Hi
I am doing some EMC testing, and need something for my homelab that can go higher that my current equipment
So being a cheap, I found this one at 28 EUR:
It is based on this design, seems to be a clone:
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Knowledge of the field is the only thing that matters anymore. Back 20 or so years ago you could not do much without 10's of thousands of dollars of equipment. Amazing what is done now.
There seems to be a common Chinese business model: find some design, copy it with iffy parts and horrendous assembly quality, and ship without testing.
I got two RF signal generators from Amazon, one for $190 (6 GHz) and one for $30 (4 GHz). They mostly work.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc Science teaches us to doubt. Claude Bernard
The Chinese are driving a coach and horses through our tradional expectations of what we can expect for such and such a price. They'll destroy the established manufacturers if this goes on. Expect some retribution tariff-wise post-Covid.
It seems unlikely that there will be any takers to loose another "winnable" trade war at that time.
-- Jasen.
=CN
They don't have to use iffy parts or horrendous assembly quality. Ingenious design can be cheap and good. It doesn't pay to market the first units off the production line as all that cheap - make loads of money out of them, a nd invest the money in higher volume production and only then cut the price . Of course, if your Chinese competitors do it first they may grab the whol e market.
It's not the Chinese as such - it's new technology. The trouble with new te chnology is that all the bits you need to make it work are just as availabl e to the Chinese as anybody else, and the Chinese are educating lots of eng ineers who can read English and come up with their own variations.
e retribution tariff-wise post-Covid.
As Jasen Betts has said, only Trump is stupid enough to think that you can win a trade war. New technology does tend to destroy established manufactur ers - or at least established manufacturers who are silly enough to think t hat what sold well yesterday is guaranteed to be competitive tomorrow. Peop le who try to keep abreast or ahead of the technology - as Hewlett-Packard did for quite few years - are less vulnerable.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
AFAICS, HP are very much in the severely "at-risk" category from cheap Chinese competition.
When he says HP he means what is now called Keysight but back when it had a strong R&D cultute. Not the consumer electronics manufacturer that is now called HP.
-- Jasen.
can win a trade war. New technology does tend to destroy established manufa cturers - or at least established manufacturers who are silly enough to thi nk that what sold well yesterday is guaranteed to be competitive tomorrow. People who try to keep abreast or ahead of the technology - as Hewlett-Pack ard did for quite few years - are less vulnerable.
Indeed. Tom Gardener has made the same point here from time to time. I thou ght that "as Hewlett-Packard did for quite a few years" made the point pret ty explicit, but Cursitor Doom is both stupid and ignorant.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Was that barb really necessary??
I was not referring to the consumer products division of HP but rather Agilent/Keysight (thought that would have been obvious from the context). Manufacturers like Keysight, Rhode & Schwartz and such like are in imminent peril from the Chinese, who have come on in leaps and bounds over the last 20 years or so. If their rate of progress continues, they will leave the established Western corporations in the dirt. The fat cats have had it too good for too long IMO. $6k for a network analyser cal kit! Outrageous!
hought that "as Hewlett-Packard did for quite a few years" made the point p retty explicit, but Cursitor Doom is both stupid and ignorant.
6K may not be outrageous for a good kit at 40 GHz, but at 1.5 GHz one might argue if they are even needed in that you can make a suitable ope/short/50 ohm load yourself.Anritsu invaded the HP/Agilent market 15+ years ago. I am glad that below
5 GHz is now cheap. I think you still need the big buck to do serious K ba nd work.In a sense you get what you pay for. The problem with the old HP was that everything was top notch professional grade and you could not play in the a rena much at all if you could not get access to tens of thousand of dollars of equipment. This low end stuff is great and does allow hobbiests and eve n pros to do much of their work on it.
Have you picked up a "portable" spectrum analyzer from the 1990's. It feel like you are picking up something made out of black hole powder.
It is to him.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc The best designs are necessarily accidental.
For a bit of fun, certainly. But why bother when you can buy such a set off Ebay from China for $10 inc. postage? I did just out of curiosity and was amazed how well they performed. AMAZED!
Yeah, I have several boat anchors here that I've acquired over the years, including my main spectrum analyser for RF stuff: an HP 8566B which weighs in at something over 200lbs in total and makes the bench go bow-legged whenever pressed into service (doesn't do my back any favours either).
I'm wary about getting sucked into a protracted exchange of insults with him after what happened last time. You have to be on your guard, because he's very good at drawing you in without you being aware of it and you end up in a lengthy tit-for-tat exchange which he seems to very much enjoy but just drags the general tenor of the group into the dirt and puts newcomers off from joining and contributing. It's a real shame, because he is capable of so much more but for whatever reason, he's chosen to embrace the dark side. :-/
+1
It's called "rasslin' with pigs." They enjoy it and you get covered with muck.
+1
hought that "as Hewlett-Packard did for quite a few years" made the point p retty explicit, but Cursitor Doom is both stupid and ignorant.
It was appropriate, as Cursitor Doom has gone on to illustrate.
And as such, it was totally irrelevant to what I was saying. Stupidly so. C ursiotr Doom has either completely failed to appreciate what I was saying, or isn't going to let it stand in the way of him positng an other idiotic a nti-Chinese barb.
They have been playing catch-up, in much the same way that Japan did, decad es earlier. They seem to be rather better at it, probably because internati onal travel is lot easier now, and the world wide web makes it a lot less necessary. There doesn't seem to be a lot left for them to catch up on, so their economic growth rate is going to drop back to match all the other ad vanced industrial countries.
ern corporations in the dirt.
They've put a lot of effort into education, but inventing stuff and getting it to work is lot more expensive - and fails a lot moire frequently - tha n replicating something that somebody else has shown to work.
yser cal kit! Outrageous!
Old technology does tend to depend on a lot of expert, tedious and expensiv e manual tuning. Cheaper kit, selling into a bigger market - halving the pr ice tends to enlarge the market by a factor of ten until you run out of pot ential customers - encourages people to automate that kind of tuning (or de sign it out).
As I was saying, what John Larkin was complaining about was new technology, rather than specifically Chinese competition, though the do seem keen to e xploit new opportunities as soon as they show up.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
thought that "as Hewlett-Packard did for quite a few years" made the point pretty explicit, but Cursitor Doom is both stupid and ignorant.
him after what happened last time.
Not wary enough, because he really doesn't appreciate how little he knows, or how he misinterprets what he does know.
ithout you being aware of it and you end up in a lengthy tit-for-tat excha nge which he seems to very much enjoy but just drags the general tenor of the group into the dirt and puts newcomers off from joining and contributi ng.
Only newcomers who are as dim and non-contributing as he is. Sadly, most of them seem to be as unconscious of the quality-control aspect of these post s as he is.
reason, he's chosen to embrace the dark side. :-/
Cursitor Doom wants a forum where he can pontificate to his hearts content about stuff he doesn't known nearly enough about. Informed criticism makes him feel uncomfortable - when it should be driving him towards self-improve ment. Fat chance of that. As far as I am concerned he, is the dark side - o r one more unfortunate manifestation of it, along with Flyguy and John Doe.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
I thought that "as Hewlett-Packard did for quite a few years" made the poin t pretty explicit, but Cursitor Doom is both stupid and ignorant.
muck.
John Larkin, like Cursitor Doom, sees this forum as a place where they can boast about their imagined superior insights. John Larkin wants to get flat tered for them, and feels deeply hurt when it is suggested that his insight s aren't quite a superior as he likes to imagine. This isn't exactly gettin g covered with muck - if he had more sense he exploit the chance to refine his insights - but it seems to feel that way to him.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
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