That is a very nice piece of gear! Very well designed and machined, with solid construction. I've guestinated that most components are 0603, with some 0805 capacitors on the IF stage and some occasional 0402 components on the logic board. Nice to see!
Excellent video. Thanks Shariar... One hint is the size of the LO coaxial port. It is far too large (about half-wavelength in diameter at 60 GHz) to carry the LO itself. It is more suited for 15-20 GHz and LO frequency multiplication effectively takes place in the RF board.
Always nice to see companies not try and obfuscate their products, cudos to them for letting the community see what’s under the hood, will definitely keep them in mind, seems like a nice little workhorse product.
I love mm rf and your videos. I bet the wide IF is just to catch the spread energy as carrier moves around so fast, scans are pretty slow. Very cool chips at these frequencies. I make for fun simple 60ghz mixers to drive a spectrum analyzer, use radar modules as cw source. Beam forming would be great if I could afford them.
Very nice bit of gear and video presentation as well, thank you for all your videos they are very educational. These kind of instruments are way beyond my budget, can you do teardown/explanation on the n1201sa antenna analyzer for example? A lot of amateurs are using it including myself and it would be very nice to hear some words about it from an expert like yourself! Thank you!
If I remember correctly that module is made by SiversIMA. They used to offer die E-band front ends a few years ago and apparently discontinued that to focus on the V-band market. The downconverter had a few performance issues at the time and I am not sure they managed to fix them. This might be the cause for the architecture seen in the teardown. Found it: www.siversima.com/news/sivers-ima-chosen-by-saf-tehnika/
What a beautiful stack of test gear... you need another bench! I envy you! It's impossible to get TE units for repair as you do at my country... customs regulations and unexplainable bureaucracy! Can I move to your lab? I can sleep under the bench or share Pooch's bed! :)
My guess would be that for the bug the unit gets confused and actually uses a different center frequency. Try injecting other tones to figure out where it is.
Anyone have a link to the DVDO Air video? I have an HTC Vive wireless kit, and I would REALLY like to know how they send 60GHz oved SMA and coax. Do they send baseband to the antenna, and the antenna does the up-mix & down-mix?
No modulation/demodulation options? No extended math functions other than the simple stuff on the GUI buttons? What about data export file options - csv file for offline analysis? Whatever, all a bit academic, as I can never afford anything that you describe as "low cost" in your videos! :)
Love the channel but you should find better screen recording software. The 2 or 3 fps recording doesn't let us see the responsiveness the software you're presenting. Try something like OBS.
I wish RF gear was better priced or a serious open source 2019 SA was available. The UI is average, a better processor could have been used to manage rendering sweep data, that ST part isn't great for heavy multimedia graphics (but works great for fast boot times and lower battery), a I.MX6L from freescale is better suited for this. but then again its a field device, we live in a world where the demand for anti aliasing graphics is expected. Is there a reason you don't mention chip numbers.?
Do you think we'll be able to have fine control over heat, light, UV, X-rays and Gamma rays, like we do with the rest of the RF spectrum we've already exploited?
White on blue buttons look awful on camera. And high contrast mode does other horrible things, like spectrum panel inversion. There is definitely a room for improvement in terms of UI.
Hi, I was looking at SAF video about their comparison to Tek RSA306 - th-cam.com/video/-h1Hvxwc7tY/w-d-xo.html - and I must say something is fishy. They claim superior noise floor. The span and BW is different in their presentation for example. What do you think? BS marketing? I checked their website, and they do not even provide DNAL or other noise and distortion specs for their devices.
DISCLOSURE: I AM WITH THE MANUFACTURER: That video was done at the request of one of our clients who was specifically frustrated with the noise floor of the RSA for his application. We do publish the DANL, but it’s noted as the bottom end of the “Input Dynamic Range”. The warranted spec is -105 dBm @ 1 MHz RBW. Typical performance is -110 dBm as seen on that video. Our traditional market (PtP microwave) was not necessarily concerned with distortion or the other expanded specs, but here they are: Phase Noise < - 90 dBm, TOI -10 dBm, VSWR < 2.00. LO leakage @ -40 dBm. While the spans in the video differ, the Tek unit was set to the same 1 MHz RBW, 300 kHz VBW as the SAF unit. As far as versatility, Tek offers adjustable RBW/VBW, a more complete software tool, and is an incredible value for a low-cost real time spectrum analyzer. That said, the noise floor performance of the SAF unit is superior. We were really trying to show both units as they are, and not hide the warts of either.
Fantastic video. Learned a lot here. Keep up the great work!
That is a very nice piece of gear! Very well designed and machined, with solid construction. I've guestinated that most components are 0603, with some 0805 capacitors on the IF stage and some occasional 0402 components on the logic board. Nice to see!
Excited for the WiGig teardown!
Excellent video. Thanks Shariar...
One hint is the size of the LO coaxial port. It is far too large (about half-wavelength in diameter at 60 GHz) to carry the LO itself. It is more suited for 15-20 GHz and LO frequency multiplication effectively takes place in the RF board.
Always nice to see companies not try and obfuscate their products, cudos to them for letting the community see what’s under the hood, will definitely keep them in mind, seems like a nice little workhorse product.
I love mm rf and your videos. I bet the wide IF is just to catch the spread energy as carrier moves around so fast, scans are pretty slow. Very cool chips at these frequencies. I make for fun simple 60ghz mixers to drive a spectrum analyzer, use radar modules as cw source. Beam forming would be great if I could afford them.
Very nice bit of gear and video presentation as well, thank you for all your videos they are very educational. These kind of instruments are way beyond my budget, can you do teardown/explanation on the n1201sa antenna analyzer for example? A lot of amateurs are using it including myself and it would be very nice to hear some words about it from an expert like yourself! Thank you!
That's amazing! I'd love to try some mmwave Amateur radio experiments but it's pretty far out of reach for most of us.
If I remember correctly that module is made by SiversIMA. They used to offer die E-band front ends a few years ago and apparently discontinued that to focus on the V-band market. The downconverter had a few performance issues at the time and I am not sure they managed to fix them. This might be the cause for the architecture seen in the teardown.
Found it:
www.siversima.com/news/sivers-ima-chosen-by-saf-tehnika/
Great video and review. Love your review approach.
Great review. You neglected pricing though. Remember, there's no bad products, just bad pricing.
Pricing is not publicly available on SAF's website. Pricing is only available with a quotation for serious customers.
pricing seems reasonable to me, if you consider the target market
He's always sheepish about pricing.
I've just come to the conclusion that I can't afford anything above 1GHz. :)
@@trickyrat483 the smart thing to do is getting access to a lab, then you don't have to buy your own stuff.
I found a web site that sells this stuff with prices. Google it.
Thank ypu for yet another interesting product review.
Love your videos and explanation. Thanks!
Amazing and well prepared video as always. Thanks. Why you do not have 10 times more subscribers is a mystery to me :)
What a beautiful stack of test gear... you need another bench! I envy you! It's impossible to get TE units for repair as you do at my country... customs regulations and unexplainable bureaucracy! Can I move to your lab? I can sleep under the bench or share Pooch's bed! :)
My guess would be that for the bug the unit gets confused and actually uses a different center frequency. Try injecting other tones to figure out where it is.
You mentioned that a differential signal has some advantages over a single-ended signal going in to the mixer/multiplier. What are these advantages?
Thanks great review and teardown.
Anyone have a link to the DVDO Air video? I have an HTC Vive wireless kit, and I would REALLY like to know how they send 60GHz oved SMA and coax. Do they send baseband to the antenna, and the antenna does the up-mix & down-mix?
So Keysight is not the only manufacturer that makes sticker shock instruments! Look at the price of that little thing!
WOW, great video!. May I ask how do you have all those instruments? :D
it would be nice if the power in band function had a maximum display so one could sweep the device itself and get the maximum power
Any reason there’s zero silk on that board
What kind of microscope did you use? Please don't tell me he has a SEM standing around in his home..
Thumbs up and Oscar for the cat
How much for your backend collection? Much more than a million there man...
No modulation/demodulation options? No extended math functions other than the simple stuff on the GUI buttons? What about data export file options - csv file for offline analysis?
Whatever, all a bit academic, as I can never afford anything that you describe as "low cost" in your videos! :)
No demod options, but you can export the data for offline analysis. You can use the raw file, save images, or export in csv
what is the price of this item?
Thanks as always!
Love the channel but you should find better screen recording software. The 2 or 3 fps recording doesn't let us see the responsiveness the software you're presenting. Try something like OBS.
Great review Sir, even if i seldom get to work over 1.5 GHz, thanks for a utterly good lesson
Very nice indeed.
very nice review !
Excellent content :D
I wish RF gear was better priced or a serious open source 2019 SA was available.
The UI is average, a better processor could have been used to manage rendering sweep data, that ST part isn't great for heavy multimedia graphics (but works great for fast boot times and lower battery), a I.MX6L from freescale is better suited for this. but then again its a field device, we live in a world where the demand for anti aliasing graphics is expected.
Is there a reason you don't mention chip numbers.?
@19:27 (fun😝) a Hugh version!
Do you think we'll be able to have fine control over heat, light, UV, X-rays and Gamma rays, like we do with the rest of the RF spectrum we've already exploited?
Instruments to generate and measure electromagnetic radiation in all of the above ranges exist. Some of them even affordable for hobbyists.
Building urself quite an empire, keep em coming !!!
73 N8AUM
👍👍👍
White on blue buttons look awful on camera. And high contrast mode does other horrible things, like spectrum panel inversion. There is definitely a room for improvement in terms of UI.
Hi, I was looking at SAF video about their comparison to Tek RSA306 - th-cam.com/video/-h1Hvxwc7tY/w-d-xo.html - and I must say something is fishy. They claim superior noise floor. The span and BW is different in their presentation for example. What do you think? BS marketing? I checked their website, and they do not even provide DNAL or other noise and distortion specs for their devices.
DISCLOSURE: I AM WITH THE MANUFACTURER: That video was done at the request of one of our clients who was specifically frustrated with the noise floor of the RSA for his application. We do publish the DANL, but it’s noted as the bottom end of the “Input Dynamic Range”. The warranted spec is -105 dBm @ 1 MHz RBW. Typical performance is -110 dBm as seen on that video. Our traditional market (PtP microwave) was not necessarily concerned with distortion or the other expanded specs, but here they are: Phase Noise < - 90 dBm, TOI -10 dBm, VSWR < 2.00. LO leakage @ -40 dBm. While the spans in the video differ, the Tek unit was set to the same 1 MHz RBW, 300 kHz VBW as the SAF unit. As far as versatility, Tek offers adjustable RBW/VBW, a more complete software tool, and is an incredible value for a low-cost real time spectrum analyzer. That said, the noise floor performance of the SAF unit is superior. We were really trying to show both units as they are, and not hide the warts of either.
@@TheAjhostetter That is a nice achivements then. Good work and thanks for you answer!
a million dollars back ground of test tools (at least) .....Oh Dear Lord.
@@KaliumTechnologies Or if you want to educate, repair, compare vendors, and just simply love instruments.
1st
The early bird gets the worm, but the late mouse gets the cheese.
👍👍