German contractor Rohde & Schwarz (R & S) has launched a new handheld spectrum analyser that breaks the €7000 price barrier.
Designated as the FSH 3 equipment, the new device is available in two basic variants that function as either a pure spectrum analyser covering the 100 kHz to 3 GHz frequency band or as a spectrum analyser/tracking generator for use in scalar network analysis applications.
Equally, when equipped with a bridge, FSH 3 can provide distance-to-fault measurements on cables and the addition of an external power sensor facilitate high precision radio frequency measurements up to the 8 GHz mark.
An internal memory can store up to 100 measurement traces or instrument setups and R & S notes that the device's functionality is integrated in six customer-specific, application specific integrated circuits. Here, FSH 3 is noted as providing a 1 kHz to 1 MHz resolution bandwidth, a 10 Hz to 1 MHz video bandwidth, precision detection, logarithmic conversion of filtered intermediate frequency signals and detection of weightings (including autopeak, peak and sample). Digital processing is used to maximise measurement speed while minimising power consumption and the equipment is billed as offering a 100 ms full frequency range sweep time and a typical third-order intercept value of 15 dB at a typical noise figure of 32 dB. Integrated Windows™ software facilitates the storage of measurement data in common graphic formats such as text files or Excel™.