Thanks for the overview, you covered many parts of this unit I have yet to explore. I purchased one from Banggoods awhile back because I work on little transistor radios as a hobby. I use the signal generator to align the receivers so they get maximum reception. Because I live in a part of the US with few radio stations, alining receivers is necessary to get maximum usage out of the little sets. They have a great signal generator built in that can output AM and FM signals at the internal frequencies of the little sets for this purpose.
First things first. BE CAREFUL when using the internal generator of the tinySA, it is somehow buggy and it is really easy to fry your DUT. Switching the AM on overrides yout output level setting, which is a kind of unfortunate, but much worse is that there is absolute no warning, you just set the output level to something low, then turn on AM and bang, you have FULL POWER on the output. Even if you have AM turned on, you can set the output level, but theese settings goes to nowhere until you turn the AM off. This is due to the fact they are using the output attenuator to generate an AM resulting in step-like envelope of the output AM signal and some other issues, which are at least not destructive. The analyzator itself isn't that bad at all, it has it's limitations, but in my opinion, it is a really amazing device for its price. The biggest limitation is relatively wide minimal RBW, which makes observing audio AM or FM modulation near impossible, so you cannot set the FM deviation using bessel zeros, you cannot observe the AM modulator harmonic distortion and things like that. Also aligning the MF filters of typical AM MW radio using this small SA is at least not comfortable, etc, but I think this small device is ideal to get familiar with spectrum analyzers without risking the expensive equiptment. Theese things are not intended to be a proper test gear, they are just decent toys intended to self education. Just buy one of them, they are no expensive, and play with it for a while. Build some poor man's active probe, some near field probes, noise generator to characterise filters using this tiny SA, whatever. You will learn a lot in a small amount of time and this is what theese things are intended to. And. That device has a touch screen. If you want to change the RBW? Just touch it! Input attenuation, sweep time or reference level? Just touch it. Almost everything on the display is touchable and UI of that device is very intuitive.
Great intro overview. The guitar pick is for touching the screen: you don’t need a pen. The high frequency range covers the 432 MHz band, which is a US UHF band. I guess your country doesn’t use this band.
Thank you for the review Paul! I had both a Tiny SA and Nano VNA on my 'wishlist' but last Friday my only radio died so I guess I don't have to think that hard about it at the moment... 🤔😞
@@OM0ET It is good enough for hobby use and the price. I own several HP signal generators and one of these. Since we will move into a smaller place after retirement I am planning to get rid of all my large and bulgy commercial gear and just use items like the nanoVNA, TinySA and this signal generator. They will do anything and more that I will want to do.
@Laurindo Pereira The blue FM generator is awesome to inject signals in FM radios to diagnose issues in 2 way radios and home stereos , but for transmitting radios , a SWR meter is for only checking SWR's .... Your antennae is where you want to adjust the SWR's .......
The answer is no. It doesn't have anything like tracking generator, that thing can be used as a generator or as a spectrum analyzer, but not at the same time. Maybe you can characterize that duplexer using noise generator and tinySA, just to know if it needs some alignment or it is almost okay, but it doesn't help with tuning. If you are not experienced with duplexers tuning, don't even try it. This is not to discourage you, this is just because I know how tricky beasts duplexers are. To align a duplexer you need at least VNA with three bidirectional ports and a huge dynamic range and someone, who knows how to do it properly. There is possibility to tune it with two port VNA, but the results are sometimes acceptable, but definitely not good, and the huge dynamic range is still a must, so things like nanoVNA are completely out. And on top of that all, duplexers are tricky also from the mechanical point of view. If you want to do it yourself (for some reason like learning something), then try to find a mentor, otherwise you could run into unexpected troubles. There is one more thing, 50W are a lot of power and the duplexers are typically high-Q circuits, which means, that there are parts with some high voltage and another parts with a high current inside a relatively small box. Misstuning that thing could lead to a huge disaster when the full power is applied, which is another reason to find someone experienced.
Nice video, Paul. Have you had a chance to hook it up to a transceiver yet to look at how clean the output is? Do you need a set of attenuators to do this safely? 73, M0YZT
Thanks for the overview, you covered many parts of this unit I have yet to explore. I purchased one from Banggoods awhile back because I work on little transistor radios as a hobby. I use the signal generator to align the receivers so they get maximum reception. Because I live in a part of the US with few radio stations, alining receivers is necessary to get maximum usage out of the little sets. They have a great signal generator built in that can output AM and FM signals at the internal frequencies of the little sets for this purpose.
First things first. BE CAREFUL when using the internal generator of the tinySA, it is somehow buggy and it is really easy to fry your DUT. Switching the AM on overrides yout output level setting, which is a kind of unfortunate, but much worse is that there is absolute no warning, you just set the output level to something low, then turn on AM and bang, you have FULL POWER on the output. Even if you have AM turned on, you can set the output level, but theese settings goes to nowhere until you turn the AM off. This is due to the fact they are using the output attenuator to generate an AM resulting in step-like envelope of the output AM signal and some other issues, which are at least not destructive.
The analyzator itself isn't that bad at all, it has it's limitations, but in my opinion, it is a really amazing device for its price. The biggest limitation is relatively wide minimal RBW, which makes observing audio AM or FM modulation near impossible, so you cannot set the FM deviation using bessel zeros, you cannot observe the AM modulator harmonic distortion and things like that. Also aligning the MF filters of typical AM MW radio using this small SA is at least not comfortable, etc, but I think this small device is ideal to get familiar with spectrum analyzers without risking the expensive equiptment. Theese things are not intended to be a proper test gear, they are just decent toys intended to self education. Just buy one of them, they are no expensive, and play with it for a while. Build some poor man's active probe, some near field probes, noise generator to characterise filters using this tiny SA, whatever. You will learn a lot in a small amount of time and this is what theese things are intended to.
And. That device has a touch screen. If you want to change the RBW? Just touch it! Input attenuation, sweep time or reference level? Just touch it. Almost everything on the display is touchable and UI of that device is very intuitive.
Sorry, but what's a DUT?
@@DennisSantos DUT probably means "Device Under Test".
Great intro overview. The guitar pick is for touching the screen: you don’t need a pen. The high frequency range covers the 432 MHz band, which is a US UHF band. I guess your country doesn’t use this band.
Thank you for the review Paul!
I had both a Tiny SA and Nano VNA on my 'wishlist' but last Friday my only radio died so I guess I don't have to think that hard about it at the moment... 🤔😞
Uff that sounds sad but you wrote it funny 😃 Well I wish you good luck with repair! 😉👍
what is the manufacturer and model number for the generator you are using? Great video, thanks.
Can this be used as R.F. reader to know what frequency has less traffic and suitable to be used for wireless transmission.
Thank you for the great review. I just got mine yesterday and have not tried it yet so this video was very helpful...
Oh great! I am happy that this short video helped you. 😉👍
Thanks for the video, I might have to buy one of these. Now you have had it a while are you still happy with it please?
I was working on different things so I no needed to use it 🙂
Hi. It seems like LO phase noise integrated is high and also looks like dynamic range is also a bit low isn’t it? Did you checked it?
*Where can I get printable manual?*
Does it have a headphone jack
Or is that just the ultra
hello,good video.your blue RF generator is a good device to inject signal in a transceiver to calibrate SWR signal?
thank you
Thanks. I am not sure how precise is this generator 🙂
@@OM0ET ok,is a basic instrument,thank you
ct1drx
@@OM0ET It is good enough for hobby use and the price. I own several HP signal generators and one of these. Since we will move into a smaller place after retirement I am planning to get rid of all my large and bulgy commercial gear and just use items like the nanoVNA, TinySA and this signal generator. They will do anything and more that I will want to do.
@Laurindo Pereira The blue FM generator is awesome to inject signals in FM radios to diagnose issues in 2 way radios and home stereos , but for transmitting radios , a SWR meter is for only checking SWR's .... Your antennae is where you want to adjust the SWR's .......
Nice looking kit! Maybe the "pick" is for opening the case? (First). :)
The pick is to use with the touch screen. Some NanoVNAs come with one as well.
@@ejrandler ah, thank you.
The tinysa has a built in signal generator would this help me tune a 50 watt duplexer????
The answer is no. It doesn't have anything like tracking generator, that thing can be used as a generator or as a spectrum analyzer, but not at the same time. Maybe you can characterize that duplexer using noise generator and tinySA, just to know if it needs some alignment or it is almost okay, but it doesn't help with tuning. If you are not experienced with duplexers tuning, don't even try it. This is not to discourage you, this is just because I know how tricky beasts duplexers are. To align a duplexer you need at least VNA with three bidirectional ports and a huge dynamic range and someone, who knows how to do it properly. There is possibility to tune it with two port VNA, but the results are sometimes acceptable, but definitely not good, and the huge dynamic range is still a must, so things like nanoVNA are completely out. And on top of that all, duplexers are tricky also from the mechanical point of view. If you want to do it yourself (for some reason like learning something), then try to find a mentor, otherwise you could run into unexpected troubles. There is one more thing, 50W are a lot of power and the duplexers are typically high-Q circuits, which means, that there are parts with some high voltage and another parts with a high current inside a relatively small box. Misstuning that thing could lead to a huge disaster when the full power is applied, which is another reason to find someone experienced.
Be real good if it could cover wi-fi freqs, 2.4 and 5.2 ghz.
It seems to be similar to the NanoVNA but is very different and has more options than the NanoVNA. But the NanoVNA is more common.
It's nothing like the nanoVNA. VNA is a antenna analyzer, SA is a spectrum analyzer. Completely different things.
Has anyone tried to tune a duplexer with one of these? Looks much easier to carry than my old HP 😂
I’m interested to buy it to measure FM deviation on CB radio with zero bessel method.
Have you tested this ?
NO, I didn't. I am not an expert to this things :)
Nice video, Paul. Have you had a chance to hook it up to a transceiver yet to look at how clean the output is? Do you need a set of attenuators to do this safely? 73, M0YZT
Thank you! 🙂 No I didn't. Attenuator is required and I don't have any 😃 but it can be also done wirelesly with uncluded telescopic mini whip.
Спасибо за интересный ролик
Very helpful thank you.
Thank you.
16:05 If you "don't even know what they means" then why are you reviewing this analyzer? It does look interesting though.
👍👍👍