NanoVNA Calibration: Expert Tips and Tricks
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 มิ.ย. 2024
- In this comprehensive step-by-step tutorial, we will delve into the intricacies of NanoVNA calibration. If you're wondering how to master the art of calibrating your NanoVNA device, you've landed in the right place! We will guide you through each calibration process in a clear and concise manner, ensuring a thorough understanding of this vital aspect. By the end of this tutorial, you'll be equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to perform accurate and reliable calibrations on your NanoVNA. Stay tuned for insightful tips, common pitfalls to avoid, and hands-on demonstrations. Get ready to take your NanoVNA calibration skills to the next level!
Note: Banggood.com sent me this NanoVNA in exchange for this video review.
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#nanovna #calibration #tutorial #stepbystep #masteringnanovna #electricalengineering #RFtesting #antennameasurements #vna #networkanalyzer #impedancemeasurement #reflectionmeasurement #sparameters #smithchart #frequencydomain #characterization #impedancecalibration #measurements #electromagnetics #radiofrequency
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I watched this video several time and wrote my own list of steps for swr calibration. At my age (66 y/o), I tend to forget things I do not do often.
Hey Gary, I tend to keep note because I forget too. THanks for watching 👍
Excellent Ape. I really struggled initially finding videos on NanoVNA basics. This is one folks should bookmark!
Thanks Colin, glad you liked it 👍
All calibrated and ready to rock. Thank you!
Awesome, good luck with it...
Your NanoVNA and TinySA videos are great. I always learn something from them. I knew about calibration and regularly save out some SWR sweeps in the memory. But I didn't know I could add more data points. That'll be nice, especially for the longer sweeps across multiple bands. Thanks!
Thanks Mike, I am glad to hear the videos are helpful 👍
Great Job Ape I need to get mine out and do this
Chip chop son!
I got one of these from R&L at Dayton. Just took it out of the box a week ago. I need more videos like this from you. Well presented and easy to follow. Thank You Ape.
Hey DXP, check out my NanoVNA Playlist: th-cam.com/play/PLm8ROkpFeqornjIRLKS0RJqSrUl_lr5lv.html
@@TheSmokinApe Hey brother, K5MGW here. This playlist is straight FIRE for NanoNVA users ! Gonna put this list on blast on my Ham Radio Groups on Facebook ! You & this list ROCK ! 73 !
Really appreciate videos like this Ape, they will be a reference for many amateurs for years to come.
Thanks for checking it out Bob!
very clear cut and concise. Thank you!
Glad you liked it Jeffrey 👍
Great stuff, thanks! Have you considered putting all of the NanoVNA videos into a Play List?
Here you go: th-cam.com/play/PLm8ROkpFeqornjIRLKS0RJqSrUl_lr5lv.html
OUTSTANDING VIDEO!! i learned stuff about those i did not know! thanks!73!!
Howdy Bigboy, glad you liked it broter!
The save calibration saves a ton of work and wear on the connectors too.
Another great tip from the Ape Laboratories of RF Engineering and TH-cam Consultancy Group Enterprise!😂👍
Yeah, the save is great. Thanks for watching Don!
Excellent video. Some firmwares auto recall from slot 0 on power on, so set your most used profile up there. The slots save the trace configs and marker position as well, so I set it to the middle of 40m, my most used band.
You can "edit" a slot by recalling it, changing your trace configs, and saving to the slot again. You only need to re-calibrate when changing your start/stop frequencies :)
You are correct, thanks for the info 👍
Learned a lot from this…thanks!
Awesome, thanks for watching 👍
Good video, thank you.👍
Thanks, glad you liked it!
Can't make it any easier than that! Great show!
You damn right! Thanks for watching bro 👀
Crikey!,
That was so well explained that even I could understand it.
Thanks for a great video.
Haha, glad to hear you liked it Mike!
great, thanks! pls more vna vids
I’m sure more are coming, thanks for watching 👍
ok, got'er sorted. thanks for a great video howto!
Glad it helped 👍
Great video Ape! Simple and easy to understand. A lot easier explanation than the one I got when I first learned to use the HP VNA's. Thanks for these! 73
Thanks man, glad you liked it 👍
👍Thank you sir.
Thanks for watching 👍
I thought I needed to change the scale but couldn't find anybody talking about it Thanks!
Glad it was helpful 👍
The Nano King!
Thanks for checking it out FEP 👍
Last week I observed another potential pitfall to be aware of if you use the USB cable to connect to your computer. I wanted to compare a Quansheng stock antenna to a tuned aftermarket antenna. I put the stock antenna on, and loaded my calibration file. The resulting plot surprised me in that the antenna seemed worse than I anticipated. So on goes my tuned antenna, and it also exhibited SWR values that I knew had to be incorrect. So I re-calibrated, and it did not change. So then I changed the USB cable, and everything changed for the better. In fact, it then demonstrated the stock antenna had a better window of acceptable SWR in both VHF and UHF than I had anticipated. So the moral of this story is make sure your USB cable is performing properly. If in doubt, try a few of them and use a composite of the results that agree the closest.
That’s a pretty good tip, thank you 👍
@@TheSmokinApe
My downfall is I'm rather cheap. So that means 1: I often buy my cables from China, and then 2: I hate throwing things out. So, for anyone like me (may god have mercy on their souls), if you want to continue with step #1, you need to change the habits shown in step #2!
I assume we are talking about HT antennas here? rubber duckies? helical type? If so what you are seeing is not the USB lead per se. A hand held antenna a usually a quarter wave or loaded/shortened thing attempting to be a quarter wave and as such the element of the antenna is not the total antenna system. It relies on the HT body as part of the system that makes it work and match. It may even rely on being held to match well. When you attach these antennas to measuring devices like a NanoVNA, its a complete lottery whether the conditions for a good match are met. Like you found, the particular USB lead you had attached, or whether it on a wooden or metal bench top. Its a waste of time to fret about the performance on these portable device antennas, they never had any any, and cant been bestowed with any, they are and always will be severely compromised. Take a deep breath and chant "SWR is not loss, SWR is not loss....." :)
de G0AFV
14:00 pro tip: The speed of radio waves is about 1 ft / ns in free air or about 8 inches per ns in a cable. So you can guestimate your delay pretty easily based on cable length.
Thanks man 👍
Very good. I personally have learned tons from your Nanovna vids. Powerful tool if understood. You are doing the good work buddy! KØATV
Thank you, glad yo hear the videos are helpful 👍
Great video Ape!! Love your content! Question: I have been trying to use my LiteVNA 64 to mark the dials on a Manual tuner, should I recalibrate for each different band that I am trying to tune. I am using a 140' delta loop and an old Dentron manual tuner. Any advice would be welcome! Again thanks for your awesome videos!
Hey Shawn, glad to hear you like the videos. I would only calibrate the sweep for the range of frequencies you want to operate on... and use that for the whole process. Good luck!
Another bad ass video brought to you by Smoking Ape ! So simple that even a caveman, or ape, can do it ! YOU ROCK APE ! K5MGW - Mark - 73
Thanks FB, glad you liked it 😮
Another good and useful video, thanks Ape. I have a small VNA which I bought in the COVID lockdown. It's done well but it's battery is starting to bulge, so I thought I would upgrade. There are so many flavours of VNA now, please can you say if the H4 is as good as any for general ham work, or are there better options? Cheers, Ace
Hey Ace, I had a battery go bad in one of mine and I replaced it on video; its somewhere on the channel. The H4 is the one I recommend to hams the most 👍
@@TheSmokinApeThanks for your help Ape, I check through your video list. Based on your advice, I may buy an H4 and replace the battery in my old 2.8 screen unit and use it as a back-up. The VNA is such a useful ham tool, I wonder how I lived without one! Best 73 Ace
Good video Ape. PS: I asked Bard my AI friend to help with a comment and I picked this one... ""SmokinApe's video: the only thing smoother than his calibration process is his voice. " 🙂
LOL!
Great explanation. I can calibrate mine to the built in SMA, but as soon as I attach an extension it goes haywire and gives wild readings. I have tried several cables, but no amount of fiddling with electrical delay or any other setting makes a difference. Any suggestions?
Are the extension cables "good" meaning quality with no problems? What if you calibrate with the cables attached?
Thanks Ape, may be too much for my brain. But I'm looking for a low-cost way to tune coax jumpers, length...
There are plenty videos on the subject with more expensive equipment. Surely it can be done with a VNA. If so, share a video please....
Not having to calibrate every single time I use this device makes testing antennas so much easier.
I just need to figure out grounding planes next. My HAM antennas go from 4.5 SWR to 1.1 SWR if I hold the base of the antenna.
Yeah, saved calibration is a great thing. I am assuming you are testing HTs which is difficult 👍
@@TheSmokinApe Yep.
Thanks, Ape. That helps. My next ant will be a G5RV and I will have to electronically shorten it. The nano and coil calculations should be manageable. The most difficult part? Honey, I need a few ham toys. KF0NNQ and 73.
Hey Bill, sounds like we married the same woman!
I didn't know you could adjust the delay? Is that an option instead of recalibrating with the cable connected?
Yeah, that's why you would do it 👍
Thanks for the good advice. I thought the H4 only has 101 data points? Good shielding of the important parts is essential and some fake or cheap builds don't have them. This lets to scrumbled readings esp. in the higher frequencies. So most important for me is: how can you be sure what you finally get when you order one?
I the newer firmwares can go to 401 which is awesome. Whenever I get one I thoroughly test it out and upen them up to see if the correct board and shielding is in place.
Is there a way to go from Smith Chart to the Descartes' x/y graphing and SWR as a bell curve.
Yes, Trace 1 is set up for S11 and you can change the format to SWR.
@@TheSmokinApeTHX.
Great vidio. Is the lite VNA run with the same directions as the nano VNA? I got mine from R&L Electronics about 6 months ago. It seems that selecting the tabs on the right are hard. I did a screen calibration and it didn't help. Will look for a computer program to run it on my laptop with windows 11. 73's KG7COA
It should be similar, the different versions do have some variation in the firmware, make sure you are using a good stylus. The best PC software is NanoVNA-Saver: th-cam.com/video/2S0dt0bYoLs/w-d-xo.html
I was wondering if rather than use the E-delay, would it make more sense to calibrate it with the test cable in place?
I think either will get you where you are going. There are some cases where I could see an argument for using one of the other.
That was great. I have the nano VNA-H4 . what i was doing at first was not save the calibrations . led to extra work each time I went to use. was a learning curve . with that tester you can do so much. figure the delay in coax the velocity factor. which is needed in phasing antenna's . along with loss and reactance of coax. I used the H4 for tuning a UHF duplexer for repeater use. and so much more. love how you can save data . you can even print out the charts. they have a zipper case for that. I got that when I ordered mine. 73's
Hey Robert, that H4 is the one I recommend to hams the most 👍
Tuning duplexers with a Nano VNA:
I bought one of these with very low expectations, and it didn't disappoint.
A good quality duplexer will generate -75dB to -90dB nulls when tuned carefully.
The Nano VNA can only measure down to something like -50dB.
As a result, you lose the bottom of the duplexer null response on the VNA display, and you can't really see what is happening.
They simply don't have enough dynamic range. It's output power isn't high enough to get through the -70 odd dB nulls of a duplexer, and / or it doesn't have a sensitive enough reciever section to pick out such weak signals.
I have toyed with the idea of adding an external amplifier and re-casing the whole lot, but I just haven't got around to it yet.
Yes, dynamic range can be a bit of an issue on these. Thanks for the comment!
@@digitalradiohacker I still got the tune on a TX/RX systems used UHF duplexer used for a GMRS repeater. The nulls /notch dips to noise floor on the nano VNA , but I still found the frequency points for the HI and Low . was tricky and took time, but under power the SWR and power loss and receive loss was so much better then the old one . 73's
@@robertmeyer4744
👍👍
That's the problem - The noise floor APPEARS to be higher on one of these because the output is quite low, and this limits the precision with which you can tune duplexers. On more expensive instruments the noise floor APPEARS much lower, so you can see the real bottom of the nulls.
I know what you mean though - With a Nano VNA you can get a duplexer very very close, and for a quiet area with low RF levels, you'll get half decent range from the repeater.
Very informative.
Can you just calibrate with the lead attached, instead of setting the E delay?
Cheers
You can
@@TheSmokinApe
Thanks. Great channel. Your videos. Helped me a geat deal.
Cheers!
Mick
2E0IZT
Glad to hear they are helpful 👍
good learning thanks ... question as new to this .. using vna ... got 1.5 swr but logmag showing way out anything from 20 to 60 loss , any ideas please
There are two different LogMag measurements, one is return loss (s11) where low is a good thing and the other s21 LogMag is a gain / loss measurement. It sounds like you are measuring return loss (s11) and you want that to be low.
ok not good then ,,, thanks .. needs to do new cable thanks info ,,, keep up the good work
@@TheSmokinApe
Thanks bro 👍
When you do the thru calibration, why do you connect the two cables together first? Why not just connect a single cable to S11 and S21?
Because I will be using both in the test, so I want both to be part of the calibration 👍
I have a question. I personally do my calibration with at least one length of the provided cable and my SO235 on the end and calibrate it like that. Would that negate the need to go in and fine tune the cable? If so, it would save a step. I had learned that this is the proper technique years ago, but I'm always willing to learn something new, thanks for the video!
It would just mean your reference plane is the end of that cable. I think you are fine with that given this is ham radio. Do you have pl259 standards?
@@TheSmokinApeno, I use the provided barrel connector and use the standards on the end of that. What I have is an SMA to SO235 that I screw my antenna cable into. If I calibrate it that way the end of the SO 235 should become my reference point (or close to it). That should eliminate the need to adjust for the cable length I should think. But that short cable length had more effect on the end result than I expected so I'm hoping I'm not skewing my results!
Thanks for the good tips and making me aware. I'll try compensating and see if it changes my results. Cheers 🤙🏼
@@blackpearlvoyager4174 good luck with it 🍻
Hello, thank you for this informative video!
I’m new to radiology, and If you could clarify how does your frequency range on smiths chart shrinks after electric delay introduction. But my 2.4 wifi range (I took with extra 2350MHz-2550MHz) shows huge arc that only shifts radially after delay input(I tried 1000p 500p etc)?
My extension cable came with NanoVNA. Should I expect it to shrink at all?
The e-dalay adjusts the Nano to account for added transmission like that was not part of the calibration.
@@TheSmokinApe Great, I just retested your values on my vna, and the result was same as yours! I'm glad. Everytime things go south I think of me breaking my nano(for me it costs fortune). Thanks for the response and clarification!
Question, can you use a nanoVNA to calibrate a frequency counter?
No, you could do it with a TinySA 👍
Why go done-back-save? When you click done it is the save option that pops up and you just click a spot to save. Going back and then save is just an extra step..or is there a difference?
Ya know, that's a good question. I've just always done it this way 🤔
If I want to calibrate for 11 meters, would I use a 75 ohm load?
No, all CB stuff I’ve used it 50 ohm 👍
Can you set this up also to show 50ohm like some will have it x =
Yeah, I can do that 👍
@@TheSmokinApe I'm trying to figure it out and the instructions are crap that come with it
Wouldn't it be more accurate to calibrate the vna at the end of the cable instead of using the delay?
It would
Can you recommend an attenuator for a typical NanoVNA? Thank you K5TGS
It’s going to depend on the device you are testing, I’ve bought multiples f Amazon with no issues 👍
I have the sw-102 and I am getting different readings on swr than my nano vna, is there any way to see what’s correct
Compare them both to a 50ohm dummy load or some other known impedance 👍
@@TheSmokinApe ok thanks I will try it
Good luck with it
I hear the swr is estimated and not accurate. The nanovna says my ocfd is 1.5 or better, radio says it’s 2.75 or worse.
That’s a pretty big difference, I’d test them both against a dummy load and see what f there is a difference 👍
Yes you can adjust your time delay and that will readjust to infinity without the reactive offset, but (you knew there would be a big but) the characteristic impedances of the cable aren't compensated for. So your actual sweep will be varied a quite a bit from what it should be due to the characteristic impedances of the cable. Tis better to calibrate at the end of your cable and let the calibration process correct for the offsets for the actual cable you are using for the test. The vna doesn't know if you talked on a 50, 52 or a 75 ohm coax. If you run that through during the calibration, voila, it now knows what the calibration of that cable is for each and every frequency. That's how I have been doing it for 50 years. But what do I know? I'm just a school bus driver.
Totally agree and am uploading a video right now to show the full cable calibration...
@@TheSmokinApe thank you
Good video, helped to decide to not buy one. To much for my old tired brain.
Haha, thanks for watching Glenn 👍
Good explanation of the basics, but this was supposed to be expert tips and tricks. You can lose most of the video.
What is complex to some is simple to others.
@@TheSmokinApe no. This was very much a how to get started video.
Got my son one for Xmas and they sent two don’t know how that happened 😂that’s my story 🥱
Nice!