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Spectran User Manual (HF60XX-V4)

1. 1 W m 0 000 1 uW cm 0 001 uW cm 0 01 W cm 0 1 uW cm 1 uW cm 10 uW cm 100 uW cm 0 000 000 1 mW cm 0 000 001 mW cm 0 000 01 mW cm 0 000 1 mW cm 0 001 mW cm 0 01 mW cm 0 1 mW cm Table 2 Conversion from uW cm to V m and A m 0 000 1 W cm 0 001 uW cm 0 01 uW cm 0 1 uW cm 1 uW cm 10 uW cm 100 uW cm 0 019 4 V m 0 061 4 V m 0 194 V m 0 614 V m 1 94 V m 6 14 V m 19 4 V m 0 000 051 5 A m 0 000 162 A m 0 000 515 A m 0 001 62 A m 0 005 15 A m 0 016 2 A m 0 051 5 A m Table 3 dBm to dBW and W incl respective fractional units 0 10dBm 30dBW 40dBW 0 001W 0 000 1W 1mW 100uW 20dBm 30dBm 40dBm 50dBm 50dBW 60dBW 0dBW 80dBW 0 000 01W 10uW 0 000 001W 1uW 0 000 000 1W 100nW 0 000 000 01W 10nW 60dBm 90dBW 0 000 000 001W 1nW 0dBm 100dBW 0 000 000 000 1W 100pW dBm Decibelmilliwatts dBW DecibelWatts W Watts mW MilliWatts uW MicroWatts nW NanoWatts pW PicoWatts Table 4 Frequency wavelength and frequency band denomination 3 Hz 30 Hz 30 Hz 300 Hz 300 Hz 3 kHz 3 kHz 30 kHz 30 kHz 300 kHz 300 kHz 3 MHz 3 MHz 30 MHz 30 MHz 300 MHz 300 MHz 3 GHz 3 GHz 30 GHz 100 000 km 10 000 km ULF 10 000 km 1 000 km ELF 1 000 km 100 km VF 100 km 10 km 10 km 1 km 1 km 100 m 100 m 10 m 10m 1m 1 m 10 10 cm 1 cm HW 4 FW 42 2005 2013 DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia
2. DL Downlink mostly means base station fixed transmitter which transmits towards the portable device e g cell tower Power variable between 0 5 500W ERP Range of up to 8 km Significantly more extensive lists available on the Aaronia homepage To get the full luxury get our free PC analysis software directly from there All frequency values in MHz HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 65 9 AARONIA AG 19 0 Warranty The AARONIA warranty Guaranteed upgrades to bigger models You can exchange your measurement device against a higher grade model of the same series at any time by simply paying the price difference For example if you have purchased a SPECTRAN HF 6060 V4 and notice that you need a higher sensitivity after some time you could replace it with the SPECTRAN HF 60100 V4 by just paying the difference to this model However for taking advantage of this service you need to have purchased the unit directly from Aaronia Germany Guaranteed upgrades to newly developed models As soon as we present new products you can replace your model with a new Aaronia measurement instrument of your choice at any time This has been realized for the first time in the year 2000 when we introduced the new Multidetektor II series Customers who sent back their Multidetektor 1 only had to pay half the price for the new Multidetektor Il series device The us
3. Start frequency kHz truncated to integer STARTFREQ see 7 3 Stop frequency kHz truncated to integer STOPFREQ see 7 3 RBW Filter RESBANDW see 7 4 Video filter VIDBANDW see 7 5 Sweep time SWEEPTIME see 7 6 Attenuator see 7 9 Reference level REFLEVEL see 7 7 Display range DISPRANGE see 7 8 Detector type PULSEMODE see 7 13 HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 33 9 AARONIA AG 7 0 The main menu ky k CalRun recalibrates the SPECTRAN noise floor on different points within the full frequency range and stores the results permanently ATTENTION Please make sure that no RF source disturbs this measurement Dont connect any antenna usb cable or power charger Only start the calibrati on within a low rf area or room You get the best results if you use our optio nal Calibration Resistor ArtNo 779 which gets connected to the SPEC TRAN sma RF input The Del option permanently erases a previously saved program Enter the number of the program to be erased Factor resets the entire device to factory defaults This feature is particu larly useful for cleaning up a messed up configuration 34 HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 8 0 Correct measurement AARONIA AG ky Note that when measuring high frequency radiation yo
4. Manual SPECTRAN V4 AARONIA AG WWW AARONIA DE Ky k Made in Germany 26 01 2013 gh re AARONIA AG WWW AARONIA DE X Please read the following manual carefully before using your measurement device This manual contains important information on how to properly operate this unit HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 1 WWW AARONIA DE By purchasing this SPECTRAN high frequency measurement device you acquired a professional piece of equipment which allows measurement of high frequency fields Please note For measurement of low frequency fields high voltage lines trac tion power various household appliances etc you additionally need one of our NF series SPECTRAN models Thus we recommend to buy one of our cost effective measurement Bundles Bundles be purchased from Aaronia at any time by paying the correspon ding price difference Should you wish to upgrade to a more sophisticated SPECTRAN model you can do so at any time All available OPTIONS like memory expansions or longer lasting batteries can just as well be added at any time depen ding on model Also be sure to utilize our free of charge PC analysis software MCS which offers far more features than the base unit including a large amount of optimised settings for evaluating various signal types including channel and ser vice provider relat
5. width DECT only has 20MHz 1 880 1 990 2 20 2 of bandwidth a very small range Amateur radio in contrast already uses a far higher bandwidth 2 320 2 450 130MHz and so on Well this wasn t all that difficult was it We can now see ALL information con cerning these three signal sources In practice this will look similar on the SPECTRAN display 5023 g333M Menm itl In this example we also have 3 main signal sources from left to right Signal 1 942MHz at 63dBm Signal 2 2 024MHz at 23dBm Signal 3 5 823MHz at 42dBm HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 53 AARONIA AG 14 0 Spectrum analysis basics These are displayed as vertical bars The same rule as example applies here too The higher the measured signal strength the higher the bar Further information regarding each of the bars is displayed from left to right as markers in the upper display area On the left marker 1 is displayed the first bar from the left with 942MHz at 63dBm In the middle marker 2 the second bar from the left 2 024MHz at 23dBm On the right marker 3 the last rightmost bar is displayed 5 823MHz at 42dBm Notice The configured frequency range is constantly being scanned Thus the display will also constantly change This is recognizable because of a small dot above the graphics display which moves fr
6. AM amplitude modulation FM frequency modulation and PM phase modu lation The dot key can be used to switch between AM and FM at any time The demodulator can be turned off by choosing Off or by pressing the menu key Demodulation takes place around the center frequency bandwidth is con trolled by the RBW setting This allows custom monitoring of individual small frequency ranges However note that the filter is slightly less defined in this mode meaning that very strong signals on neighbouring frequencies might audibly into the currently selected frequency range as well Example You might be demodulating the signal of a DECT phone key 0 with a GSM900 transmitter in proximity as well Depending on antenna alignment you might also hear the modulation of the GSM signal With GSM you can activate a powerfull GSM Decoder mode In this mode the spectrum display will be deavtivated Instead you will see con tinuos decoded GSM data stream The follwoing symbols are used Signal cant be decoded signal is to weak or bad signal The signal should offer more then 70dBm At high power signal you must deactivate the pream plifier or select the internal attenuator F Found FCCH 5 Found Sync 0 7 Represent the colorcode or TSC Training Sequence number As demodulation is performed in allmost realtime it is especially suitable for very quick location and assessment of signal sources
7. Giga units However in contrast to the aforementioned cheap devices SPECTRAN offers a practical Autorange feature in W m mode e g instead of displaying an endless num ber of zeroes it just displays the corresponding abbreviation f p n or m befo re the unit HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 55 AARONIA AG 15 0 Physical units kak 56 HW 4 FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 9 16 0 Some high frequency math AARONIA AG LIES Operators various governmental authorities and also scientists themselves actually have fun jumping around between units wildly in their publications Consequently the casual reader often loses track of the relationships between units completely To save you from such problems SPECTRAN offers functio nality to convert between units or directly display measurements in the unit of your choice Furthermore we have collected several tables for simple compari son and correspondingly conversion of units and values For our mathemati cally adept customers we also included the most important basics and formulas dealing with high frequency radiation Power density of high frequency signals is oftentimes measured in W m pri marily in Europe or W cm primarily in the US Conversion between these units is simple 1 W cm 0 01 W m 0 001 mW cnv or 10 W cm 0 1 W m 0
8. Military T Mobile 2 Vodafone E Plus Military T Mobile O2 AARONIA AG U U U U GSM18K D D D D 1 847 8 1 853 0 GSM18K Vodafone 1 853 2 1 875 4 GSM18K D E Plus UL Uplink mostly means portable device portable transmitter which transmits towards the base station e g cellphone Pulsed at 217Hz Power variable between 25mW 1W Peak DL Downlink mostly means base station fixed transmitter which transmits towards the portable device e g cell tower Pulsed at 217Hz Control channel pulsed at 1 736Hz Power variable between 0 5 and 300W ERP Range of up to 16 km Significantly more extensive lists available on the Aaronia homepage To get the full luxury get our free PC analysis software directly from there All frequency values in MHz L L L L L L L L L Table 9 German UMTS frequencies and providers Start Stop frequency Abbreviation 1 920 3 1 930 3 1 940 3 1 950 0 1 959 9 1 969 8 2 110 3 2 120 2 2 130 1 2 140 0 2 149 9 2 159 8 1 930 2 1 940 2 1 950 2 1 959 9 1 969 8 12737 2 120 2 2 130 1 2 140 0 2 149 9 2 159 8 2 169 7 UMTS DL Provider Vodafone Group 3G e plus MobilCom O2 T Mobile D Vodafone Group 3G e plus MobilCom O2 T Mobile D UL Uplink mostly means portable device portable transmitter which transmits towards the base station e g cellphone Power variable between 2 5mW 250mW Peak
9. ignored Even though it doesn t really feel quite adequate to support exposure limits precautionary limits as trivial as these in an instrument like SPECTRAN we still decided to include the so called Salzburger Vorsorgewerte Salzburg pre cautionary limits as a bare minimum All of the following precautionary limits for ecologically compatible construction can be selected and displayed instantly using SPECTRAN s Exposure limit calculation mode by using the right left arrow keys Salzb1 Salzburg precautionary limit OLD 1mW m Salzb1 ECOLOG recommendation indoors 1mW m Salzb2 Salzburg precautionary limit outdoors 2002 10uW m Salzb3 Salzburg precautionary limit indoors 2002 1 W m Salzb3 Citizen forum electrosmog for daytime areas indoors 10uW m Please take into account that some of these limits are only applicable to certain types of signal sources or frequency bands You should consult the original aut hors of these limits for the exact and most current modes of application Notice 1mW 1 000uW 1 000 000nW 1 0 001mW 1 000nW 1nW 0 000 001mW 0 001u WV HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 43 M LR AARONIA AG 11 0 Antenna mounting and handling LIS You can operate SPECTRAN either with the optionally available OmniLOG antenna or with the professional HyperLOG antenna 11 1 Single handed operation using th
10. 01 mW cm and so on see table 1 on page 64 Less frequently values in dBm m and dBW m can be found Conversion is similarly simple 1 W cm 10dBm m 20 dBW m or 10 W cm 20dBm m 10 dBW m etc respectively However the most frequently used unit is V m see table 2 on page 64 Here you should remember that power flux density S measured W m really con sists of two separate fields The electric field E measured in V m and the magnetic field H measured in A m However as these do not exist separately anymore at high frequencies their separate indication is not really interesting for RF exposure However this is only the case outside the so called close up range How you calculate the close up range and how the relationship between the different radiations works is described below Power flux density S also called electromagnetic field or power density is calculated as follows E s H 5 If H is unknown the following formula still allows a calculation of S assuming 377 Ohms as the so called field resistance of air 3770 Slit HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 57 Fa LR AARONIA AG 16 0 Some high frequency math In contrast if E is not known calculation of S is still possible as follows 2 4 3770 Should you wish to calculate the electric field E the following formula applies El S 1 377Q And the m
11. 15 1 Measuring transmission power dBm dBuV 15 2 Field strength V m A m and power density W m 16 0 Some high frequency math 16 1 Calculating the wavelength in m 16 2 Calculating the close up range in m 16 3 Calculating power density W m from power dBm 17 0 Conversion tables 18 0 Frequency tables Cellphones GSM900 GSM1800 amp UMTS 19 0 Warranty 20 0 Measurement recommendations 21 0 Developer Net User Forum and more 22 0 Antenna and Analyzer frequency chart Contents HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com x kx 1 0 Safety precautions AARONIA AG ky Always attach antennas and adapters without excessive force To attach and release SMA connections ONLY use the included plastic SMA tool as it offers an over torque protection Never expose the device to water Never use it outdoors while it is raining Otherwise the sensitive electronics could be damaged Avoid excessively high temperatures Do not leave the device on heatings in direct sunlight or in your car Due to the high sensitivity the sensors and display of this device are sensitive to shock hence it should be handled with care Do not drop the device or antennas as they could be damaged or destroyed We strongly recommend using our carrycase for storage and transport Even though the device is well secured through the use of counter sunk screws it should stil
12. 2 With main menu active Clear input 4 Arrow keys 1 With main menu active Selection of menu entries 2 In Spectrum analysis mode Right Left keys Move frequency range by one SPAN Up Down keys Move reference level by 10dB 3 In Exposure limit calculation mode Right Left key Select Exposure limits or W m display 4 In Audio mode Right Left key Increase decrease center frequency by one RBW Up Down key Increase decrease RBW bandwidth 5 Dot key 1 In Spectrum amp Exposure limit calculation modes HOLD on off 2 In Audio mode Switch between AM FM 6 Shift key In Spectrum amp Exposure limit calculation modes PULSE on off 7 Enter key 1 Switches between the modes spectrum analysis exposure limit calculation audio and broadband detector if installed 2 With main menu active Confirms current input ENTER key 8 Menu key Call Dismiss Main menu for changing various settings 8 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 9 5 0 Your first measurement Modes AARONIA AG explain how to use SPECTRAN we will perform measurement of cell tower While doing so you will get to know all the different operation modes of SPECTRAN including the important HOLD function and the panning approach It is really very simple just follow these instructions step by step Prepare SPECTRAN for operation as follows Remove the protective
13. AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 59 AARONIA AG 17 0 Conversion tables ke k Table 0 Conversion dBm to W m with HyperLOG antenna Assuming the use of an idealized measurement setup like our HyperLOG antenna with 5dBi gain and one of our 1m RG316U cables with 1dB damping the following conversion table can be applied to the signal sources below figures in W m 0 013 0 0013 0 000 13 00000045 0 000 013 0 000 0022 0 000 000 45 0 000 001 3 0 000 000 22 0 000 000 045 0 000 000 13 0 000 000 018 0 000 000 022 We assumed the following center frequencies f here GSM900 f 900MHz Lambda X f 1550MHz GSM1800 DECT f 1800MHz UMTS f 2000MHz WLAN microwave ovens f 2450MHz The conversion tables demonstrates that per 10dB step power density decreases by a factor of 10 This applies in a similar manner to the 1dB steps which also change in a constant manner Consequently this table permits easy and fast conversion of indicated dBm values for example from the optional PEAK detector into PEAK field strength or respectively power density in W m This table can just as well be used with different antennas attenuators or cables For example should you be using our 20dB attenuator option you would extract those rows from the table whose dBm values are 20dB higher for example 10dBm instead of 30dBm As a different example should you be using an antenna with 24dBi gain you wou
14. Display Mode sta tus field reads SPECTRUM Should you have good reception and properly aligned antenna this is impor tant you should now have results similar to those shown in the image on the left However should the large Main display show or 150 no signal is being received and you need to change your location or align the anten na differently During every measurement a little dot moves from left to right in the Graphics display Only when this dot reaches the right border the current measurement is finished and all readings are updated The Main display always shows the level of the strongest signal 45 in our example The higher this figure is the closer it gets to 0 or a positive value the stronger the received signal for example 35 means a much stronger signal than the 45 shown in our example 10 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 9 5 0 Your first measurement Modes AARONIA AG ky Directly beneath a max of 3 so called Markers are being displayed They show the frequencies and levels of the strongest signal sources In our example we got two Markers Marker1 at 930MHz at 75dBm and Marker2 at 950MHz at 45dBm 45dBm also being the strongest signal and thus also shown on the Main display Marker1 Marker2 930MHz 950MHz 75dBm 45dBm Graphics display with spectrum Ben
15. and exposure limits Please note that the values in the graphic display can slightly change even if the dBm value on the main display is stable as internally SPECTRAN also uses the non visible fractions of the main display value to calculate the figures related to exposure limits One more alternative for finding the location of a signal source or for identifica tion further processing of signals is the so called demodulation Here modula tion and pulsing of signal sources if they exist can be converted to sound and thus become audible SPECTRAN offers a special mode for this 14 HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 5 0 Your first measurements Modes AARONIA AG ky 5 5 Operation mode audio output demodulation DISPLAY MODE status field shows or FM All SPECTRAN models offer a so called demodulator The demodulator makes pulsing and modulation of a sig nal source audible if it exists The frequency exact selective acoustic reproduction of a signal can be very helpful with identifying and finding a signal source As demodulation takes place in realtime it is also perfectly suited for quickly locating a signal sour SPECTRAN offers two demodulation modes AM amplitude modulation FM frequency modulation To switch between the two modes use the dot key the DISPLAY MODE status field shows AM or Volume can
16. between 1 900 1 and 2 200 0MHz As we only want to measure the cell tower and not the cell phone we only need the so called downlink frequency This frequency according to the frequency list ranges from 2 019 7 to 2 200 0 MHz The Vodafone cell towers according to the list only use frequencies between 2 110 3 and 2 120 2MHz These are the start and stop frequencies we were looking for Program them as follows Press the menu key 14 Navigate to the menu entry labelled fLow using the arrow keys te Press the Enter key e Now choose the unit to be used for frequency entry Available choices 4 x Hz kHz MHz and GHz In this case we will use MHz Press the ENTER key once again e Azero appears on the large main display Additionally the big status field reads START Now enter the START frequency in full MHz using the number keys In this case we want to start at 2 110 3MHz So enter 2110 rounded and correct any typos by pressing the CLR key and repeating the input When finished press Enter again for confirmation 4 You now being returned to the main menu next menu entry fHigh has already been automatically selected HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 19 6 0 Setting custom frequency range het Press the ENTER key once more ms Once again choose the unit to be used for frequency en
17. com 61 9 AARONIA AG 17 0 Conversion tables ky Table 5 Power amplification factor and corresponding value in dB 10 000 000 dB Decibel 62 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 18 0 Frequency tables AARONIA AG ka Table 6 Cellphone frequencies and providers Start Stop frequency Abbreviation Provider 864 1 868 1 CT2 Private 885 0 887 0 CT1 UL Private 914 0 915 0 CT1 UL Private 930 0 932 0 CT1 DL Private 959 0 960 0 CT1 DL Private 1 880 1 900 DECT Private 5 725 5 825 DECT2 Private UL 7 Uplink mostly means portable device mobile transmitter which transmits towards the base station e g a cellphone DL Downlink mostly means base station fixed transmitter which transmits towards the portable device e g a base station License expired CT1 Cordless phone analogue License expires 1 1 2007 10mW EIRP DECT Base station always transmits even when not handling calls 250mW EIRP DECT2 New generation of cordless phones DECT successor 25mW EIRP Significantly more extensive lists available on the Aaronia homepage To get the full luxury get our free PC analysis software directly from there All frequency values in MHz HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 63 9 AARONIA AG 18 0 Frequency tables Table 7 German 55 90
18. evaluating the ACTUAL emitted signal strength particularly in the context of modern digital sig nals Thus these instructions should be considered with care Nonetheless it s still a nice technical tool for a quick assessment To detect a signal maximum you should definitely use the HOLD function see chapter 5 2 on page 11 and the so called panning approach chapter 5 3 page 12 This suggestion is valid for this mode in particular due to the extre mely fast display updates This is the only way to accomplish a useful mea surement Still the intended application for the broadband option is operation as a power meter Its high temperature stability guarantees highly reproducible results The instrument s input impedance is standard 50 Ohms so a broad range of equip ment and antennas can be connected without any troubles The highest accu racy is reached with attenuator 10dB and PreAmp Off Dont forget the maxi mum levels in this configuration HINT You can upgrade your instrument with the broadband option at any time Depending on your model detectors for up to 10GHz 12GHz are available Be sure to contact us should the need arise Note If the broadband detector is installed the bargraph can also be activated use the BackBB function to ALWAYS show the PEAK signal strength measured by the detector Even in spectrum analysis mode where normally the frequency selective measurement result is dis
19. field displays RF All SPECTRAN models equipped with the Option 20x feature an integrated RF detector power meter which can be utilized to acquire BROADBAND power measure ments in dBm or dBuV up to 10GHz 12GHz smal lest detectable signal level is around 50dBm preamp activated depending on frequency The maximum level measurable is approximately 10dBm Due to technical considerations frequency display is NOT possible in this mode thus only a OHz marker is shown The graphics display is transformed into a Time Domain displays the variation of signal level in time is visualised You can change the update speed by altering the Sampletime menu SpTime The large main display and the bargraph show you the measurement result in dBm or dBuV The noisefloor is about 50dBm In addition a potentially existing amplitude modulation AM will be made avai lable on the audio output feature in development In that case the display mode status field will display In contrast to the Spectrum analysis mode SPECTRAN s broadband detector allows straightforward and very fast REALTIME display of all PEAK signal levels in the entire frequency range of the detector To take advantage of this set the SpTime to 1mS using the menu By utilizing a high end state of the art Silicon Germanium SiGe technology detector chip we even provide detection of ultra short pulsings This opens up a whole n
20. filter To do this set RBW to FULL and SpTime to 1mS The result is an extremely fast sweep of even large frequeny ranges However note that due to the extremely high filter bandwidth with this setting both the frequency and level readings now are to be interpreted with care Furthermore depending on frequency signal levels now must exceed 65dBm at 5GHz to be detected As this mode is also specifically designed to apply less interference processing it is only recommended for experienced users as a quick assessment tool Nonetheless it s still very handy feature Allocating keys with your own measurement settings The keys 0 to 9 can be allocated with custom configurations incl start stop fre quency RBW etc with program numbers 100 to 109 corresponding to the keys 0 to 9 Simply store the current configuration via the Setup amp Store menu entries using one of these program numbers and they will be available at any time using the corresponding key It s even easier with our free PC analysis software MCS Here you can even attach info texts To recall the factory settings sel ect Factor under the Setup menu HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 39 AARONIA AG 9 0 Tips and tricks Using the 0 key you can call up DECT analyser to measure active DECT phones By pressing the DECT key 0 key more
21. need to adhere to the personal safety limits and are thus a subset of those A particularly restrictive example is the ISM868 band It offers extreme dynamics inside a very small frequency range ERP mW 42 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 10 0 Exposure limits AARONIA AG LIES 10 3 Limits for ecologically compatible construction These limits are vastly different to the official personal safety limits They are mostly significantly stricter Well this would be fine on its own However to our big surprise in contrast to the highly complex official ICNIRP limits which are also authoritative in Germany they have no frequency component at all mea ning that these exposure limits are absolutely identical both at e g 9OOMHz and 2GHz Thus professional technicians and experts in the area alike are mightily surpri sed by this curious manner of handling exposure limits There is a simple explanation though The measurement devices used in the field of ecologically compatible con struction are exclusively based on so called broadband diode detector techno logy However with these instruments frequency selective professional mea surement is impossible Thusly frequency selective exposure limits would simply not be feasible for use with these devices Though we hope that this will change quickly with SPECTRAN as the frequency should definitely not just be
22. now is the highest signal level that could be detected in the ent ire room Mostly you will be able to find the highest reading by rotating the antenna to the left or right by 90 degrees as this corresponds with the alignment of the transmission antennas As this antenna is directional you can even try to find the location of the trans mission tower However often this is only possible outside as inside rooms there are too many reflections which produce an erroneous idea of the direction Now just try to find the maximum in several rooms to get comfortable with the panning approach and the important HOLD function Now a measurement result is of course not too useful if it cannot be compared to some kind of reference limit Until now this has been extremely complicated using complex tables and converting between units An often exhausting task even for some professionals and particularly for the novice Thus SPECTRAN offers a separate very easy to use mode for exposure limit calculation 12 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com FR 5 0 Your first measurements Modes AARONIA AG LIS 5 4 Operation mode Exposure limit calculation Display status field shows EXPOS LIMITS Now press the Enter key until the Display Mode status field shows EXPOS LIMITS 3 Firstly the strongest signals are shown along with their frequencies and levels
23. point on the display To activate the cursor simply turn the Jog dial and the cursor appears as a line in the spectrum display You can deactivate the cursor by pressing the menu key twice The portion of the spectrum display under the cur sor is drawn in inverse so its information is preserved Frequency and level at the current cursor position Cursor The spectrum portion under the cursor is drawn in inverse By turning the Jog dial the cursor can be positioned freely on the display The readout on the large main display as well as the exposure limit display and demodulation now correspond ONLY to the current cursor position The current frequency and level displays for the cursor are only updated after a complete sweep and shown the first leftmost marker field Consequently the auto mar ker feature is disabled in this mode When you press the Jog dial after positioning the cursor you can zoom into a signal Here the CENTER frequency will be shifted to the indicated cursor posi tion and frequency the SPAN is reduced by one half and a new sweep is initia ted So you have zoomed into the signal by 50 This function can be utilized as often as you wish until the desired resolution is reached An incredibly con venient feature Deactivate the cursor again by pressing the menu button twice ATTENTION The cursor does NOT get erased when in HOLD mode 38 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia DE 54597 Eusche
24. residual noise is always increased by roughly 10dB due to mathematical reasons HW V4 FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 27 AARONIA AG 7 0 The main menu HINT You can always switch between the RMS MinMax modes with the Shift key one case where this is useful is determining the crest factor the dif ference between RMS and MinMax 7 14 Disp display mode The Disp setting is used for switching between a few different display modes Write does not change the display behaviour at all and is the default setting PkHold disables erasure of the spectrum display the Mode status field displays HOLD All signals peaks ever displayed by the spectrum display stay visible permanently Only stronger signals than those previously measured can overwrite the display this obviously also includes the markers as well as the bargraph except with the Power meter option Averag averages the results of several sequential sweeps A very handy feature for suppressing casual interference or to smooth out the noise floor in order to achieve improved display of very weak signals HINT You can use the PkHold mode to create long term measurement proto cols Simply leave this mode on for say 24 hours and see all events that have occu red during that period The instrument can also be used as a so called EVENT RECORDER for catching signal emissions that
25. ter to the HyperLOG antenna as described before While doing so slightly and continuously push d the HyperLOG antenna further into the sensor pickups on the SPECTRAN As soon as the SMA adapter is screwed to the HyperLOG antenna slightly tighten the connection wi the SMA tool as described above N Now attach the included pistol like grip to the bot tom side of the HyperLOG antenna such that the antenna and the SPECTRAN device form a single unit and can be handled as shown in the image on the left The SPECTRAN device itself should be sup ported by the user s arm You now have a single compact easy to handle measurement package Using the grip on the HyperLOG antenna the com plete package can easily be adjusted as needed After unmounting the grip the measurement package can be stowed completely as is into the Aaronia _ carrycase As such it is ready to use for the next time without further hassle 46 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 12 0 Connections AARONIA AG ky 12 1 External DC input battery charger mains operation All SPECTRAN RF measurement devices contain a high performance battery package which is already installed in the unit However this battery is not yet charged for safety reasons Hence you should charge it with the included charger For this connect the charger to a wall socket and plug the mini phone plug into the DC
26. using markers just like in spec trum mode The large main display shows the level of the strongest signal as usual In the graphics display below the strongest signal is converted to power density W m and displayed The cable and antenna data are already considered in these calculations Particularly handy so called Autorange function the W m display is complemented d the correct unit automatically 1 1000 one thousandth 5 1 1 000 000 one millionth n 1 1 000 000 000 one billionth p 1 1 000 000 000 000 one trillionth f 1 1 000 000 000 000 000 one quadrillionth In our example the display reads 797 21nW m or 797billionth W m or in other words 0 000 000 797 21 W m As this example clearly shows one would actually drown in the huge number of zeros without the autorange function By the way the practical HOLD feature is also available in this mode for keeping the display smoother Better yet you can even display a percentage relative to an exposure limit As vastly different exposure limits for high frequency fields exist depending on your measure ment s purpose circumstances and or professional back ground SPECTRAN offers several exposure limits right away You can change between exposure limits with 93740 050 the left right arrow keys e ur Further explanation of exposure limits can be 5 found in the Exposure limits chapter in this m
27. 0 frequencies and providers Start Stop frequency Abbreviation Provider 880 0 GSM R UL Deutsche Bahn 885 1 GSM900 E Plus NEW 890 1 O2 Germany NEW 892 4 Vodafone 899 8 T Mobile 906 0 Vodafone 910 4 T Mobile 914 2 Vodafone 914 8 T Mobile 925 0 Deutsche Bahn 930 1 E Plus NEW 935 1 O2 Germany NEW 2 937 4 Vodafone 937 6 944 8 T Mobile 945 0 951 0 Vodafone 951 2 9554 T Mobile 955 6 9592 Vodafone 959 4 959 8 T Mobile UL Uplink mostly means portable device mobile transmitter which transmits towards the base station e g cellphones Pulsed at 217Hz Power variable between 20mW 2W Peak DL Downlink mostly means base station fixed transmitter which transmits towards the portable device e g cell towers Pulsed at 217Hz Control channel pulsed at 1 736Hz Power variable between 0 5 and 400W ERP Range of up to 32km Significantly more extensive lists available on the Aaronia homepage To get the full luxury get our free PC analysis software directly from there All frequency values in MHz 64 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 18 0 Frequency tables Table 8 German GSM1800 frequencies and providers Start Stop frequency Abbreviation 1 710 0 1 725 2 1 730 2 1 752 8 1 758 2 1 805 0 1 820 2 1 825 0 1 725 0 1 730 0 1 752 4 1 758 0 1 780 4 1 820 0 1 825 0 1 847 4 GSM18K UL GSM18K GSM18K GSM18K GSM18K GSM18K GSM18K Provider
28. 20dB attenuator in such applications Furthermore always remember to turn off SPECTRAN s internal preamplifier This will enable you Our 20dB Attenuator pre to apply input levels of up to 10dBm HF 6060 and Wt HF 6080 models or even up to 20dBm HF 60100 power without having to worry about overload In addition all V4 series models can generally accept DC voltages of up to 50V 20 4 Listening to the radio Using SPECTRAN V4 you can check the transmissions of local analog radio or TV broadcasters Though of course you will need a suitable antenna and a signal of usable strength Under favorable conditions our OmniLOG antenna might already be more than sufficient To listen to a broadcast transmission proceed as follows Set the Center fre quency of the broadcast station Switch SPECTRAN to Audio mode and choose FM demodulation mode A filter bandwidth RBW setting of at least 100kHz should be chosen in order to achieve optimum results Sweep time Span etc have no meaning in this mode 20 5 Noise floor calibration You should renew the noise floor calibration of your SPECTRAN from time to time For this you will need to attach our optional calibration resistor to SPECTRAN s input Next choose the CalRun option in the Setup menu Our Calibration resistor for ATTENTION Please be sure not to attach USB or performing noise floor cali external DC power cables to your SPECTRAN dur
29. 42 2005 2013 AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 11 AARONIA AG 5 0 Your first measurement Modes If you press the dot key for a second time HOLD disappears again from the MODE status field and the HOLD mode is deactivated For finding the absolu te maximum the so called panning approach is used 5 3 The panning approach When evaluating conformance of exposure limits usually only the maximum signal is considered This value can be found using SPECTRAN and the HyperLOG antenna using the so called panning approach The panning approach is already officially approved in many countries Application is as fol lows Choose the desired frequency range In our example we already did this GSM900 using the 5 key and activate HOLD mode dot key as explained above Now turn and tilt the antenna slowly in all directions until the value stops changing completely You have now determined the signal maximum However should you wish to evaluate the signal maximum in a room you addi tionally need to take into account all locations Walk through the entire room Measure especially in corners and near windows as these often produce the hig hest readings During measurement the maximum reading will also quickly increase until it finally does not change anymore and freezes on its highest level When measuring a whole room this may well take a few minutes The value displayed
30. 7 12 Audind Audio Indicator bug tracer Option 015 The Audind feature allows quick audio aided location of signal sources espe cially bugs or wiretaps In this mode a tone is being emitted whose strength and duration is proportional to the detected signal strength NOTE The signal dynamic can be changed at any time by changiging the Reference Level The tone changes only AFTER each sweep completes and corresponds to the 26 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 7 0 The main menu AARONIA AG LIS highest level detected So to sensibly utilize this feature a very fast sweep is needed For optimum results this feature should be used in conjunction with a fast zero span sweep Span 0Hz or using the Power Meter mode Option 20x For best results allways use a very short sweep time of 1mS turns off audio reproduction enables it 7 13 Detect detector type The Detect option can be used to choose a detector type Depending on the sig nal type and measurement standard different types of detectors are appropria te the default being RMS Currently available types more are in development are RMS Root Mean Square The square root of the squares of all samples I Q This detector type has no corresponding symbol in the Mode status field It can be used to determine the real signal power during sweep time on a certain
31. A FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 49 AARONIA AG 14 0 Spectrum analysis basics What is frequency range Imagine a giant motorway several kilometers wide with thousands of lanes On this motorway every imaginable kind of vehicle can be found motorcycles cars trucks etc To not let them get into each other s way every lane is reserved for only a single group of road users e g lane 1 ONLY for cyclists lane 3 ONLY for pedestrians lane 40 ONLY for trucks etc Depending on the traffic caused by the individual groups these lanes also have different widths For example the lane reserved for cyclists is far narrower than that reserved for trucks etc High fre quency works exactly like this just that here the lanes are the so called fre quency ranges and the road users are applications for example a cell phone a microwave oven a radio controlled car lock in effect all appliances that somehow work with radio waves So every application has its own frequency range for EXCLUSIVE use By assigning a separate frequency range for each application conflicts between different road users can be avoided so that e g a cell phone cannot be dis rupted by a microwave oven Big differences between exposure limits Back to our motorway Of course all road users also have their own specific speed limits For our example a pedestrian may only walk at up to 5 km h C
32. C voltages for dishes you should additionally add our optional SPECTRAN s input 20dB attenuator by simply attaching it to the DC blocker 20 2 Measuring power lines ISDN DSL VDSL etc You cannot directly perform measurements on power or telecommunication lines like DSL VDSL etc as this might either destroy SPECTRAN s input due to excess voltage or distort the signals being measured In such a case you would need to utilize our optional Active differential probe Using this probe you can conduct measurements safe ly even directly on 115 230V AC lines As an additional benefit your measurement will hardly if at all interfere with the signals running through the wire due to the gal vanic isolation in the probe Measurement of a DSL line utilizing our Active differential probe 20 3 Measurements with direct cable connections Please be careful not to destroy SPECTRAN s input circuitry when conducting measurements with direct cable connections to other equipment especially in the case of function or RF generators as such equipment might generate exces sively high voltages or power Even a very short overload can irreversibly HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 67 M LR AARONIA AG 20 0 Measurement recommendations destroy SPECTRAN s extremely sensitive input To prevent damage due to excess input levels be sure to always utilize our optional
33. Informationenfinden Sie in der Unter der Rubrik MCS finden Sie einen kleinen Ausblick auf die neue SPECTRAN Spectrumanalyser Software MCS Zurzeit befindet sich die Software noch in der Entwicklungung aber ein erster Screenshot ist schon verf gbar Schauen Sie immer mal wieder in der Kategorie MCS vorbei um auf dem neusten Stand zu bleiben This site offers HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com Free Firmware updates PR 5g AARONIA AG WWW AARONIA DE Sigel Startseite Software Softwareentwicklung Forum NEWS Software NEWS Softwareentwicklung Spectran Forum Besuchen Sie unser Forum Free PC Analyzer Software MAC OS Linux and Windows P CODE programing samples and SPECTRAN TUNING User Forum incl FAQ Latest news on new Aaronia products 69 AARONIA AG WWW AARONIA DE 22 0 Antenna and Analyzer frequency chart ky ootaz IW3 0090Z IW3 000Z H H H H SOT d H H H H H amm sm I ELF Fluoi eg 2 ZHSOT ZHWDOT ZHWOT I ZHADOT zHMOI ZHAT ZHOOT ZHODOT ZHDOT ZHWOOT SOTOT JN N dlo3ads szAj
34. a ble anymore However if you narrow the frequency range you will be able to analyze the sweep range more precisely You will be able to see far more detail and higher accuracy A large frequency span is thus mostly useful for a broad overview not for exact measurements Bde duc tie 5803 b323M g2333M Herm fLow Start frequency NI fHigh Stop frequency ccu REN 4 7 4 RBW bandwidth By adjusting bandwidth you can adjust detail clarity and sensitivity at once When bandwidth is set to a very high value or even to FULL the sweep will be very fast however the display becomes comparatively inaccurate and sensitivi ty is low Hence very weak signals will not be picked up anymore The smaller the bandwidth the longer the sweep will take but the display will be more pre cise and weaker signals can still be displayed Thus for example a single sig nal initially sweeped with high bandwidth can turn out to be a number of sever al narrow close together signals However this gain in accuracy has its downsi de in the far longer sweep times Bugs Dew ba aM b3973N darc d OM UE RBW 1MHz RBW 3MHz HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 23 AARONIA AG 7 0 The main menu 7 5 VBW video filter The so called video filter is intended for visual smoothing of the signal The lower the video filter setting the broader and smoother
35. agnetic field H can be calculated like this ava SIM 5 3770 16 1 Calculating the wavelength in m calculate the wavelength from the frequency use the following formula N f Here c corresponds to the speed of light in m s rounded to 300 000km s in our example f to the frequency of the radiation in Hz and to the wavelength in m Examples m je Eee 0 33m For 900 MHz the result is 0 33m ___300 000 0005 For 1 8 GHz th It is 0 17 800 000 000 Hz 20 17 For 18 GHz Ihe result is 0 17m m 290 000 BOOTIE 0 15m For 2 GHz result is 0 15 Further information concerning wavelength is contained in table 4 on page 64 58 HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 16 0 Some high frequency math AARONIA AG LIES 16 2 Calculating the close up range in m If you want to perform a measurement you need to do this outside of the so called close up range of the transmitter The close up range depends on the transmitter frequency According to the aforementioned formula the close up range can be determined quickly Here you simply need to multiply the resulting wavelength by a factor of 10 there are some sources which only use a factor of 3 The result is the close up range i e the minimum distance to the transmitter in which a realistic and sensible measurement can be achieved Example For a 900MHz cellphone th
36. always includes the power density W m including Autorange as well In effect this mode provides rea dings in three units AT THE SAME TIME if you also count in the Bargraph in dBm Hint2 You can also use this feature to convert measurement results between units Simply freeze the current reading using PkHold Disp menu and then change to the desired unit the converted result is displayed immediately Hint3 You can enforce display of the currently selected unit in the large info field by pressing the menu key twice which will replace the text displayed in the large info field with the current unit 7 16 MrkCnt set number of markers The MrkCnt setting determines the number of displayed markers This can be quite handy should you wish to focus on a particular signal on a single frequen By setting MrkCnt to 1 no constantly jumping markers will distract you from the actual signal Possible values are 1 2 or 3 7 17 MrkLvl set starting level for markers The MrkLvl setting determines the minimum signal level which will trigger the creation of markers exposure limit calculation and display in W m The available range for this setting is 3OdBm to 90dBm When using the 30dBm setting markers are only displayed when a very strong signal of 30dBm is present while at the 90dBm setting even the smallest sig nals albeit many of them might be interference or noise will trigger marker dis play The default setti
37. anual Just try it for yourself Select the different limits and compare the results The available choices in the current firmware are HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 13 AARONIA AG 5 0 Your first measurements Modes ICNIRP German and international exposure limit a complex formula Salz 1 Old Salzburg precautionary value ImW m Salz 2 Salzburg precautionary value outdoors 2002 10uW m Salz 3 Salzburg precautionary value indoors 2002 1pW m7 In our fictional example the bargraph display shows approximation to the inter national ICNIRP limit by 0 06 As you can see with this exposure limit even a relatively strong signal of 45dBm only generates a few hundredth of a per cent namely 0 06 of deflection However if you change to one of the Salzburg limits the unit will quickly indicate even excess of the exposure limit When EXCEEDING a limit the display shows percentages above 100 for example 128 00 excess of exposure limit by 28 When the percentage is greater than 999 99 is displayed This indicates overflow HINT You can download new and or updated exposure limits which are con stantly updated due to changed legal situations from Aaronia s homepage and keep SPECTRAN up to date at all times You should also check out our PC ana lysis software which offers a whole range of additional features
38. ars in change may speed at up to 300 km h Exposure limits for radio applications work similarly Here however the word speed is replaced by the transmitting power E g a broadcast station may have an enormous transmitting power of 1 000 000W or more in contrast a radio controlled car lock only a few mW 1mW 0 001W etc 3 examples of exposure limits in practice Frequency range MHz Application Power limit W EIRP 1 880 1 900 DECT phones 0 25 2 320 2450 Amateur radio 11cm 750 5 725 5 825 WLan 802 11a 0 025 It is easily visible that each radio application may only use one EXACTLY DEFINED frequency range Also the high differences in admissible transmit ting power are noticeable Why spectrum analysis There are 2 main reasons 1 You would like to know WHICH radio applications are active 50 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 14 0 Spectrum analysis basics AARONIA AG LIES 2 You would like to measure the exposure caused by each of the radio appli cations separately e g for evaluating exceeding of exposure limits Regarding 1 Let s reconsider our giant motorway example Remember that every lane was only intended for use by a single kind of vehicle Now imagine that a huge bridge crossed this motorway with you standing on the bridge and looking down on the motorway Wow what a mess Now for example you would like to know exactly wh
39. at is happening on the motorway and this for every single lane However the motorway is incredibly wide so you would need rather good binoculars to be able to even look a few km far Let s just imagine that your binoculars have a range of 6km 6000m Now you would like to know how much traffic there is on a specific lane and how fast it is travelling So you ll take a piece of paper and write down the number of the lane and the data you evaluated Starting at lane 1 you see nothing OK let s go on with lane 2 nothing either Now lane 3 OK there is some traffic going at 18km h Continuing with lane 4 Nothing etc until you have reached the last lane What have you accomplished now You ve performed an ANALYSIS of the entire range of lanes from 0 6km Or in other words You performed RANGE ANALYSIS As you know to analyze something means breaking it down into smaller parts which can be evaluated In this case the 6km wide motorway was that big something and the smaller parts were the individual lanes The word range can now be replaced by the word SPECTRUM and there we are You have performed a SPECTRUM ANALYSIS Who would have thought that you are a Spectrum analyser Jokes aside If you now in addition have a lanes plan telling you which lane is assigned to which kind of vehicle you can exactly determine what kinds of vehicles have just been travelling Spectrum analysis in high frequency technology works exactly like that Th
40. ation about configuring a custom fre quency range and further main menu options in the chapter The main menu on the following pages 20 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 7 0 The main menu AARONIA AG LEES 771 731 By pressing the menu key you get to the heart of SPECTRAN the menu system Co Jo s From here you can control the entire device change various settings but also do things like starting the data logger or save and recall your own programs By pres sing the menu button again you can exit the menu at any time 7 After pressing the menu key a convenient menu naviga tion is at your disposal the currently selected menu entry is displayed in inverse black bar In this example Center is selected For the currently selected menu entry the current set ting is being displayed in clear text in the large info field at the top In our example it is the currently set center frequency 940 This way there is no need to manually call up each menu entry to check its value The marker blocks 1 3 permanently show the following information from left to right START CENTER and STOP frequencies each in full MHz Below the current values are shown for from left to right Range MrkLvl and Reflev This is very convenient It e g allows you to quickly call the menu during a measurement and check the current frequency
41. be adjusted with the volume control on the left ATTENTION During audio analysis the complete dis play is frozen and the pixel display is turned off to free up enough CPU power for demodulation Hence ONLY an acoustic reproduction takes place In contrast to simple broadband detectors SPECTRAN performs demodulation only at a certain single frequency center frequency Hence you can selective ly monitor very narrow limited frequency ranges Please note though that in this mode filtering is a bit less effective which might lead to very strong neigh boring signals also being audible on the actually selected frequency For optimal acoustic reproduction of signals you can select different filter 7 bandwidths using the Up Down arrow keys The selected filter is displayed in the large INFO display All available RBW filters for example 3kHz 1MHz etc are selectable HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 15 AARONIA AG 5 0 Your first measurements Modes Often you will not be able to exactly hit the center frequency of a signal and demodulation is bad or impossible Thus you can fine tune the center frequen cy using the right left arrow keys The step width used is derived from the g selected filter Should you have chosen for example the 1MHz filter steps w are 1MHz wide etc When changing the center frequency it will be show
42. cable All cables devices used for connection to the external DC input must supply a DC voltage of 12V via a standard 3 5mm phone jack inner conductor PLUS outer conductor MINUS HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com AT AARONIA AG 12 0 Connections 12 2 Audio output This is a standard 2 5mm mono phone jack that be connected to any device which offers an audio input Depending on model and manufacturer these are labeled differently e g PHONO CD LINE IN MIC etc Depending on the kind of input you may need an appro priate adapter cable which you can purchase from any third party dealer However our own accessories for example our mini earphones can always be connected directly 12 3 Jog Dial volume control 22 The Jog Dial like on modern cell phones or PDAs repla ces the up down arrowkeys turn the jog dial and the Enter key briefly press the jog dial Like this you can e g control the complete menu system just with this handy little wheel However with the demodulator activated this jog dial ser ves as a volume control As a precaution before connec ting anything to the audio output you should turn this volume control all the way down to zero to avoid overlo ad 12 4 USB connector The 5 pin USB B mini connector on the SPECTRAN allo ws fast communication with a computer or notebook With this feature you can e g dow
43. com 3 0 LC Display AARONIA AG WWW AARONIA DE 53 9 5 1 BATTERY display 2 BARGRAPH 50 segments 3 Bargraph scaling 6 number blocks 4 STATUS field SETUP REF UNCALL OVERLOAD NUMERIC ENTRY MIN MAX LOW HIGH MAX MIN ZOOM USB PC 5 AUDIO Status field AM FM LEVEL NORM 6 MODE Status field AVG PEAK HOLD TIME MIN MAX 7 MARKER block 1 8 Graphics display Pixel display 9 MULTIPLICATOR field 10 MEMORY Status field STORE RECALL RECORD RESET 11 DISPLAY MODE Status field SPECTRUM RF AM FM EXPOS LIMITS 12 INFO display 13 MAIN display 14 MARKER block 2 15 MARKER block 3 Depending on the model not all display elements may be available HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 7 Fa LR AARONIA AG 4 0 Key layout LIS 1 Numeric block hotkeys 1 TETRA 380 400MHz 2 ISM434 433 434 8MHz 3 LTE800 780 862MHz 4 ISM868 868 870MHz 5 GSM900 921 2 959 6MHz cell towers no cellphones 6 GSM18k 1800 1880 2 cell towers no cellphones 7 UMTS 2110 2170 2 cell towers no cellphones 8 WLan 2400 2490 2 9 LTE2 6 2500 2690MHz 0 DECT analyzer measurement of digital portable DECT phones 2 On Off button Turn the instrument on off 3 Clear Reset button 1 Reset various sweep parameters to factory defaults
44. cy and signal strength of the strongest signals Up to 3 markers can be displayed simultaneously GRAPHICS display here spectrum display This flexible display field can display a great variety of information both text and graphics spectrum exposure limits menu text etc HW V4 FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 9 AARONIA AG 5 0 Your first measurement Modes Now we will perform our measurement as follows As basic prerequisite you should know that there are three different kinds of cell towers in Germany GSM900 GSM1800 and UMTS Optimized measurement parameters are already preprogrammed in SPEC TRAN e g hotkey 5 GSM900 6 GSM1800 As GSM900 has the highest avai lability it is measurable almost everywhere and thus optimally suited for explai ning usage of SPECTRAN Now simply press the 7 key for setting up optimal parameters for measurement of GSM900 cell towers The Status display should now show GSM 900 Now you only need to choose the correct opera tion mode The SPECTRAN devices offer 4 different OPERATION MODES SPECTRUM analysis EXPOSURE LIMIT calculation AUDIO output Broadband PEAK Detector RF detector Powermeter Option You can change the operation mode at any time using the Enter key e 5 1 Operation mode Spectrum analysis The DISPLAY MODE status field shows SPECTRUM Now press the Enter key until the
45. e the HyperLOG antennas have considerably more gain thus allo wing measurement of significantly weaker signals than with our OmniLOG antenna The following pages contain detailed instructions on the usage of our HyperLOG antennas 44 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 11 0 Antenna mounting and handling AARONIA AG 11 2 Handling with two hands using the HyperLOG antenna First carefully screw the included SMA cable to the SMA socket on the SPECTRAN The cable should be attached carefully Do not apply excessive force As soon as there is resistance slightly tighten the plug using the SMA tool Again don t use exces sive force Never trigger the overtorque protection the SMA tool has an overtorque protection and starts slipping as soon as excessive force is applied Now attach the other end of the SMA cable to the HyperLOG antenna Again first screw the plug on the socket then slightly tighten using the SMA tool Finally screw the included pistol grip to the bottom side of the HyperLOG antenna in way that the HyperLOG antenna points away from yourself see picture You can now handle the SPECTRAN instrument and the HyperLOG antenna independently with one hand each Being able to move and aim the HyperLOG antenna independently from the SPECTRAN can be very handy for example for finding the signal maximum using the so called panning approac
46. e OmniLOG antenna Our OmniLOG 90200 antenna is available as option and has been specifically developed for radi ally isotropic measurements in the GSM GSM900 GSM1800 GSM1900 UMTS and 2 4GHz WLAN frequency ranges It is an ideal companion for our SPECTRAN V4 instruments with direct support built in Unlike our HyperLOG antennas the OmniLOG is suitable for direct radial field strength measure ment without any need for alignment This gives you an almost instant field strength reading Due to its extremely small physical dimensions it is unlike our HyperLOG antennas also ideally suited for unobtrusive or concealed measurements O 3 5 8 a Simply attach the antenna to SPECTRAN s SMA socket Do not apply excessive force when screwing the antenna into position As soon as a significant amount of resistance can be felt the antenna should be firmly in place Make sure the antenna is fitted tightly You can also rotate it by 45 or 90 degrees as the adjacent picture Finally you could as well screw the included pistol grip handle to the bot tom side of your SPECTRAN This way you can handle SPECTRAN more easi ly or place it permanently on e g a table for this unfold the handle to become a miniature tripod Please bear in mind that unlike our HyperLOG antennas the OmniLOG is not directional Consequently it cannot be used to pinpoint signal sources Furthermor
47. e wavelength is _ 3000000005 _ A 900 000 000 Hz 0 33m Hence the close up range is 0 33m 10 3 3m It is easy to see that e g measurements taken directly next to the cellpho ne will definitely result in WRONG readings Notice Inside the close up range E and H fields would need to be measured separately However outside the close up range both field types are coupled tightly to each other so knowing the strength of one of them will be enough to derive the other 16 3 Calculating power density W m from power dBm ONLY if you know the transmitter s frequency you can convert from dBm to W m You will also need the antenna gain of the antenna used for measure ment The formula you need looks like this 8 9 S represents the power density W m p is the measu _10 10 A 7 red power dBm is the velength of the transmitter 1 0 42 frequency m G the antenna gain dBi dBd values can be converted to dBi by adding 2 15 You can find the dBi antenna gain of the HyperLOG antennas easily by looking at the antenna ini file supplied with our MCS PC Software An example Say your instrument indicates 40dBm at 950MHz with a HyperL OG 7025 anten na which has a gain of 4 9dBi at 950MHz The result is 40 49 10 lt 4n 000003236 12 566 0m 0315792 4000 00607 000000408 Wim 4 08uW m 240 Also see the following conversion table HW V4 FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia
48. each sweep in order to make a correct decision which will delay the sweep briefly The length of this delay depends on the selected Sampletime according to the following formula Delay Sampletime 10 However the maximum delay is just 10mS corresponding to 100mS Sampletime For ensuring clean operation in Auto attenuator mode the Sampletime must be set to at least 100mS as otherwise intermittent erroneous level readings can occur specifically in the lower frequency ranges The delay can be avoided altogether by turning off Auto mode and setting the attenuator manually 36 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 8 0 Correct measurement AARONIA AG LIES 8 5 Sensitivity Please note that the noise floor and therefore sensitivity in spectrum analysers can be subject to significant variation depending on frequency Even a fre quency adjustment of just a few MHz can decisively alter the noise floor cha racteristics In general however SPECTRAN s noise floor increases with lower frequencies while sensitivity decreases A practical example Using the same filter settings you can measure considerably weaker signals at 5GHz than at say 100MHz 8 6 Measurement inaccuracy Aaronia states a typical accuracy for each SPECTRAN model However this means that higher deviations are entirely possible Especially when you approach the so called noise floor or the maximum sensiti
49. eath the Markers a graphic with several hills is shown It displays the level distribution over the indicated frequency range This is the so called SPEC TRUM DISPLAY The higher the hills the stronger the signal at the respective frequency The aforementioned markers display the frequency and level at the peaks of these hills The indicated frequencies allow exact mapping to origin and provider of the transmitter More details on this on page 46 ff or in the frequency tables on pages 63 ff 5 2 The HOLD function The MODE status field displays HOLD As you have probably noticed the display constantly changes This is completely normal as the signal strength of the high frequency radiation also constantly changes This also depends on the alignment of the antenna Moving it only a few cm or a different alignment can cause abrupt changes in readings Just try it yourself by aligning your antenna differently and checking out the display Often you will only want to evaluate the highest reading Though as the display constantly changes this can prove rather difficult To remedy this the so called HOLD function is used To activate press the Dot key HOLD appears in the Mode status field From now on only the highest value will be displayed Also the spectrum display does not get erased anymore The complete display now literally appears frozen 8 8 15 u6 HW VA FW BETA
50. ed returned units have subsequently been disposed of in an environmentally friendly fashion by Aaronia However for taking advantage of this service you need to have purchased the unit directly from Aaronia Germany 10 year warranty on all models We offer 10 years warranty on our measurement equipment We immediately and unbureaucratically replace or repair defective units 66 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 20 0 Measurement recommendations AARONIA AG ky 20 1 Measurement of satellite TV You can directly connect SPECTRAN to your LNB s output or alternatively to the attached satellite cable or receiver in order to perform measurements However please note that the receiver supplies a 13 18V DC voltage to the LNB which will consequently also be fed into SPECTRAN s input While SPEC TRAN can accept DC voltages of up to 50V it is always possible for the DC vol tage to vary significantly and intermittently exceed acceptable levels leading to the destruction of SPECTRAN s input We thus strongly recommend you use our optional DC blocker which can simply be inserted before SPECTRAN s input and effectively eliminates any DC voltages It does not at all influence your measure ment To eliminate the still existent risk of excess input Our DC blocker provides levels particularly when utilizing high gain satellite protection from potentially damaging D
51. ere are lanes here as well Though these lanes are called frequency ran ges The width of these frequency ranges is measured in the unit Hz Hertz However as the frequency ranges are mostly found in high Hz ranges writing them in plain Hz would require huge numbers Thus the unit Hz is often exten ded to MHz 1 000 000Hz and GHz 1 000 000 000 2 Like this the whole thing becomes much clearer So 1 000 000 000Hz can also be written as 1 000MHz or 1 GHz HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 51 AARONIA AG 14 0 Spectrum analysis basics But let s go The different kinds of vehicles are called radio applications have their own abbreviations e g the radio application UMTS the new digi tal mobile communications standard has its own frequency range which spans 1 900 to 2 200MHz 1 9 2 2GHz The speed at which the vehicles are travelling can now be replaced by a new expression the signal strength or level So far we have now explained the used expressions and units Now high fre quency analysis works just as our motorway example For example our measurement device should evaluate all frequency ranges from 1MHz to 6 000MHz in pictures our 6 000m wide motorway Step by step every frequency range is evaluated precisely First 0 to 1MHz then 1MHz to 2MHz etc until 6 000MHz Also the signal strength of every frequency range is exactly st
52. erence will be detected Visually SPEC TRAN would display this as a collection of small points or bars which either stay statically at the same place or change with every sweep noise However depending on frequency and selected settings the noise floor can be vast ly different and must be determined before starting a measurement In the case of SPECTRAN the noise floor increases with lower frequencies for example the noise floor at 100MHz is significantly higher than it is at 5GHz However skilled users can usually still tease out useful readings and distin guish between noise and even very weak real signals Determining the noise floor is relatively straightforward Simply conduct a measurement WITH OUT an antenna and or signal source or by connecting a 50 Ohms termi nator Any signals then possibly shown are the noise floor of your instru 942 2004 5823 ment bJJIM 2322M 421M Noise floor below this imaginary line E HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 35 AARONIA AG 8 0 Correct measurement 8 2 A typical effect when working with spectrum analyzers When dealing with com paratively strong signals a number of weaker signals with fixed offsets relative to the actual signal appear the so called harmonics These are phantom sig nals with frequencies that are multiples o
53. euy wn peds NvsLO3dS HeyoXouenbe 4 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 70
54. ew range of possibilities For example measurement of ultra short RADAR bursts or other short pulses The optional drastically enhanced frequency range of up to 10GHz 12GHz is even larger than what the spectrum analysis of SPECTRAN can currently offer currently 9 4GHz and thus allows among others detection of PAR airport radar in the 9 GHz band Obviously the usefulness of this kind of detector measurement is limited in cer tain ways For example no frequency filtering or display takes place however you may of course use your own external filters So to be perfectly HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 17 AARONIA AG 5 0 Your first measurements Modes exact neither power density nor field strength can be displayed neither can the measurement results be corrected for the utilized antenna This also implies no useful exposure limit calculations HOWEVER Should you already know the fre quency of a dominant signal source you can still calculate the power density in W m or field strength V m resp A m of this particular signal Just note the dBm figure displayed by SPECTRAN and apply the corresponding formula in chapter 18 3 on page 63 example included These examples also include a table to demonstrate how to achieve a suf ficiently exact measurement even with UNKNOWN frequencies Of course broadband measurements have their limitations when
55. f that of the actual signal For example 400MHz signal will also be visible around 800MHz 1200MHz 1600MHz etc 1800 2 signal will also appear at 3600MHz 5400 2 and so forth These are commonly called second harmonic third harmonic etc Thus when in doubt one should always consider an additional measurement at half the center frequency If a correspondingly stronger signal is found there the previously measured one would be a harmonic With the current firmware SPECTRAN already attenuates harmonics by appro ximately 30 50dB depending on signal strength 8 3 Measurement of wireless LAN amp cellphones To accurately measure WLAN and cellphones their peculiarities need to be con sidered as both systems are rarely really active enough to allow sensible mea surements For measuring cellphones you need to actively make a call and talk Just rin ging the other party is often insufficient Also take into account that cellphones significantly reduce output power as soon as you STOP talking When measuring WLAN you should continuously transfer data Should the system be operating Pin mode only be sure to use a longer Sampletime 5s Further optimized configurations can be found in our MCS PC software 8 4 Attenuator mode Auto This innovative option permits optimum automatic insertion or bypass of the attenuator However a short test measurement has to be performed by the instrument before
56. film from the display Now attach the triangular HyperLOG antenna to the SPECTRAN using the included 1m SMA cable more details on page 45 Should you not yet have charged the internal battery you can also operate SPECTRAN with the included power supply further information on page 47 Now press the On Off button found at the bottom left of the device SPECTRAN is now powered on and starts a short calibration procedure To be able to orient yourself better in the following steps the most important parts of the SPECTRAN display are briefly explained here BARGRAPH trend display Depending on signal strength the half circle will grow or shrink A very handy feature for visualizing quickly changing levels Even more handy If the broadband detector is installed the bargraph will always show the level measured by the broadband detector MODE status field PEAK amp HOLD Shows the currently active detector No display RMS PEAK Min Max detector HOLD HOLD mode active INFO display Shows the selected preset frequency range Using the keys 0 9 furt her presets UMTS DECT etc are available DISPLAY MODE status field Shows the current operation mode Possible modes are SPECTRUM spectrum analysis EXPOS LIMITS exposure limit calculation AM FM audio output and power meter Option 20x MAIN display Displays the level signal strength of the strongest signal in dBm MARKER block 1 to 3 Show frequen
57. frequency and is the manda tory detector type for a variety of exposure limit standards for example ICNIRP MinMax This detector type compares the current 2 0 sample against the strongest formerly acquired sample The strongest respective sample is being kept and its Min Max displayed The Mode status field shows the Pulse symbol This detec tor is particularly suitable for signals with high crest factors WiMAX DVB T etc or frequency hopping DECT to determine the crest factor or signal peak In MinMax mode signals are displayed with a hatched fill if the signal s correspon ding graphic is wide enough to accomodate for this small Span The size of the portion of the graphic above the hatched part indicates the signal s MinMax value IB After pressing the DECT hotkey key 0 a DECT phone is being mea 4B sured MinMax mode is set automatically Time Domain mode is being invoked as well An actual DECT signal would reveal itself in the spec trum as a number of sporadically appearing sharp peaks with varying heights In contrast interference from a cellphone would be displayed H as a fence like uniform collection of peaks of almost equal height As you can see different signal sources can be easily distinguished This distinction is even more appealing when using our PC analysis software MCS with signals being displayed as graphics in Time Domain mode REMARK Please note that in MinMax mode
58. h You can still use your thumb to press the buttons on the SPECTRAN while con ducting a measurement 11 3 handed use with attached antenna Using this method you can directly attach the HyperLOG antenna to SPECTRAN for both to form a single compact unit This offers a few advantages for making adjustments during measurement as keys can now be pressed all the time using your index fin ger However the HyperLOG antenna cannot be moved independently of SPECTRAN anymore which might create difficulties in reading the display in cer tain positions HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 45 M LR AARONIA AG 11 0 Antenna mounting and handling LESS First carefully screw the SMA adapter onto the SMA socket on the SPECTRAN Screwing should be pos sible without much resistance Do not use excessi ve force As soon as you notice a resistance slight ly tighten the connection using the SMA tool Again do not apply excessive force Never trigger the over torque protection the SMA tool features an overtor que protection as soon as excessive force is applied Now attach the HyperLOG antenna For this the HyperLOG s guide rails need to be pushed carefully and without force into the designated sensor pickups on the SPECTRAN until the SMA socket of the HyperLOG antenna snaps and locks into the SMA adapter Now manually screw the SMA adap
59. high frequency fields It is assumed that effects harmful to health only occur when tissue warms by more than 1 C These exposure limits are mostly accepted by all national and international committees For Germany these limits are recorded in the Verordnung ber elektromagnetische Felder 26 BImSchV and are mostly derived from the international recommendations As an approval for the compliance with these exposure limits radio installations acquire the Reg TP Standortbescheinigung installation certificate The German exposure limits are designed for squared averages recorded over intervals of 6 minutes and are categorized by frequency ranges Depending on the affected target group different limits apply As an example we will use the limit defined for the general population Frequency MHz E field strength V m M field strength A m 1 10 87 I 0 73 4f 10 400 27 5 0 073 400 2 000 1 375 4f 0 0037 VF 2 000 300 000 61 0 16 adjacent diagram shows Visual representation of afore mentioned formulas over a fre quency range from 1Hz to 100GHz The graph clearly shows that the formerly wide spread broadband RF measu rement instruments CANNOT measure and evaluate these exposure limits correctly as IN they are not frequency depen 10Hz 100 1 10kHz 100kHz 1MHz 10MHz 100MHr GHz 10GHz 100GHz dent Bev lkerung Spitzenwer
60. id www aaronia com 9 0 Tips and tricks AARONIA AG LIES Quick Zero span sweep Time Domain Mode A quick measurement at a fixed frequency almost in realtime is achievable with the so called zero span Should you have found a signal on e g Hotkey 5 GSM900 simply set the correct center frequency using the cursor Now set Span to 0 and SpTime to 1mS The level at the center frequency is now con tinuously and quickly being updated incl time domain display Ideally suited for locating signal sources and maximums using the ning approach Turbo sweep for small frequency ranges SPECTRAN automatically switches to a special Turbo sweep mode when cer tain conditions are met In this mode the second and all further sweeps are once again accelerated by roughly 300 as various sweep parameters of up to 1280 measured samples are being buffered As such performance in Turbo sweep mode depends on the selected RBW filter and the SPAN The maximum usable values are as follows 3MHz RBW Maximum usable SPAN 96MHz 1 2 RBW Maximum usable SPAN 32MHz 300kHz RBW Maximum usable SPAN 9 6MHz 100kHz RBW Maximum usable SPAN 3 2MHz and so on As an example you can monitor the complete WLAN frequency range 90MHz span with an RBW setting of 3MHz in Turbo sweep mode Turbo sweep for larger frequency ranges You can achieve quicker measurements of larger frequency ranges by using the FULL
61. ing bration for the SPECTRAN this procedure as it must be performed in a completely RF free environment This is to insure correct noise floor calibration of the device 68 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 21 0 Developer Net User Forum Please visit our support website http spectran developer net Position Startseite NEWS Software Installationsassistent fur SPECTRAN Software und Treiber In der Kategorie Software finden Sie den neuen Software Installationsassistent zu Spectrumanalyser Software LCS Der Assistent installiert automatisch den aktuellen SPECTRAN USB Treiber sowie die LCS Software Desweiteren stehen Ihnen wie gewohnt die Sprachen Deutsch und Englisch zur Verf gung und werden vom Installationsassistenten ber cksichtigt Unsere aktuellen SPECTRAN Firmware Updates Informieren Sie sich regelm ig ber Firmware Updates f r Ihr SPECTRAN Messger t Neue Versionen der Firmware beheben Fehler bringen neue Funktionen oder erh hen die Messgenauigkeit Dokumentation Vorschau auf die neue Spectrumanalyser Software MCS Ausblick auf den neuen Aaronia Softwareentwicklungskit Der Softwareentwicklungskit l st den veralteten Programmersguide ab Sie erhalten hier eine komplette Entwicklerl sung mit vielen neuen Funktionen auf der Basis eines plattformunabh ngingen Frameworks Detailiertere
62. ing level for markers 29 7 18 MrkDis marker display mode 30 7 19 activate Power Meter option Option 20x 30 7 20 AntTyp configure connected antenna 30 7 21 Cable configure antenna connection attenuator 31 7 22 RefOff set Offset or select UBBV Preamplifier Option 020 31 7 23 GSMbst set GSM Burst Typ 31 7 24 GSMdst set GSM Slot distance 31 7 25 Bright set display brightness 31 7 26 Logger start recording Data Logger 31 7 27 RunPrg execute program 33 7 28 Setup organize programs 33 HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 3 AARONIA AG WWW A Chapter 8 0 Correct measurement 8 1 Noise floor 8 2 Harmonics 8 3 Measurement of wireless LAN amp cellphones 8 4 Attenuator mode Auto 8 5 Sensitivity 8 6 Measurement inaccuracy 8 7 cursor and zoom features 9 0 Tips and tricks 10 0 Exposure limits 10 1 Exposure limits for personal safety 10 2 Device exposure limits 10 3 Limits for ecologically compatible construction 11 0 Antenna mounting and handling 11 1 Single handed operation using the OmniLOG antenna 11 2 Handling with two hands using the HyperLOG antenna 11 3 Single handed use with attached HyperLOG antenna 12 0 Connections 12 1 External DC input battery charger mains operation 12 2 Audio output 12 3 Jog Dial volume control 12 4 USB connector 13 0 Hardware setup 14 0 Spectrum analysis basics 15 0 Physical units
63. input on the SPECTRAN Now turn OFF your SPECTRAN and the battery pack will be automatically charged Full charge is reached after about 24 hours for the standard 1300mAh battery and about 36 hours for the optional LiPo 3000mAh version Operating with an external power supply As described above the DC input is meant for charging the internal battery pack However it can also be used for operating SPECTRAN independently of the internal battery pack You can also connect other DC power sources with an output voltage of 12V using a 3 5mm phone jack Polarity of the jack needs to be as follows The inner conductor must be the outer conductor must be Using our optional car power adapter see price list you can also operate SPECTRAN devices in your car Should you wish to operate SPECTRAN via the power supply please note that the power supply s circuitry will cause additional interference both due to the cable connection and by means of RF radiation This may lead to mismeasu rement in extreme cases If you wish to use an adequately clean power supply for long term measure ments it is recommended to operate SPECTRAN on an external large battery which should be able to power SPECTRAN for several weeks We particularly recommend one of the commercially available powerbags battery bags or a comparable product These often offer a regular 12V car adapter and thus can be used directly with our car power adapter
64. io ned center frequency of the display By changing span the start stop fre quencies see following description are automatically adjusted to be able to conform to the span Thus the span function can be compared to a magnify ing glass though only operating in the X axis Eu c euge 58g 3uc EJIM He3W tuin SPAN EXAMPLE Say you have set 945MHz as the center frequency Now if you use 10MHz as the span setting the sweep will be performed from 940 to 950MHz If you enter 200kHz for the span setting the sweep will be performed from 944 9 to 945 1 MHz and so forth In effect you just increase or decrease the resolution around the center frequency as a reference HINT By using the right left arrow keys you can simply move the sweep range by exactly one SPAN to the right or left 22 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 7 0 The main menu AARONIA AG LIES 7 3 fLow amp fHigh start amp stop frequency fLow start frequency sets the frequency where the sweep should begin whe reas fHigh stop frequency sets its ending frequency From these two the com plete frequency range which gets sweeped is derived Please note that a large frequency range will badly squeeze the display hori zontally in the X axis and thus significantly reduces measurement accuracy Individual signals especially when close together will often not be distinguish
65. ionships PEP measurement and an innovative SIS sweep In case of replacement due to an upgrade or exchange our devices are opti mally recycled In this regard also check our warranty s terms and conditions in the chapter The Aaronia warranty 2 HW 4 FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 9 Contents AARONIA AG Chapter Page 1 0 Safety precautions 5 2 0 Scope of delivery 6 3 0 LC Display 7 4 0 Key layout 8 5 0 Your first measurement Modes 9 5 1 Operation mode Spectrum analysis 10 5 2 HOLD function 11 5 3 The Panning approach 12 5 4 Operation mode Exposure limit calculation 13 5 5 Operation mode Audio output demodulation 15 5 6 Operation mode broadband detector Option 20x 17 6 0 Setting a custom frequency range 19 7 0 The main menu 21 7 1 Center center frequency 22 7 2 Span frequency range width 22 7 3 flow amp fHigh start amp stop frequency 23 7 4 RBW bandwidth 23 7 5 VBW video filter 24 7 6 SpTime sampletime 24 7 7 Reflev reference level 24 7 8 Range dynamics 25 7 9 Atten attenuator 25 7 10 internal pre amplifier 25 7 11 Demod demodulator audio analysis GSM Decoder 26 7 12 Audind audio indicator bug tracer Option 015 26 7 13 Detect detector type 27 7 14 Disp display mode 28 7 15 Unit set unit dBm V m mA m dBuV 29 7 16 MrkCnt set number of markers 29 7 17 MrkLvi set start
66. is setting is mandatory for receiving correct field strength and power density measurements enhancing the maximum measurable range to up to 40dBm You can also create your own custom cable types in our MCS software 7 22 RefOff Set Offset or UBBV Preamplifier With RefOff you can set a offset With dB you can set a positive offset e g cable or attenuator with dB you can set a negative offset e g preamplifier or antenna You can only set one offset With UBBV12 you can select our optional 40dB preamplifier OdB or pressing the CLR key will set all offsets back to zero default 7 23 GSMbst select GSM Burst Type With GSMbst you can select which bursttype should be used for the main dBm display with activated GSM Decoder see 7 11 You can select All All Bursttyps Default FCCH Shows at the decoder display SYNC Shows at the decoder display NonDec Shows at the decoder display Col 0 Col 7 Colorcode 0 7 Shows 0 7 at the decoder display 7 24 GSMdst Select GSM Slot Distance With GSMdst you can change the GSM slot distance 7 25 Bright set display brightness The Bright option allows you to change display brightness Simply turn the Jog Dial until the desired brightness level is reached and confirm the setting by pres sing the Enter key The new setting will be permanently saved 7 23 Logger start recording Data Logger With Logger you can start a long ter
67. l not be reachable by children as it could easily be diverted from its intended use Especially the SMA antenna even though already protected by a soft plastic layer represents a potential thread eyes etc The device is maintenance free Only clean it externally with a damp cloth Do not use any kind of detergent WARNING Be careful not to overload the instrument s input with excessively strong signals which could permanently damage the highly sensitive circuitry The maximum allowable peak power at the input of the SPECTRAN V4 is With activated PreAmplifier 0dBm maximum peak HF 6060 V4 amp HF 6080 V4 PreAmplifier OFF 10dBm maximum peak HF 60100 V4 PreAmplifier OFF 20dBm maximum peak HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 5 AARONIA AG 2 0 Scope of delivery Please check the package contents for completeness before first operation Reclaim possible missing parts instantly with Aaronia or your Aaronia dealer The package should include 1 Aluminum carrycase not shown here 2 HyperLOG measurement antenna 3 SMA cable 1m 4 Aaronia handle miniature tripod 5 Battery charger power supply with 4 adapters 6 SMA tool 7 SPECTRAN HF 6060 V4 HF 6080 V4 or HF 60100 V4 instrument 8 SMA adapter Aaronia 1300mAh Power battery already fitted 6 HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia
68. ld use those values 19dB lower than the actual reading 24dBi minus 5dBi as 5dBi gain is already included in the calculated table values For example 43dBm instead of 24dBm If you were using a cable with 5dB damping you would need to refer to those values 4dB higher than the measured value 5dB minus 1dB as 1dB damping is already included in the calculated table values That is 24dBm in place of 28dBm HINT Even in case you do NOT know the frequency of the signal source you can still achieve a comparatively exact field strength measurement by simply using the Lambda X column This column presents a weighted average of ALL possible frequencies between 900MHz and 2 4GHz still giving you an accuracy of approximately 4dB That is still significantly better than the inherent inaccuracy of various rudimentary instruments for field strength measurement availa ble from third parties The frequency range from 900MHz to 2 4GHz spans a large variety of typi cally interesting signal sources for example ALL cellular phone networks GSM900 GSM1800 UMTS and the respective phones as well as 2 4GHz WLAN and microwave ovens 60 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 9 WWW AARONIA DE ke 17 0 Conversion tables Table 1 Conversion from W m to uW cm and mW cm 0 000 001 W m 0 000 01 W m 0 000 1 W m 0 001 W m 0 01 W m 0 1 W m
69. m recording Logger in the current fre quency range Here the highest reading and the corresponding level and fre quency is regularly recorded over and over HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 31 AARONIA AG I 7 0 The main menu Using this feature you can create intraday diagrams for example of wireless LANs After a bit of post processing using a PC based spreadsheet application the result might e g look like the diagram on the left After invoking this mode the following settings will be queried from you Count Number of log events possible values are 1 to 9999 Time Length of pauses between individual log events in seconds II FILEId Program number to be used for saving the acquired dala Our PC analysis software can then be utilized to read back the collected data WARNING Currently the only supported program number is 1000 After setting up the FILEId the memory status field changes to RECORD the logger is now armed Press the menu key again to commence recording During recording the number of log events left is displayed briefly in the pixel display each time a log is recorded allowing you to estimate how much time is left until the recording terminates Furthermore a short beep is emitted for each log event When recording finishes RECORD will disappear from the memory status field and the acquired data can now be transferred to o
70. n of RF signal sources in dBm or dByV with frequencies of up to 10GHz 12GHz Detection sensitivity in this mode is around 50dBm preamp on depending on frequen cy The maximum allowable signal level is approximately 10dBm Further infor mation can be found in chapter 5 6 operation mode broadband detector 7 20 AntTyp configure connected antenna The AntTyp setting must be configured correctly to reflect the type of antenna connected as otherwise mismeasurements can occur For example the 17025 setting corresponds to the HyperLOG7025 and HyperLOG4025 HL7040 to the HyperLOG7040 HyperLOG4040 and so forth In case no antenna is connected please use the None OdBi option You can also create your own custom antenna types using our MCS software 30 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 9 7 0 The main menu AARONIA AG 7 21 Cable configure antenna connection cable attenuator The Cable setting must be configured correctly to reflect the type of cable used to connect the antenna to the SPECTRAN instrument as otherwise severe mis measurements can occur The 1m Std setting corresponds to the 1m SMA cable included with the device In case no cable is used please choose None here The HF 60100 V4 model provides an additional setting labelled 20dB to account for the optional external 20dB attenuator When using the attenuator th
71. n on the main INFO display full MHz Examples Cell towers cell phones GSM900 GSM1800 cell tower keys 5 6 emits a beeping or crackling noise with many interruptions and morse like pulsing This is the so called control channel which is always active and beeps exactly at 1733 33Hz When one or more cellphones are active you can recognize an additional 217Hz crackling noise similar to morse code An optimal reproduction can be achieved with the 1MHz or 2 filters DECT phones An easily recognizable signal source is the base station of a DECT phone key 0 It produces a 100Hz humming sound You can simply prove this by dis connecting the mains from the base station the hum disappears When you turn the power back on the hum will reappear after a few seconds Good reproduction quality is achieved by using the 1MHz filter ATTENTION for optimal reproduction of a signal its level should be at least 0dBm even better stronger than 60dBm HINT Optionally you can even visualize the demodulation using a LF spectrum analyser The SPECTRAN NF series lends itself optimally for this purpose as the NF 3020 and above offer the required signal input 16 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 5 0 Your first measurements Modes AARONIA AG ky 5 6 Operation mode broadband detector PEAK power meter The DISPLAY MODE status
72. ng ZOdBm delivers optimum results in the majority of cases HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 29 AARONIA AG 7 0 The main menu 7 18 MrkDis marker display mode The marker display mode setting configures marker display itself As the avai lable fields for marker display vary greatly in size and readability two different options are available When set to Freq frequency the frequencies of the individual markers are displayed in a bigger size while the amplitudes signal levels in dBm are indi cated in a smaller size below When set to Ampl amplitude the marker amplitudes signal levels in dBm are displayed in the bigger size while the frequencies are indicated in the smal ler size below In most situations the Freq mode is the more appropriate choi ce as the marker frequencies are usually the more important piece of informati on and thus should be the most readable 03200 4215M ii Freq frequencies large digits Amp amplitudes in large digits 7 19 BackBB change bargraph display mode Option 20x Use BackBB to change the display mode of the bargraph only if option 20x installed Selecting will display the highest value of the spectrum display default Selecting BBand will display the Peak Power of the power meter Option 20x The power meter allows extremely fast BROADBAND detectio
73. nload data from SPECTRAN s data logger perform software firmware updates or establish a real time connection between your PC and SPECTRAN using our SPECTRAN PC software to perform advanced signal analysis For this connection you need a high grade shielded USB 2 0 cable with USB A to Mini USBB 5 pin see Aaronia accessory list We strongly recommend using our own custom built USB cables as these incorporate especially developed EMC shielding and thus drastically redu ce any possible interference 48 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 13 0 Hardware setup AARONIA AG ky Before taking any measurement you must tell SPECTRAN WHICH antenna and or which cable is connected Otherwise SERIOUS mismeasurement can occur as every antenna and every cable has totally different characteristics All Aaronia antennas and cables have thus been calibrated You can select these pre defined calibration data on SPECTRAN but also load your own custom cali bration settings As a factory default on delivery the recommended configuration HyperLOG antenna with 1m SMA cable is selected Thus you do not need to make any changes now if you are using this configuration For hardware setup press the menu key You will be directed to the main menu Now using the up down arrow keys or the jog dial first navigate to the lt menu entry Activate the me
74. nu entry by pressing the ENTER key or clicking the jog dial 7 You are now being shown a list of antennas Using the up down arrow keys or the jog dial choose the connected antenna HL7025 cor 4 gt responds to the HyperLOG7025 etc If you do not have an antenna connected choose as antenna type Confirm your entry by pressing the ENTER key or clicking the jog dial You are now being taken back to the main menu Now again using the up down arrow keys or the jog dial navigate to the 4 menu entry Cable n Activate the menu entry by pressing the ENTER key or clicking the jog dial 4 You now being presented a list of cables Choose the connected cable by using the up down arrow keys or the jog dial The 1m Std entry corresponds to the 1m SMA cable included with delivery If there is no cable connected choose None as cable type Confirm your selection by pressing the ENTER key or clicking the jog dial I You are now being taken back to the main menu Press the MENU button once more and the new values are being confir med and stored ATTENTION All settings regarding antennas and cables stored perma nently even after switching the unit off Hence each time you use the unit you should make sure that the connected antenna and cable really correspond with the settings made in the hardware setup as otherwise severe mismea surement may occur HW V
75. ogram has its own specific program number This menu option allows you to recall and exe cute a particular program by its number To do this simply type the correspon ding program number Numbers 300 to 400 are freely available 7 25 Setup organize programs With Setup you can organize individual programs and or configurations using the following options Store saves SPECTRAN s current settings frequency range RBW and so forth as a mini program Possible target program numbers are 300 to 400 This you can easily save often needed configurations and recall them at a later time using the RunPrg option Moreover you can even create your own hot keys Simply save your program using a program number between 100 and 109 which will assign your program to keys 0 to 9 respectively You can then recall these settings at any time by simply pressing the corresponding hot key In addition you can use our PC software MCS to configure a multitude of furt her options for each program among these a program description of up to 6 cha racters which will then be displayed in the info display just like e g GSM900 on hot key 5 By editing the program manually you can also configure frequen cies more precisely However if you do not provide a description this way the info display will not change nor be cleared The following information is currently saved when invoking the Store function MCS labels in parentheses
76. om left to right This procedure of con tinuous scanning is called sweeping So what kinds of information have we acquired now 1 In the entire frequency range from 0 6GHz there are 3 main signal sources 2 The frequency and signal strength of all 3 sources is exactly known So we have acquired a quick overview of WHAT is active in this frequency range As the exact frequency of the signal sources is now know it is easy to determine the exact applications emitting these signals see also our fre quency tables on pages 63 65 or the more extensive frequency tables on the Aaronia website www spectran com On the basis of these frequency tables we can determine for e g 942MHz 937 6 to 944 8MHz GSM 900 DL T Mobile meaning that this is a GSM900 celltower DL Download of the provider T Mobile 54 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 15 0 Physical units AARONIA AG LIES 15 1 Measuring transmission power dBm dBpV Measurements of communications equipment often show extremely big diffe rences between levels Therefore it is useful to express signal levels in loga rithmic units to avoid drowning readings in an endless number of zeros Thus our SPECTRAN HF 2025E e g already features a measurable level range of 80dBm to OdBm As amplification increases 10 fold once every 10dB readings of 0 to 100 000 000 would need to be displayed Though these n
77. only occur sporadically Simply leave the instrument running in this mode until the expected event is caught PkHold mode is also indispensible for standard compliant measurements using the panning approach see also chapter Correct measurement Exposure limit calculation is another situation where the PkHold mode is very helpful The data acquired with PkHold can be utilized for quick and easy com parison of various exposure limit standards You do not even need to conduct a new measurement each time as even all marker information is saved along Simply switch to Exposure limit calculation mode after finishing your measu rement and the corresponding result is immediately available 33617 356 A typical result acquired during 20 minute car ride with active I mode Immediately obvious is the exclusive presence of T Mobile 952 and 942MHz as well as Vodafone 936 2 cell towers HINT2 You can toggle between PkHold and Write mode at any time by pressing the doy key 28 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 9 7 0 The main menu AARONIA AG LIES 7 15 Unit set unit The Unit setting determines the physical unit SPECTRAN utilizes to display measurement results The currently available units are dBm DecibelMilliWatts dByV DecibelMicroVolts V m Volts Meter mA m MilliAmperes Meter Hint In EXPOSURE LIMIT analysis mode display
78. ored Like this we also learn what signal strength was present on which frequency range Real world examples Let s assume that we want to exactly evaluate the frequency range from 1GHz to 6GHz and that the following radio applications were active simultaneous ly with various signal strengths in practice though it will mostly be A LOT MORE different applications Frequency range MHz Application Reading 1 880 1 900 DECT portable phone 40 2 320 2450 Amateur radio 11cm 20 5 725 5 825 WLan 802 11a 80 How can this be visually displayed on a measurement device Well first we will map the frequency range from 1GHz to 6GHZ on a line from left to right X axis 1 GHZ GHZ Ok this was still pretty simple Now we tag each of the 3 applications depen ding on their frequency on the right spot of the X axis and can thus see where they can be found 52 HW 4 FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 9 14 0 Spectrum analysis basics AARONIA AG ky V V au amp 97 9 qo S v sy AV Well this was again pretty simple And finally we display the strength of each of the 3 readings as vertical bars on the Y axis 80 40 20 1GHz 6GHz x xX x S sv d p 2 ae N Additionally we also adapted the width of each vertical bar to the width of the respective frequency range of each radio application the so called band
79. peaks of the strongest signals will be shown the rest is cut off Like this you can for exam ple achieve a clearer display of an interesting strong signal Though if you would like to measure very weak signals the reference level should be set as low as possible 24 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 7 0 The main menu AARONIA AG ky HINT Using the up down arrow keys the reference level can be moved up or down by 10dB at any time Dec Cue 582357 d L f Reflev reference level dBm 7 8 Range dynamics Range sets the size of the visible range Setting Range to 100dB maximum will give you the best possible overview of all signal sources The vertical bars of the individual signals are virtually being squeezed from top to bottom to fit all signals into the display On the other hand when Range is set to 50 more details will become visible though a few signals might now be cut off at the top or bottom depending on the RefLev setting In the end the Range function is comparable to a magnifying glass though it only works in the Y axis Bde cue tie She diaz 03210 Herm Range Dynamics 7 9 Atten attenuator The internal attenuator attenuates the signal applied to the input connector by the corresponding amount in dB to avoid overloading the RF input circuitry Experienced users can also set
80. played the bargraph will then allways show the broadband PEAK power measured by the broadband detector So you are seeing TWO different measurement results AT THE SAME TIME The broadband PEAK power on the bargraph and the frequency selective measurement on the main display A very handy feature 18 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 6 0 Setting custom frequency range AARONIA AG ky So far we have only used the preset frequencies available on the various hot keys However you can also set a precise frequency range so called sweep range manually This way the frequency range can be configured for one par ticular application to measure only those signals Additionally a smaller fre quency range increases sweep speed enormously and improves accuracy For setting this frequency range you only need to know the start and stop frequen cies of the corresponding application and program them in SPECTRAN You will also find an excerpt of various radio applications along with their start and stop frequencies in the frequency tables on pages 66 and 67 Subsequently we will illustrate custom configuration using the new mobile com munications standard UMTS as an example In our case we only want to find and evaluate UMTS cell towers of the provider Vodafone For this proceed as follows First of all check the UMTS frequency list on page 67 UMTS uses frequencies
81. range etc which is otherwise hardly visible After checking the values in question just press the menu key again and the measurement continues without any change of parameters To move between menu entries use the up down arrow keys or the e Jog Dial Use the Enter key to activate the currently selected menu entry which will allow you to perform input using the keypad or make a selection using the up down arrow keys Input selection can be confirmed with the Enter key which will return you to the menu Any changes will only take effect when you finally leave the menu Next each menu entry will be explained in detail step by step HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 21 AARONIA AG 7 0 The main menu There are TWO ways to manually set the frequency range Center center frequency and Span frequency range width or fLow amp fHigh start and stop frequency 7 1 Center center frequency Chooses the frequency displayed in the middle of the readout When changing the center frequency the SPAN parameter see following description is pre served Thus you can quickly evaluate different frequency ranges with identical SPAN and without tedious re adjustment of start stop frequencies Bde cue tee 5803 03210 4215m Center frequency 7 2 Span frequency range width Span adjusts the width of the sweep Changes are relative to the aforement
82. t Bev Berufl Exposition Spitzenwert b E HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 41 AARONIA AG 10 0 Exposure limits Also the differences between the exposure limits for a certain target reference group and the corresponding maximum limits are well visible Example For D Net GSM900 cell towers this means that the electrical field strength needs to stay below 1 375 935 MHz or approx 42 V m For E Net GSM1800 base stations this means that the electrical field strength needs to stay 1 375 1800 MHz or approx 58 V m A huge difference The respective allowed absolute maximums are another 32 times higher The highest exposure to high frequency radiation is mostly caused by the high transmitting powers of TV and radio broadcast towers Contrary to widespread belief however often it s not the cell towers that cause the strongest exposure to radiation in homes it s often portable phones so called DECT phones or microwaves ovens 10 2 Device exposure limits Contrary to the personal safety limits the so called device exposure limits are often SIGNIFICANTLY more restrictive and much more frequency dependent For example a cellphone has a totally different device exposure limit than a TV broadcast station Here the allowed limits can easily vary by a factor of millions Still all device exposure limits also
83. than once you can even ana lyze all 10 channels display reads DECT 0 9 INDIVIDUALLY according to the DECT standard You will quickly be able to see which of the 10 channels is cur rently occupied and even when channel hopping occurs This channel separati on is particularly practical in Audio mode Moreover a very special feature is the AUTOMATIC DECT CHANNEL HOPPING MODE DECT Auto Rotate It is automatically activated after pressing the DECT key for the first time Here all 10 channels are CONSTANTLY being measured and displayed one after the other Like this you will never miss a channel hop and can e g quickly evalua te the strongest detected level on ANY channel by using PkHold See also 7 11 Exposure limit calculation and display in W m with weak signals Reduce the setting to 90dB or even 110dB Conversion of measurement results to other units As you know the PkHold feature can be used to freeze the current readings So to convert between units simply activate PkHold and then choose a new unit V m mA m dBm dByV in the Unit menu The previous figure will immediate ly be converted Correct settings for manual input measurement For this it is best to use our PC analysis software MCS Here dozens of opti mized profiles ranging from model making to 5GHz WLAN are available at a mouseclick Further information like channel number provider etc is displayed as well Yo
84. the display of the sig nal becomes Using this filter you can mostly suppress unwanted noise har monics or sporadic peaks However with a very low video filter setting the dis play can become less meaningful In our example there might be three sepa rate signals present However the low video filter straightens these signals out to become one single smooth signal The alleged noise band around the sig nal has also been smoothed out Thus when dealing with weak signals the highest possible video filter Setting should be used eu dec hati 7 VBW Ful VBW 100KHz 7 6 SpTime sampletime Sets the amount of time per sample As a measurement consists of several samples the time needed to complete an entire measurement cycle will obviously be higher In general the higher the Sampletime setting the more precise the measurement at the cost of being more time consuming A SpTime lt 20 5 will activate the UNCALL sign 7 7 Reflev reference level The so called reference level sets the position of the signal display relative to the upper display corner in dBm The smaller the setting the closer you get to the so called noise floor and the greater the amount of visible interference The reference level thus can be used for example for visually suppressing distracting weak signals The higher the reference level the smaller the amo unt of weak signals and interference that get displayed Only the
85. this value manually However in the majority of cases you should be SURE to LEAVE this setting on the default Auto setting WARNING If Auto is turned off it is MANDATORY to activate an attenua tor when applying signals over 20dBm to avoid mismeasurements Signals beyond 0dBm peak can even destroy the input circuitry if no cor responding attenuator is configured 7 10 PreAmp internal pre amplifier Option 020 The optional internal extremely low noise PreAmp amplifies the applied signal by approx 15dB significantly enhancing the sensitivity of the device The Off setting turns the PreAmp off default On activates it Attention Please note that obviously the preamp gives varying performance depending on the measured frequency Its amplification decreases particularly with very low or very high frequencies Below 30MHz and above 9 2 its ampli fication is almost zero and might even attenuate the signal Consequently it HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 25 AARONIA AG 7 0 The main menu should then stay turned off to insure the highest possible sensitivity WARNING Only use the PreAmp with very weak signals as strong signals over 0dBm peak can destroy it 7 11 Demod demodulator audio analysis GSM Decoder The demodulator turns pulsing and modulation of up to approx 3 5kHz into audible signals SPECTRAN supports three types of demodulation
86. try Just as for 4 fLow we will use MHz p Confirm with the ENTER key A zero again appears in the main display Additionally the status field reads STOP Now enter the STOP frequency in full MHz using the number keys In our case we want to measure up to 2 120 2MHz So enter 2121 rounded 2 up and press Enter again for confirmation You are now being returned to the main menu The next menu entry RBW has already been selected automatically Press the ENTER key once again e A list of various filter bandwidths is displayed next Choose the 1MHz fil e ter by using the up down arrow keys and confirm the new setting by again lt 4 pressing the ENTER key You are now being returned to the main menu Finally press the menu key again and all settings are being confirmed and the sweep measurement starts The big status field reads CUSTOM indicating a custom configuration and the sweep is initiated automatically Now only the configured frequency range between 2 110 and 2 121MHz is being sweeped measured thus all operation modes exposure limit calculati on spectrum display now only refer to this frequency range Now you can precisely evaluate if a Vodafone UMTS cell tower is active and how strong the signal is HINT If you like you can save a particular setting as a custom hotkey You find more information on this feature on the following pages You can find further hints and inform
87. u can use the File manager in MCS to simply copy these parame ters for example to a hotkey and transfer them to SPECTRAN Generally the following rules apply to most signal types 1 If possible only use small frequency ranges SPAN below 100 MHz to eliminate interference and or harmonics and achieve faster sweeps 2 An RBW setting of 3MHz and SpTime of 1mS are usually ideal 3 ONLY activate MinMax mode when dealing with pulsed and or modulated signals Analysis on your PC We offer the FREE PC analysis software MCS for SPECTRAN on our home page This really versatile PRO software unleashes SPECTRAN s full potential Whenever possible you should use this software for getting everything possible out of your SPECTRAN instrument 40 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 10 0 Exposure limits AARONIA AG LIES 10 1 Exposure limits for personal safety For radio transmitters including mobile phones cell towers internationally approved exposure limits but also various precautionary limits and recommen dations exist Depending on the context and country however exposure limits and recommendations differ vastly The German limits are defined by the Regulierungsbeh rde f r Telekommunikation und Post Reg TP a subsidiary of the Bundesministerium f r Wirtschaft und Arbeit BMWA They are mainly based on the heat genera tion caused by
88. u will encounter some strange characteristics which can be pretty irritating particularly for novices In practice high frequency radiation rarely constantly fades with distance from the source due to reflections diffusion and diffraction by houses trees walls furniture etc massive selective concentration so called Hot Spots is often noticeable especially inside rooms Here the difference in measured sig nal strength can easily vary by a factor of 10 or 100 in a range of just a few cm Thus it is sometimes pretty difficult to find the actual source or the maxi mum strength of RF radiation High frequency fields are often also measurable on metal objects as these act as antennas and cause the corresponding concentration reflection or forwar ding of high frequency radiation Thus electrical cables are another medium for high frequency radiation and can catch it and release it again at a totally dif ferent location Hence even well shielded rooms can become contaminated again just due to a trivial mains cable To avoid this shielded rooms must be equipped with so called mains filters Especially however the utilization of usual power cables for data transmission e g Internet signal video and audio transmission is a serious source of inter ference and radiation 8 1 Noise floor The so called noise floor indicates the limit below which real measurements become impossible Here only interf
89. umeric giants would be nearly unreadable and result in steady drastic chan ges of the displayed values So we use the much easier to handle logarithmic unit dB As logarithms are dimensionless logarithmic readings are always relative to a certain reference level i e a relationship between two levels is established A common reference level that has become a standard in radio technology is 1mW or 14V So logarithmic level readings are expressed in dB milliwatts dBm or dB microvolts dByV 15 2 Field strength V m A m and power density W m If you don t feed signals directly and instead perform measurements using an antenna you will mostly want to measure the so called field strength or power density instead of power In professional measurement technology mostly only the manageable electric field strength is measured using the unit V m As with dBm V m produces manageable readings without endless rows of zeroes In contrast cheap broadband instruments often only provide readings of power density mostly in pW m to confuse the operator with allegedly huge changes in electrosmog strength This is just as if you measured distances on motor ways in mm Frankfurt to Munich 400 000 000mm Certainly impressive but just pure showiness as it s just 400km Manageability and readability is left behind as the display constantly changes in huge steps Of course SPECTRAN can also display power flux density in uW m or other
90. ur MCS PC soft ware To do this please invoke the File manager in the SPECTRAN menu of the MCS software Next click the file named logger data in the Special direc tory All logger data will immediately appear as a contiguous list or table first comes level in dBm then frequency in MHz You can use the well known stan dard Copy and Paste feature to transfer this data somewhere else for further graphical processing for example into a spreadsheet application ATTENTION The logger allways saves the data shown in the highest marker at the sweep display Therefore be sure to lower the Marker Level so that you all ways get a marker otherwise you will have no usefull datas recorded ATTENTION Transfering large amounts of data from SPECTRAN to the PC can take some time the dBm values are transfered with an accuracy of two decimal places ATTENTION Please note that the internal 64K memory can quickly be filled up Thus we strongly recommend our 1MB memory expansion Option 001 for 99 95 Euros for using the Logger function 32 HW VA FW 42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 7 0 The main menu AARONIA AG 7 24 RunPrg execute program SPECTRAN features its own file system which stores a variety of programs You can even write your own programs and store them to SPECTRAN s program memory SETUPs see below are also stored as programs Each pr
91. vity of a spectrum ana lyser accuracy decreases by principle Even though SPECTRAN instruments offer an impressive accuracy considering their price a yet higher measurement inaccuracy than the base instrument itself has is assumed in practice The reason behind this are further factors which can influence measurement inaccuracy Some of them are temperature depen dence repeatability antenna errors modulation dependence etc According to BUWAL see also www BUWAL ch one should always expect an extended measurement inaccuracy of at least 35 even with absolutely profes sional equipment So expressed in dB you should always expect a rounded 3dB and consider this in every measurement Example You measure a value of 45dBm So the actual result could according to the mentioned measurement inaccuracy vary between 42dBm 45dBm 3dB and 48dBm 45dBm 3dB Thus as you want to measure exposure due to radiation you should always assume the highest value namely 42dBm In other words Always add another 3dB to the measurement inaccuracy of your SPEC TRAN instrument when conducting measurements HW VA FW BETA42 2005 2013 Aaronia AG DE 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 37 AARONIA AG 8 0 Correct measurement LEES 8 6 The cursor and zoom features gt Using the Jog dial you can activate a cursor in spectrum analysis mode This cursor allows you to display the exact frequency and signal level of a certain

Spectran User Manual (HF60XX-V4)

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