In your video #064 I explained how to make changes on the FA-2 so I guess you just forgot in this video so I will repost it again here. As you know from our correspondence I really enjoy your channel and think you do a great job. One negative is you keep showing me things that I end up buying ; ) You are one of my favorite channels. Thanks for all the videos you create and keep them coming! Here is the repost: The 50-ohms is not fixed on CH1 as mentioned in the video. It can be changed from 50-ohm to 1-Mohm. To switch back and forth on the input impedance: First press the RST button and while holding it down press the Mode button. You should hear a relay click which I assume is removing a 50-ohm resistor in parallel with the 1-Mohm resistor. You have to repeat this procedure each time you wish to make a change. Also on CH1 you can turn on and off a LPF: First press the RST button and while holding it down press the GATE button. The LPF is very helpful on getting better triggering on low frequencies. One of the biggest problems with many inexpensive counters is that they have fair to poor trigger circuits so the LPF can be helpful although not the best fix. These features are not available on CH2.
Thanks John!... yes sorry about that..there is just too much nice stuff available :) and yes i forgot how to change these settings, it just so un-inuitive, the plus version has more buttons for that.. already better.. thank you for sharing ! hope i don't lose these notes again!... Thank you John!. i pinned the comment so it shows-up first, for everyone this is great info! Great to have you on the channel, good feed back, nice correspondence, keep that coming too!
Hi Tony, Thanks for your clear videos, I watch them very regularly. After I saw your video about the BG7TBL WB-4.4G, I wanted to buy it too. But it has been sold out everywhere for a very long time. Has it been taken out of production or do you know a supplier who has it in stock. Maybe you will get better information than I can find about it. Thanks in advance, Rob
Thank you Bob! .. i checked the TZT store and HamRadioStore on AliExpress for you, both i trust. you are correct, its out of stock... Hope they will have them soon again.
Tony, I have the smaller model but have not used it yet. I'm close to reorganizing my workbench with the addition of additional equipment. Once things are in place for this phase, I'll test mine. Your video is motivating me to take it for a run BG7TBL has a number of very cool products!
Hello, do you know how to save the last frequency setting so that when the WB-SG generator is turned off and then turned on it will keep the last setting and will not come back to the default frequency? Maybe via some ASCII code command?
Hi there, Can I use any of these frequency meters to measure EMF (up to 30Ghz) connected directly to a passive microwave antenna? I´m interested in measuring the millimetric 5G radiation received in my home and I don´t want to spend thousand of euros in a professional EMF device.
HI, Maybe a small Spectrum analyzer is better suitable for broadspectrum scans. a frequency counter just picks 1, the strongest signal, while a spectrumanalyzer does visualize this also better. Maybe a TinySA or the UtraSA for higher frequencies.
Hello, what is the maximum voltage (or amplitude) of a signal that the BGT7TBL FA-3 (or FA-2) frequency counter can handle? I would appreciate your support a lot!
Hi Tony, do you think we can even replace the LCD with a further bigger one .? I really want an E Ink display which would be actually awesome ... probably it would be i2C to SPI converter ...!
Hi Ahmed, that is a great idea.. i am not sure about i2C/SPI i never found any schematics on any of these models, but it would make sense indeed. for me the FA-3 and WB-SG2 have big enough display.
thank you for your kind reply Tony, I'm doing exactly the same like the viewer @jwrtiger.... whatever you recommend i end up buying it... thank you so much for your great videos.
A follow-up Q that I forgot....at the 31 minute mark, the comparison of the smaller and larger versions does have two additional parts on the right side...the silver ICs (?). Do they have markings to identify what they are?
Excellent videos! I am planning to replace my vintage Eico and Heathkit test equipment with BG7TBL stuff. My concern with Chinese equipment are FAKES. I notice BG7TBL devices are sold under various brand news such as Bulipu, Davitu and Seeku. I know they are fake tinySAs being sold that aren't as good as the real tinysa. Should I have the same concerns with BG7TBL devices?
Thank you David, yes you are correct, my experiance with BG7TBL has been good so far, i usualy put the links from the stores i bought it from. the hamradiostore on Ali has been good to me.
gee whiz. I am starting to learn about SDR backyard radio telescopes. The 21cm 1420 MHz hydrogen-line setup recommends a counter/generator. So which one? 😎 thanks.
Hello Tony, do you have by any chance any documentation how to control the WB-SG1 via the USB port ? i have found some documentation to set freq and sweep and so and that works fine, but i am missing the command to set the output level, my plan is to write a simple program to interface with it via a computer. i just need documentation.
Hello Wazel, i only have the same manual, i checked, nothing about changing the output power, maybe it can not be done with the WB-SG1... at least not with mine, the 8GHz, may it also needs the 4.4 or PLUS version.
Thank you very much for the presentation. I have a question: the waveform of the signal gens I have used for RF are 'sine' but these are 'square' waves. So does it matter sine or square ? in RF applications such as aligning receivers transmitters etc ? regards
@@TonyAlbus Hello Tony. Thanks for the reply, I have the FA-2 of which I installed an HSMS-8102 diode on the CH2 board to protect its input against high voltages. I also own the WB-SG1. Cdlt 73's
Well Tony not to impressed with the rf generators, OK they're probably cheap but not serious test equipment by my standards, the output was not accurate & to only go down to -40 dbm is useless for testing radios. I'll stick with my two marconis , of course they cost more but not too much second hand, thanks for the video, best wishes nick
Hi Nick, i am totally there with you.. it is not close to a Marconi.. but i had some hope it would be better then the first versions. And they did improve.. it is not there yet.. but they could have been.. now we know :)
In your video #064 I explained how to make changes on the FA-2 so I guess you just forgot in this video so I will repost it again here. As you know from our correspondence I really enjoy your channel and think you do a great job. One negative is you keep showing me things that I end up buying ; ) You are one of my favorite channels. Thanks for all the videos you create and keep them coming! Here is the repost:
The 50-ohms is not fixed on CH1 as mentioned in the video. It can be changed from 50-ohm to 1-Mohm. To switch back and forth on the input impedance: First press the RST button and while holding it down press the Mode button. You should hear a relay click which I assume is removing a 50-ohm resistor in parallel with the 1-Mohm resistor. You have to repeat this procedure each time you wish to make a change. Also on CH1 you can turn on and off a LPF: First press the RST button and while holding it down press the GATE button. The LPF is very helpful on getting better triggering on low frequencies. One of the biggest problems with many inexpensive counters is that they have fair to poor trigger circuits so the LPF can be helpful although not the best fix. These features are not available on CH2.
Thanks John!... yes sorry about that..there is just too much nice stuff available :) and yes i forgot how to change these settings, it just so un-inuitive, the plus version has more buttons for that.. already better.. thank you for sharing !
hope i don't lose these notes again!... Thank you John!.
i pinned the comment so it shows-up first, for everyone this is great info! Great to have you on the channel, good feed back, nice correspondence, keep that coming too!
Hi Tony, Thanks for your clear videos, I watch them very regularly. After I saw your video about the BG7TBL WB-4.4G, I wanted to buy it too. But it has been sold out everywhere for a very long time. Has it been taken out of production or do you know a supplier who has it in stock. Maybe you will get better information than I can find about it. Thanks in advance, Rob
Thank you Bob! .. i checked the TZT store and HamRadioStore on AliExpress for you, both i trust. you are correct, its out of stock... Hope they will have them soon again.
Tony, I have the smaller model but have not used it yet. I'm close to reorganizing my workbench with the addition of additional equipment. Once things are in place for this phase, I'll test mine. Your video is motivating me to take it for a run BG7TBL has a number of very cool products!
Hello Frank.. yes they have some nice stuff.. i also keep buying it :))
That’s really great 👍!
Thank you! Cheers!
Hello, do you know how to save the last frequency setting so that when the WB-SG generator is turned off and then turned on it will keep the last setting and will not come back to the default frequency? Maybe via some ASCII code command?
Hi, i have never looked ad that, good question, let us know if you find out before me.
Hi there, Can I use any of these frequency meters to measure EMF (up to 30Ghz) connected directly to a passive microwave antenna? I´m interested in measuring the millimetric 5G radiation received in my home and I don´t want to spend thousand of euros in a professional EMF device.
HI, Maybe a small Spectrum analyzer is better suitable for broadspectrum scans. a frequency counter just picks 1, the strongest signal, while a spectrumanalyzer does visualize this also better. Maybe a TinySA or the UtraSA for higher frequencies.
Hello, what is the maximum voltage (or amplitude) of a signal that the BGT7TBL FA-3 (or FA-2) frequency counter can handle? I would appreciate your support a lot!
the manual says the power measure can go upto +20dBm , so it can take that for sure. no other specs found so far.
Hi Tony, do you think we can even replace the LCD with a further bigger one .? I really want an E Ink display which would be actually awesome ... probably it would be i2C to SPI converter ...!
Hi Ahmed, that is a great idea.. i am not sure about i2C/SPI i never found any schematics on any of these models, but it would make sense indeed. for me the FA-3 and WB-SG2 have big enough display.
thank you for your kind reply Tony, I'm doing exactly the same like the viewer @jwrtiger.... whatever you recommend i end up buying it... thank you so much for your great videos.
@@ahmedgaafar5369 Thanks :) .. sorry watching this channel will result usually in more equipment :))
A follow-up Q that I forgot....at the 31 minute mark, the comparison of the smaller and larger versions does have two additional parts on the right side...the silver ICs (?). Do they have markings to identify what they are?
Hello Frank, i will have a closer look in de next Q&A video, more people wanted a closer look.. so that fits well.
thanks again for your comments
Excellent videos! I am planning to replace my vintage Eico and Heathkit test equipment with BG7TBL stuff. My concern with Chinese equipment are FAKES. I notice BG7TBL devices are sold under various brand news such as Bulipu, Davitu and Seeku. I know they are fake tinySAs being sold that aren't as good as the real tinysa. Should I have the same concerns with BG7TBL devices?
Thank you David, yes you are correct, my experiance with BG7TBL has been good so far, i usualy put the links from the stores i bought it from. the hamradiostore on Ali has been good to me.
gee whiz. I am starting to learn about SDR backyard radio telescopes. The 21cm 1420 MHz hydrogen-line setup recommends a counter/generator. So which one? 😎 thanks.
These are indeed very good counters, even better when used on external reference like a GPSDO..
@@TonyAlbus I will check out the GPSDO. This radio telescope project is becoming even more interesting than I could imagine. Thank you so much.
Hello Tony, do you have by any chance any documentation how to control the WB-SG1 via the USB port ? i have found some documentation to set freq and sweep and so and that works fine, but i am missing the command to set the output level, my plan is to write a simple program to interface with it via a computer. i just need documentation.
Hello Wazel, i only have the same manual, i checked, nothing about changing the output power, maybe it can not be done with the WB-SG1... at least not with mine, the 8GHz, may it also needs the 4.4 or PLUS version.
Thank you very much for the presentation. I have a question: the waveform of the signal gens I have used for RF are 'sine' but these are 'square' waves. So does it matter sine or square ? in RF applications such as aligning receivers transmitters etc ? regards
Thank you! , for alignment of receivers, the signal is a bit loud, prob this one is better for that: th-cam.com/video/d1ss48Qz6Vc/w-d-xo.html
@@TonyAlbus Thank you very much for the reply. I particularly want to know if I can use a 'square wave' ? in aligning . Regards Rohitha
@@pradeep6134 yes you can
@@TonyAlbus Thank you so much. regards
Hello.
It would have been interesting to completely disassemble the devices and see the sms components located below the printed circuit. Cdlt 73's
Hello Diablo, my video about the FA-2 has a better view on the other side of the board... Tony
@@TonyAlbus Hello Tony. Thanks for the reply, I have the FA-2 of which I installed an HSMS-8102 diode on the CH2 board to protect its input against high voltages. I also own the WB-SG1. Cdlt 73's
Smart!
Well Tony not to impressed with the rf generators, OK they're probably cheap but not serious test equipment by my standards, the output was not accurate & to only go down to -40 dbm is useless for testing radios. I'll stick with my two marconis , of course they cost more but not too much second hand, thanks for the video, best wishes nick
Hi Nick, i am totally there with you.. it is not close to a Marconi.. but i had some hope it would be better then the first versions. And they did improve.. it is not there yet.. but they could have been.. now we know :)
What a pity for the WB-SG2 !!! it would have been perfect for tuning receivers. very disappointed
Yes totally agree, guess we need to wait for WB-SG3