[HN Gopher] Designing a low-cost high-performance 10 MHz - 15 GH...
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       Designing a low-cost high-performance 10 MHz - 15 GHz vector
       network analyzer
        
       Author : pdziepak
       Score  : 73 points
       Date   : 2025-04-15 18:38 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (hforsten.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (hforsten.com)
        
       | henrikf wrote:
       | Thanks for the submission. Author here if you have any questions.
        
         | gcormier wrote:
         | Do you have a link to the files on github? I assume
         | https://github.com/Ttl/vna2 is the older version?
        
           | henrikf wrote:
           | It's not on Github, but I do have schematic at the end of the
           | blog post. vna2 is the previous version.
        
         | proee wrote:
         | Can you please create a high speed oscilloscope next? :-)
        
         | Sanzig wrote:
         | Not a technical question, just want to say I really appreciate
         | your projects! I work with a group of radar engineers and they
         | were absolutely floored by your EUR800 C-band polarimetric SAR
         | drone.
         | 
         | Any tips for working on hobby RF/microwave projects and staying
         | motivated while doing them? I am an EE and have a long list of
         | projects I want to do at home, but I can never seem to find the
         | time to do them.
        
           | henrikf wrote:
           | I have also had issues with motivation. I had a long pause
           | from about 2019 to 2024 where I didn't work on personal
           | electronics projects because I didn't have enough motivation.
           | This and last year however I have been very productive and
           | it's hard to say what exactly changed, just felt like working
           | on them.
        
         | onenukecourse wrote:
         | I just want to say thank you for your work. I bought one for
         | the lab last year and I love it. Maybe even saved my job.
        
       | greatgib wrote:
       | Really really impressive work!
        
       | ost-ing wrote:
       | Been following your blog for a while, such amazing depth and
       | write ups!
        
       | polishdude20 wrote:
       | Any writeup of how the software was written?
        
         | henrikf wrote:
         | There's not much software. PC calculates PLL register values
         | for correct LO and source output frequencies, and transfers
         | them to the FPGA which writes them to the hardware. FPGA
         | accumulates the downconverted samples from the receiver ADCs.
         | Samples are transferred to PC which calculates ratios of the
         | receiver outputs to get uncorrected S-parameters. scikit-rf
         | Python library is used for calibration and plotting.
        
       | kayson wrote:
       | Very impressive. Interesting how expensive the components get.
       | I'm guessing it's more of a "anyone who really needs this can
       | afford it" kind of thing.
        
       | Zeetah wrote:
       | @henrikf - can you share where you got the CNC done? Thanks.
        
       | kayson wrote:
       | Have you considered making something more expensive with better
       | performance? Commercially? You mention Keysight VNA's in the
       | $10,000+ range, but we regularly buy VNA's in the $100,000+
       | range. I imagine with a $1000 budget you could do quite a lot.
        
       | tiffanyh wrote:
       | TIL: Vector Network Analyzers (VNAs) tests component
       | specifications and verify design simulations, ensuring system
       | compatibility.
        
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       (page generated 2025-04-15 23:00 UTC)