Sorry for the very late summary and many thanks to Shaoxiong, Victor, Andrew, Boris, Valerie and
Mike for their input.
Original posting:
> Does anyone have any recommendations on RF network analyzers? We would be using it for probe
> tuning and
> construction, filter evaluation and construction, etc. We are currently considering something
> like the
> Agilent E5061A
Most of the responses were from users with assorted Agilent/HP units, with a minority using Anritsu
or Rhode & Schwartz units. Several were using the Agilent E5061A, which we eventually bought.
An RF network analyzer is one of the more useful test instruments that any NMR lab that does any
construction or repair on RF components (probes, filters, etc.) can have. Unfortunately, these units
are very expensive, with some of the higher end units approaching the price of a small NMR system!
The E5061A (the "E" stands for economy) does come within the budget of many NMR labs at a academic
price of about $13,000 CND. What keeps the price of this model down is a "low" upper frequency
limit (1.5 GHz), which should be fine for NMR in the near future, and a two port
transmission/reflection (S11, S21) test set, which again is fine for NMR purposes. We have had ours
for about a month now, and have found it very useful when adjusting triple resonance probes that
have a lot of inter-channel interaction, evaluation filter losses, evaluating "cross-talk" between
probe channels, probe repair, etc.
Cheers
-Kirk
Kirk Marat, Ph. D., NMR Facility Manager
Dept. of Chemistry
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2, CANADA
C#, What C++ should have been
ph. (204) 474-6259 FAX: (204) 474-7608
kirk_marat_at_umanitoba.ca
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Received on Tue Jan 13 2009 - 11:50:23 MST