[Elecraft] Suggestions on Antenna Analyzers

[Jim Brown]

On 3/30/2014 7:37 PM, Mark Tellez wrote:
> What is most important to me is accuracy, ease of use and of course giving me all the info I will need to adjust my antenna.

Do you own, and have you studied (a LOT) the sections of the ARRL 
Handbook and the ARRL Antenna Book on Transmission Lines and on the 
kinds of antennas that you want to "adust?" If the answer is no, do that 
before you buy an analyzer that will tell you things that you don't 
understand.

The AIM units are popular and highly advertised, sold by a reputable 
distributor, and are quite powerful, but they are of little use to 
someone who hasn't studied antennas and transmission lines a LOT. They 
are also expensive. My favorite of this sort of analyzer is the VNWA 3e, 
designed by DG8SAQ, an EE prof at a German university, and built and 
sold by a ham in the UK. It is more powerful, and more convenient to use 
than the AIM units, and at about $700, is half the cost of the 
comparable, but less capable, AIM 2180. It's also quite well supported 
online by the designer, who also wrote the software. All of these units 
work with a computer via the USB port to manage the measurement and 
display and process the data. A nice advantage of the VNWA 3e is that it 
gets power from the USB port. The AIM units need a power supply, which 
makes it more complicated to drag them into the field.

All of these units may "swept frequency" measurements, and can write 
data files of the data they have measured so that you use them in design 
programs like Sim Smith, and AC6LA's excellent Excel spreadsheets.

That's the nigh end. The low end are boxes like the MFJ-259-series, the 
latest version of which a C-model. The 259 has been ubiquitous for at 
least a decade -- it's very portable, it does a lot if you've studied 
those ARRL books, it's very portable (although it EATS batteries like an 
NFL lineman devours steaks) and you don't cry nearly as long when you 
drop it off the tower.

In the middle are newer dedicated "boxes" like those you've listed, and 
others. The more capable ones can do sweeps and generate data files, and 
they are relatively portable (like the 259) but they are likely to be a 
LOT less precise than the units that work with a computer.

Summary: None of these antenna analyzers will make your antenna work 
better, but studying those ARRL books WILL. And you won't understand 
what the analyzers are telling you if you haven't studied those books. 
And you can buy the books for a third the cost of the least expensive 
analyzer!

73, Jim K9YC