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Test Equipment Recommendations

RescueRandy

Member
Joined
May 28, 2008
Messages
8
Location
North Carolina
Folks,

Looking for some real world feedback on coax & antenna analyzers. I know there was some discussion here recently about this, but I wanted to ask for some additional feedback. Our shop is an in-house radio shop for a commercial company. We maintain 4 sites with VHF or UHF repeaters currently, but this will be expanding to around 15 sites this year. All our radio systems used to be maintained by a 3rd party, but we have recently been given the opportunity to bring a lot of this work in-house. Luckily we have also been given some budget for equipment and training as well.
We have been getting by with a basic RigExperts antenna analyzer, but I want to get some additional quality test gear for testing antennas and feedlines.
I am familiar with the Anritsu Site Master analyzer line like the S331d/e, but I recently discovered the Bird SiteHawk analyzers at a trade show (didn’t know they made an analyzer). Not sure how they rate in quality, but was intrigued by their small size. I have also heard some recommendations of nanoVNAs. I have never used them, but thought that they were more in the hobby category then commercial gear?

Question for folks:
-Does anyone have experience with the Bird SiteHawk analyzers?
-What are you using for field testing at repeater sites? I’m guessing that folks are not taking bench test equipment to tower sites?
-Do you all find having an antenna analyzer with a tracking generator useful vs a dedicated spectrum analyzer?


Thanks for taking the time to read and feel free to point out if I’m missing something.
 

prcguy

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
16,835
Location
So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
Something to consider is if your sites have a lot of transmit ERP, small antenna analyzers may not work due to getting blitzed by all the RF. Sometimes you have to rely on a transmitter and fwd/ref wattmeter to make antenna measurements. At some sites I’ve worked at I can read upwards of 10 watts reflected all the time due to high power broadcast transmitters running continuously.
 

RescueRandy

Member
Joined
May 28, 2008
Messages
8
Location
North Carolina
Something to consider is if your sites have a lot of transmit ERP, small antenna analyzers may not work due to getting blitzed by all the RF. Sometimes you have to rely on a transmitter and fwd/ref wattmeter to make antenna measurements. At some sites I’ve worked at I can read upwards of 10 watts reflected all the time due to high power broadcast transmitters running continuously.
That is good to know. We are the only ones located at our tower sites, but do have a few sites that have multiple repeaters. We have an older Bird 43P Wattmeter that is in good shape. I have not researched yet what is needed to read TX power on a repeaters operating DMR (TDMA) vs analog output. From what I understand analog style wattmeter’s are not capable of reading TDMA output accurately. Of course I could just use any transmitter/radio to test the antenna in that scenario.
 

dickie757

Wired
Joined
Apr 25, 2017
Messages
478
Location
Out of range
I have uses a SiteHawk on a BDA donor feedline and antenna. I was under instruction, but it was very straight forward. It is built into Android OS, so you have to keep the OS updated as well as the radio section.

I dont have much to compare it to, except a different Bird analyzer, dont recall the model offhand, but the SiteHawk is crowded compared to the bigger Bird.
 

Echo4Thirty

Active Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Oct 6, 2021
Messages
951
Location
Spring,TX
Something to consider is if your sites have a lot of transmit ERP, small antenna analyzers may not work due to getting blitzed by all the RF. Sometimes you have to rely on a transmitter and fwd/ref wattmeter to make antenna measurements. At some sites I’ve worked at I can read upwards of 10 watts reflected all the time due to high power broadcast transmitters running continuously.

I had a hard time convincing a Part 97 repeater owner that he needed very good filters on his equipment before going on a very active rooftop site. He kept arguing until I showed him what you just described. I asked him "how do you think your equipment is going to like this level of wattage from the FM station over there being pumped into it?"
 

petnrdx

Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
Messages
418
Location
Hudson, FL
Forget the inexpensive stuff. Won't work in the presence of much RF. Questionable measurments, so useless.
If you are going to be doing anything other than what the Bird 43 wattmeter will tell you, you want an Anritsu or the Sighthawk or similar. Spend the dollars and save man hour expenses.
I know the Anritsu products are built to have pretty good RF immunity, and will warn you if they are being overloaded.
I would think the Sighthawk works in a similar fashion, but haven't touched one in about a dozen years.
I have the LMR-Master, so I am biased to that product line, but the Bird products are faithful, trustworthy instruments.
As for DMR, your Bird 43 will work fine on the repeater stations as they TX both time slots at once, just won't work for the
mobiles or handhelds.
If you REALLY want to know what your antenna system is doing, get something that does DTF-RL.
Takes out a lot of the guessing.
 

prcguy

Member
Premium Subscriber
Joined
Jun 30, 2006
Messages
16,835
Location
So Cal - Richardson, TX - Tewksbury, MA
Forget the inexpensive stuff. Won't work in the presence of much RF. Questionable measurments, so useless.
If you are going to be doing anything other than what the Bird 43 wattmeter will tell you, you want an Anritsu or the Sighthawk or similar. Spend the dollars and save man hour expenses.
I know the Anritsu products are built to have pretty good RF immunity, and will warn you if they are being overloaded.
I would think the Sighthawk works in a similar fashion, but haven't touched one in about a dozen years.
I have the LMR-Master, so I am biased to that product line, but the Bird products are faithful, trustworthy instruments.
As for DMR, your Bird 43 will work fine on the repeater stations as they TX both time slots at once, just won't work for the
mobiles or handhelds.
If you REALLY want to know what your antenna system is doing, get something that does DTF-RL.
Takes out a lot of the guessing.
The OP has a peak reading Bird 43 which should measure single slot DMR just fine.
 

RescueRandy

Member
Joined
May 28, 2008
Messages
8
Location
North Carolina
Thanks folks for the responses. I have been leaning towards the Anritsu due the positive reports I’ve heard and being more familiar with the product line.

@petnrdx
I looked up the LMR-Master. That looks like an amazing machine (should be for the price). Seems like it’s a step between an antenna analyzer and a full radio test set. Do you use any of the LMR-Master advanced features like digital protocol analyzer or coverage mapping?

@prcguy
Thanks for the info about the Bird 43P. I haven’t read up yet on the peak function of the meter and how it works.

It’s been interesting learning recently. I have a fair amount of experience with the radio programming and the DMR protocol itself, but newer to the RF side of things and especially test equipment. I appreciate the input. It’s helpful in sifting through all the “opinions” that are presented online.
 

wsp44

Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2016
Messages
111
Forget the inexpensive stuff. Won't work in the presence of much RF. Questionable measurments, so useless.
If you are going to be doing anything other than what the Bird 43 wattmeter will tell you, you want an Anritsu or the Sighthawk or similar. Spend the dollars and save man hour expenses.
I know the Anritsu products are built to have pretty good RF immunity, and will warn you if they are being overloaded.
I would think the Sighthawk works in a similar fashion, but haven't touched one in about a dozen years.
I have the LMR-Master, so I am biased to that product line, but the Bird products are faithful, trustworthy instruments.
As for DMR, your Bird 43 will work fine on the repeater stations as they TX both time slots at once, just won't work for the
mobiles or handhelds.
If you REALLY want to know what your antenna system is doing, get something that does DTF-RL.
Takes out a lot of the guessing.
Like Petnrdx, we have the LMR-Master and I am biased to that line, but the LMR master can seem cumbersome if you don't know your way around one. I've only used a Sitehawk a couple times and it was fairly straightforward.

A good watt meter will give you the quickest and easiest forward/reverse power reading, but drilling down deeper would require something that can give you a DTF reading.
 

petnrdx

Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
Messages
418
Location
Hudson, FL
RescueRandy, I have used pretty much every feature of the LMR-MASTER extensively. WiFi and Wi-Max not so much.
Yes, with a couple of its options, it makes a good service monitor. Not much that you can't test with it.
But it is complicated.
You have to think of that being many instruments in one case.
SPECTRUM-MASTER, SITE-MASTER, VNA-MASTER...
The more things an instrument does, the more difficult it is to use. You will have the same issue if you have a pile of separate instruments.
Its one of the few instruments that has testing capability for P-25, DMR, NXDN and analog, including coverage mapping for those modes.
Learning curve is pretty flat.
 
Joined
Apr 30, 2008
Messages
1,499
Location
Pittsboro IN
I own Copper Mountain R54 VNAs, they are no longer in production, replaced by the R60 with a broader bandwidth.
I use the Bird Sitehawk and Anritsu 331D when I teach the ETA antenna and line sweeping class, excuse the shameless plug, all do what you want. The Freedom/Astronic R8200 has a VNA option, their rep showed that in my class last year.

I find my R54 easier to handle due to its small size, but it does not have a display, it works off widows or linux OS. I have put a small widows tablet and the VNA in my cargo pants pockets to climb a ladder to the roof, much easier for me than putting a strap onto the Anritsu case. The R54 and Sitehawk can hang from a coax due to their smaller size and weight, the larger units would need a phase stable cable to relieve the stress on the bulkhead connector.

The Bird and Copper mountain menu systems are very intuitive, the Anritsu folks think along different lines than I do, like the IRS does with my tax deductions...
Some students at IWCE had the latest Anritsu which had a variation in the menu system from other models. The Viavi rep showed up a day later to demo his CX300 in our RFI class (how did that shameless plug slip in here?) and that's when I found out it has a VNA option.

My VNA and the Bird are single port which does have limitations when it comes to insertion loss testing on some components. My VNA has a 23 dBm input limit, I think the Sitehawk is 22, gave the demo unit back to Gregg Moffett so I can't swear to it.
 

petnrdx

Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
Messages
418
Location
Hudson, FL
I agree that the Anritsu folks think differently.
I chalk that up to the difference between "field" people and "lab" people.
Anybody remember the Motorola CyberTest service monitor?
I had one of those, and it had some REALLY cool features. Used it quite a while.
But having to rely on "external" software killed the idea of having to rely on an external device for display ever again.
Most if this comes down to familiarity with "brands".
For sure, I like the Anritsu.
But I was involved in testing, lets say "competing" products for comparison, and there was a lot of good instruments out there.
If you are in the business of keeping land mobile repeaters and such working, get a professional grade instrument.
I always recommend DTF-RL.
I love the Bird 43, and own three of them (different connectors), but they just give a go / no go measurement. They have their place.
Doesn't tell you where the problem is.
Same thing with having a single port VNA.
Very useful for the antenna system, but what if you want to tune duplexers or combiners?
I would recommend defining the work needs then get the instrument to fit the need.
Keep in mind the cost savings in "personnel hours" and travel expenses that can be had by a better analyzer.
They actually pay for themselves reasonably quickly depending on the work needing to be done.
Having mine made me a LOT of money.
 

RescueRandy

Member
Joined
May 28, 2008
Messages
8
Location
North Carolina
Those are all good points.
I think my goals with this test gear is to troubleshoot and maintain the RF side of our repeater systems well. To me that means being able to test the antenna, feed-line, and duplexers/filtering equipment.

Test I see as important are;
-Return loss/SWR on antennas and feed-lines.
-DTF. I have not used DTF on the RF side of the world yet, but it seems to be similar to how we use OTDRs for measuring events and issues with fiber optic cables.
-VNA for testing or tuning duplexers.
-TX power measurement.
-More advanced features like testing DMR directly and coverage mapping would be a great bonus, but not testing that we are doing yet.

Anything I missed?

@petnrdx
You make a good point about the value of time saved by having good equipment.

@speedway_navigator
I think you were teach in the classroom next to mine at IWCE this year. I was taking the GCT1 class. I do hope to take more classes like the ones you mentioned.
You mentioned phase stable cables. I’m not very familiar with those. Are those just high quality test cables or is there specific things that make them good for use with test equipment?

Also, on an interesting note from earlier. I found out Bird doesn’t recommend using the 43P for measuring DMR TX. I am reaching out to their support to find out more details.
 

Project25_MASTR

Millennial Graying OBT Guy
Joined
Jun 16, 2013
Messages
4,421
Location
Texas
A DMR repeater has a continuous carrier when transmitting regardless of whether it is actively transmitting on both time slots or single time slot. A Bird 43 is fine for measuring forward and reflected power from the repeater. Subscribers are different story though. I don't know if you will ever see a meter that says a 45W mobile is transmitting 45W in TDMA.

For tuning duplexers....best thing to use is a tracking generator. You can tune transmit combiners with a VNA or a tracking generator with a VSWR Return Loss Bridge.

Most VNAs are capable of DTF...as are some of the tracking generators when paired with a Return Loss Bridge.

I don't know if the CX300 from Viavi features a VNA but the R8200 from Astronics does...one box to do all your needs is the route I would go.
 

wsp44

Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2016
Messages
111
A DMR repeater has a continuous carrier when transmitting regardless of whether it is actively transmitting on both time slots or single time slot. A Bird 43 is fine for measuring forward and reflected power from the repeater. Subscribers are different story though. I don't know if you will ever see a meter that says a 45W mobile is transmitting 45W in TDMA.

For tuning duplexers....best thing to use is a tracking generator. You can tune transmit combiners with a VNA or a tracking generator with a VSWR Return Loss Bridge.

Most VNAs are capable of DTF...as are some of the tracking generators when paired with a Return Loss Bridge.

I don't know if the CX300 from Viavi features a VNA but the R8200 from Astronics does...one box to do all your needs is the route I would go.
Check out the telewave 44DL
 
Joined
Apr 30, 2008
Messages
1,499
Location
Pittsboro IN
You mentioned phase stable cables. I’m not very familiar with those. Are those just high quality test cables or is there specific things that make them good for use with test equipment?
They are high quality with the ability to resist lots of flexing, more so than the standard diameter coax test cables. A friend taught LAS when he was a Bell engineer and had students test their cables in class. Many failed and he had managers call him to complain their budgets were strained because they had to buy cables they had not planned on.

I got a student to let me test his phase stable cable and it jumped all over the screen, great example of assuming it must be good but it tested bad.
When I started hands on testing a guy said he and his coworkers tested theirs and all failed.
 

petnrdx

Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
Messages
418
Location
Hudson, FL
I agree with most of the above several peoples posts.
But I disagree with the statement that "For tuning duplexers....best thing to use is a tracking generator".
I believe the best thing to use for duplexers, combiners, and other filters is a VNA.
A spec an / track gen is a good way to tune dupes, etc.
But a proper VNA is better in my experience.
 

jeepsandradios

Member
Feed Provider
Joined
Jul 29, 2012
Messages
2,310
Location
East of the Mississippi
I'm another LMR Master user and wouldn't go to a site without it. Back in the day it was 2670 and VNA so two cases two power sources just a a hassle. Having both in one box now is night and day. I sweep way more antenna's now than I ever did before just because its all in the box.
 

Project25_MASTR

Millennial Graying OBT Guy
Joined
Jun 16, 2013
Messages
4,421
Location
Texas
Viavi VNA option video, Mr P-25 master is buried in his fleet maps so he could not find this, I hear he's stuck looking for the Bismarck...

So I just got to see the CX300 for the first time today and learned it does have a VNA option. I withheld my comment about the R8200 at least including the VNA in the base price (don't want it...buy an R8100). Didn't get the opportunity to really play with the CX300 though. Some things I think are nifty...some things I question why it's even there.
 
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