Since there has been a few discussions about calibration, and in particular Agilent calibration, I thought I'd share my calibration certificate for my VNA which came back from Agilent (UK) last week.
http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/kirkby/Agilent-standard-calibration-with-uncertainties-for-8720D-vector-network-analyzer.pdf It is *much* more informative than the certificate issued from a US calibration laboratory http://www.home.agilent.com/owc_discussions/servlet/JiveServlet/download/74-35894-109799-6353/Calibration%20certificate%20of%20HP%208720D%20VNA.png a year earlier for the same instrument. Note the instrument was not adjusted. The instrument has an intermal oscillator and also a high precision version which is an option. Both were sligltly off, but neither was adjusted as they met the spec. There some comments on this thread http://www.home.agilent.com/owc_discussions/message.jspa?messageID=109805 from an Agilent VNA expert that "I will be very sceptical when a VNA calibration service does not include a cal kit and verification kit. " The other lab did not use a verification kit and the calibration kit they used was an Agilent "economy" model 85052D, which uses fixed loads, not the more accurate sliding loads of the much more expensive 85052B calibration kit. I personally don't grudge paying Agilent £500 (~$750) for the calibration. In contrast, unless I just needed the cal certificate to satisfy somebody else, I would not spend a penny getting it calibrated by the other lab. I think on something as complex as a VNA, one really is better letting the manufacturer calibrate it. On a 6.5 digit or less multi-meter, there are probably a lot of labs able to do a decent job. Personally though, if I get my 3457A calibrated I will send it to Agilent, since I don't personally know of any lab that is competent to do it. It is less justifiable to me to spend a lot of money getting an inexpensive instrument calibrated. Dave _______________________________________________ volt-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volt-nuts and follow the instructions there.
