I've been looking to get a Spectrum Analyzer.
The choices at this point are:
Used Anritsu MS2721B
Used Rohde & Schwarz FSEA30 20Hz to 3.5GHz
New Rigol DSA832E-TG
New Siglent SSA3032X
All include the Tracking Generator
Any ideas or advice? Thanks

 

Kind of a meaningless question if we don't know what you plan to do with it?

 

I was thinking about that some of these brands would be good (better specs, more reliable) as opposed to others just mediocre or bad (like a Toyota or Mercedes vs a Yugo) ...From your reply I get the impression that all of these are comparable since you clearly don't dismiss any of them. I wanted a Spectrum Analyzer that was good; that was all.

 

Kind of a meaningless question if we don't know what you plan to do with it?

The last time I used a spectrum analyzer was eons ago. I worked on a campus scale alarm system that would report its alarms down a pair of wires. Each "omni" had its own frequency. The system would interrogate 1 of 32 lines and 16 "omnis" would report. There was a board with 16 crystal filters that had to be tuned. I would use the spectrum analyzer to tune the 16 channels.

The crystals were highly susceptible to any kind of vibration. A very poor design. The crystal was pinched by the same leads that connected device to the board. This was all encased in plastic container. The crystal sort of floated in place. Even a tiny vibration would cause the crystal to move throwing off its frequency.

I got an awful lot of boards from one particular customer. They would either need tuned or have their crystals replaced. I could not figure it out till one day when I was on site. An alarm happened to come in while I was there. An old TTY printer sat on top of the system case. The case started to shake like a hulu dancer! I yelled, "that is why our are sending me so many boards, get that printer off of that case"! We moved the printer and I stopped getting boards from the customer.

 

Used Rohde & Schwarz FSEA30 20Hz to 3.5GHz used to make really good test equipment. Haven't used theirs in a long time so don't know about now.

I would expect Keysight Technology's spectrum analyzers to be top notch (Formerly Agilent, formerly HP). Similarly I would expect a lot from a Tektronix analyzer.

 

Spinnaker: Interesting story. Troubleshooting is indeed like detective work: read clues, come up with a plan to test and then find the problem.
DickCappels: The Rohde & Schwarz equipment does look good...and I know that Agilent makes excellent stuff. Thing is I was trying to get a SA with at least an LCD display and to stay around $2500 give or take; I have seen several Agilent that look good but appear to have a CRT for display. Thanks

 

Before you purchase a spectrum analyzer, ask yourself what do you plan to do with it.
It could end up being a very expensive boat anchor.

I have been in this business for over 50 years and do not have a spectrum analyzer, have never found a need for one.

 

The presence of an FFT function on digital scopes has reduced my desire for a spectrum analyzer. On my old Tektronics scope the FFT function indicates signals up to the Nyquist limit of the digitizer.

Depending upon your needs, you might find that you do not need a dedicated spectrum analyzer.

 

Hmmm...MrChips and DCappels, now you got thinking about the SA.
Thanks for your input

 

Hmmm...MrChips and DCappels, now you got thinking about the SA.
Thanks for your input

We are still interested in knowing what you would do with a spectrum analyzer if you had one.

 

ARRL stuff, radio projects, filter tuning, signal purity, etc