Madell or Atten AT5010 Spectrum Analyzer-Anyone Own?

[KC1UA]

Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with the Madell (sometimes also labelled "Atten" among other brands) AT5010 Spectrum Analyzer. This unit provides spectrum analysis from 150 KHz to 1 GHz and allows for audio output in AM and FM modes. It has bandwidths of 400 KHz and 20 KHz.

Is anyone using one of these for basic RF spectrum analysis, specifically for finding unknown transmiters? If so can you comment on performance? I'd be using it as a spectrum analyzer and also with a 10.7 MHz IF output of a receiver as well. I'm concerned about the 20 KHz bandwidth being the narrowest available and that this may cause signals that are close together to be missed. There is also a video bandwidth of 4 KHz, but I'm not sure how this figures into the mix as I'm still learning.

Specs for the unit can be found about halfway down the page in the following link, in the "5000 series" section: http://www.madelltech.com/m1-7.html

Any comments would be most welcome. These are reasonably inexpensive compared to most other spectrum analyzers out there, often available on EBay in the area of $500 or so. I'm not finding much in the way of comments regarding them. I spoke with a person at the company this morning that felt that the unit would be adequate for what I want to do.

Thanks.

 

[jimvm]

Notch Filter

http://www.qsl.net/we6w/projects/vhf_notch.txt

Try this, it worked for me. Mine is tuned to 153.0000 MHz and it lets me
hear again. Cheap to make.

jim

 

[KC1UA]

??? Jim, did you post in the wrong thread? Either that or I'm completely missing the point of your post. I'm interested in anyone's experience with a Madell AT5010 Spectrum Analyzer, not a notch filter.

 

[OpSec]

I think his post was meant for Mancow's thread...

 

[rescue161]

I have a 5010 here. Best advice, save up your pennies for a better one. It drifts making it hard to stay on freq. Frequency display only goes out 1 decimal spot, i.e. 462.5 instead of 462.5750. This makes it hard to tune a duplexer unless you're using a good signal generator with it. I bought the 5010 because it was advertised that it had a built in tracking gen. When I saw the stupid one-place dec point, I had to fork out more money for a signal generator.

Just my observations.

 

[rescue161]

I have a 5010 here. Best advice, save up your pennies for a better one. It drifts making it hard to stay on freq. Frequency display only goes out 1 decimal spot, i.e. 462.5 instead of 462.5750. This makes it hard to tune a duplexer unless you're using a good signal generator with it. I bought the 5010 because it was advertised that it had a built in tracking gen. When I saw the stupid one-place dec point, I had to fork out more money for a signal generator.

Just my observations.

Edit
I just looked at mine and it's a 5011. Either way, the frequency display still sucks.

 

[KC1UA]

Thanks for the info, Scott. At one time I owned an Avcom SDM-42A Spectrum Display Unit. It had a CRT screen and required periodic fine tuning to adjust drift.

I'm not overly concerned with the frequency display. I guess I'm looking for the best of both worlds. I would use it as a spectrum analyzer but I would equally use it as a spectrum display unit fed with a 10.7 MHz IF output, and just use the receiver to tune to received spikes. With that in mind I wonder if it would be any worse than the Avcom unit was. That was never really a big deal to me. What concerns me most is the apparent 20 KHz bandwidth and the fact that some signals could be missed as a result. I would only be using it to find signals, and never for tuning a duplexer.

Again, thanks, and I'd love to hear from anyone else with thoughts on this.