Jeff Mock said the following on 11/29/2007 01:32 AM: > There seem to be a bunch of HP8924C's up on ebay for about $1500. It's > intended function is for CDMA testing, but it seems to be a pretty > general RF communications tester. Even if you don't care about the CDMA > stuff, it's a 1GHz spectrum analyzer, RF signal generator that can be > used as a tracking generator and sweeper (I think), power meter, and a > few other features. > > Does anyone have any experience with this thing? Is it something useful > for the money or a boat anchor? It looks interesting but I'm not sure I > need another big heavy box...
The ad claims it's a derivative of the HP 8920B, and it looks like it. Several of us here in Dayton have 8920A or B units, and they are a very nice general purpose service monitor. The spec analyzer was an option, but it has decent performance (as noted, no super-narrow RBWs) and there is a tracking generator -- I don't recall if that's a separate option, or automatic if the spec an is included. One thing that's nice is that if the span is less than 1.5 MHz, it can demodulate the center-frequency signal to audio. The RF gen will do AM or FM modulation, with internal or external input. There are a couple of AF generators so it can do dual tone testing. The receiver has frequency power meter, audio level meter, SINAD, FM deviation, AM modulation percentage, etc. Back 7 or 8 years ago, a loaded 8920B brought >$10K, but Lucent had hundreds of them that were dumped to the market and that depressed the prices a lot. I think these days an 8920B goes for maybe $3-4K, and the A for maybe $1K less. (The A model has a slower processor and somewhat lower specs, but the same functionality.) John _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
