Meeting the needs of both broadcast and cable system designers, the Agilent Technologies 89400 vector signal analyzers precisely characterize signals in the emerging modulation formats of digital industries. Optimizing system performance requires precise measures of signal quality. Vector signal analyzers characterize complex-modulated signals with both quantitative and qualitative tests.
Error magnitude measurements portray the instantaneous vector difference between the input signal and an internally-generated reference containing the same data stream. Expressed as a time waveform, an error spectrum, or a signal-to-noise ratio, error magnitude is sensitive and repeatable enough to reveal signal degradation caused by even individual system components.
For quick visualization of modulation quality, the 89400 also provides traditional display formats such as eye and constellation diagrams. Carrier lock and symbol clock synchronization are automatic with the 89400, meaning that an external carrier reference or clock input is never required. Variable-alpha Nyquist filters are built-in and easily configured via menu selections.
With both time and frequency domain capability, Agilent 89400 vector signal analyzers show the behavior of complex signals in great detail and in a wide variety of formats. Powerful cursor functions allow measurements to be time or frequency selective, or both. Selectable trigger delay and time-record length control the portion of the time domain waveform that is captured. In addition, time-gating allows a subset of the time-record to be selected for subsequent calculations.
Measurements may be viewed in real time or captured gap-free in high speed sample memory.
Formats supported include QAM, VSB, FSK, BPSK, QPSK, and MSK. Analog demodulation shows amplitude, frequency, or phase variations versus time or frequency, and can be used to investigate transient or unintended signal modulation, including carrier phase noise. A built-in signal source outputs sinewave, chirp, noise, and arbitrary waveforms at baseband or RF. Although the baseband measurement can be extended to RF by providing external modulation and demodualtion, the 89440A 1.8-GHz vector signal analyzer allows you to directly measure the RF‑channel characteristics within its 7-MHz information bandwidth without using external modulation and demodulation. An Instrument BASIC program is required to remove the phase of the RF downconverter.
- Frequency range: dc to 1.8 GHz
- Sensitivity: -145 dBm/Hz
- Maximum bandwidth: 8 MHz