for the hobbyist.
next up, a review of a lamborghini gallardo.
ms3bani Since hobbyists don't need such high performance we can use much simpler and cheaper equipment.
i'd much rather see reviews and teardowns of such equipment, rather than stuff well outside the budget of anyone except millionaires and corporations.
it's cheap for R&S equipment ! :D
More seriously, Dave Jones already does it for hobbyists stuff, so there isn't too much need to do it twice I think.
OTOH, Shahriar is the perfect engineer for reviewing high end equipment, and even though you can't afford it, it's interesting to see what the state of the art is, so yeah I'm interested in these reviews especially with teardowns.
Don't think like a peasant or You will be on the Cinese bread and water line instead of the German Octoberfest Buffet
How about telling what things cost?
👍👍
I hope R&S would consider sending you the new RTB2000 series of oscilloscopes which look very schmick.
I was out of drool 11 mins in.
Pooch was here =^.^=
I'm not impressed at all. In fact I expected far more from R&S. 1) Why is it necessary to manually turn on noise markers for example? My Tek MDO3k can simultaneously show dBc and dBc/Hz values for delta markers. 2) Phase noise performance seems to be pretty bad also. Specs says -88 dBc/Hz at 30kHz from a 500Mhz carrier? This doesn't sound too good for me on a modern instrument. Also nobody specifies 500 Mhz carrier for baseline. I would like to see the performance at 10 Khz from a 1 Ghz carrier instead. 3) Also the UI seems to be designed by software engineers to me. I definitely don't want to lose any averaging (or max hold when using a tracking gen) just because I accidentally touched the screen 2 mm off where I should have been.
Also, what's up with the asymmetrical RBW filter skirts?
You are forgetting that this is their low end model. Of course there are modern instruments that can do much better, thats where they have the high end ones.
r&s is outclassed by the competition in this price bracket. and their UI are almost universally terrible. a real shame since the hardware design is quite nice.
You don't like reflective screen ....wait till they send you RTB 2004 Oscilloscope
Maybe don't judge based on country of origin.
Hi , i want to ask a question that in FPH spectrum when we use the marker option the marker shifts right and left when we change the frequency.
I want to know that how can we fixed the marker to the middle of the screen for example if we change freq the marker should always be a the middle.