Network Analyzer Measurements at different frequencies - RF Cafe Forums

 Post subject: Network Analyzer Measurements at different frequencies

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 11:24 am 

Hello everyone

I have certain experience characterizing microwave devices implemented in microstrip technology and working between 1GHz and 10GHz employing network analyzers.

Now I need to perform some measurements of circuits based on piezoelectric resonators and working around 1 MHz. I wil use an Agilent Network analyzer which operates from 300kHz up to 3GHz. I'm not sure about the differences that measurements at so low frequencies imply.

Could anybody tell me some considerations I should take into account?

Thank you very much

 Post subject: Re: Network Analyzer Measurements at different frequencies

Posted: Tue Dec 15, 2009 12:52 pm 

I have used most all the VNA's from 40GHz down to the low end depending on the instrument. In your case 300KHz.
The only thing different is that as the measurment approaches the band edges of the couplers the coupler performance (directivity particularily) degrades and this has an impact on the error bar for the measurement. The Data Sheets should give you some idea of the accuracy hit. Other than that the measurements are not much different. Make sure you set the IF Bandwidth down to something lower 100-1KHz instead of the default. This will give you a better S/N ratio on the measurements as you don't integrate as much noise into the measurement.

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Sunshine Design Engineering Services

 Post subject: Re: Network Analyzer Measurements at different frequencies

Posted: Fri Dec 18, 2009 7:42 am 

OK. Thank you very much.