Fred 453 Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Definitely NSFW, @@enl Stop it! You're making me want to buy stuff. Very odd. I seem to be having a lot of trouble replying to this post if I try to quote. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
enl 227 Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Funny thing is most of it has paid for itself one way or another. The welding machine has much, much more than paid for itself, and did so very quickly. The lathe took a while, but if you count payment-in-beer and payment-in-kind it is long paid for in beer I didn't need to buy. Some tools pay in savings, such as repair and replacement of the floors in my house. Factor of ten cheaper to do myself than hire out. Even the drafting and layout space has long since paid itself off (not that it cost much to begin with....) Only tool in the bunch I bought a- new and b- with no plan for quick payoff is the new scope. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jpnorair 340 Posted March 7, 2014 Share Posted March 7, 2014 Daaannnggg, if I were to purchase another piece of electronics anytime soon it would probably be something like that. I assume your trying to tune some antennas? Any plans for it beyond S11 measurements? VNAs are really only good for two things: S11 and S21 (well, and S12, but that seems pedantic). Mostly I use S11 on antennas, but I also use S21 for analog circuit analysis. Another use I've found is as a carrier signal source. When testing antennas, I can go to the spectrum of interest and turn the sweep down really slow, and then capture the transferred energy using a spectrum analyzer on the other side of the room (connected to reference antenna). Always remember to choke the probes! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
username 198 Posted March 8, 2014 Share Posted March 8, 2014 VNAs are really only good for two things: S11 and S21 (well, and S12, but that seems pedantic). Mostly I use S11 on antennas, but I also use S21 for analog circuit analysis. Another use I've found is as a carrier signal source. When testing antennas, I can go to the spectrum of interest and turn the sweep down really slow, and then capture the transferred energy using a spectrum analyzer on the other side of the room (connected to reference antenna). Always remember to choke the probes! Yea, i've used a VNA with a SA to test antennas in a method of relative strength. That is what I do to measure the strength of my tunes and the gains of various antennas. Hopefully i'm going about that the right way. Works well as long as you have a consistent test setup. So how much did that VNA set you back? I can't find any type of decent VNA for under 5k. I'd hate to have to choose between a car and a VNA. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
wasson65 16 Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 Here's a picture of my bench. I spend the week in the travel trailer up in Dallas and commute home to Houston on the weekends. Nothing fancy, just the basics. bluehash 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
enl 227 Posted October 26, 2014 Share Posted October 26, 2014 bump Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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