[Test-Equipment] RF spectrum analysis

[David]

On Sun, 19 Jan 2014 09:28:20 -0800, you wrote:

>A couple of years ago I got seduced back into my old hobby of ham
>radio---just what I don't need, a hobby! I would love to have a way to run
>the same sort of frequency response curves at RF for checking the resonances
>and Q's of tuned circuits, antennas etc. I could do it manually with my grid
>dip meter, calibrated receiver, and VTVM, but now I'm spoiled! Does anyone
>have a method, program, or a piece of hardware (down converter?) that yields
>a graphic representation of a frequency spectrum? Any suggestions would be
>greatly appreciated.

I have done this manually with a signal generator and oscilloscope.  If you want
the phase information to make a complete bode plot then you need a vector
network analyzer of some sort.

At low frequencies this is the best option I am aware of:

http://www.syscompdesign.com/CGR-101_ep_41-1.html

For higher frequencies I would look for something like this:

http://sdr-kits.net/VNWA3_Description.html