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Not that difficult, either. Finally, we represent the strength of each signal in terms
of vertical bars with corresponding heights along the Y axis:

In addition, we have made the markers as wide as the

frequency range

of each

application (the so-called

bandwidth

): our unknown signal occupied the fre-

quency range from 350 to 360Hz - accordingly, its

bandwidth

was 10Hz

(360-350Hz = 10Hz).

Well, it was all quite simple at the end, wasn’t it? We now have a single display
consisting of ALL information available about the three signal sources.

In practice, this display could look similar to the following image on an idealized
measurement device:

This example image also shows 3

main signal sources

from left to right:

Signal #1

=16.7Hz at -63dBm

Signal #2

=50Hz at -23dBm

Signal #3

=350Hz at -42dBm

0Hz

400Hz

16.7Hz

50Hz

350-360Hz

0Hz

400Hz

16.7Hz

50Hz

350-360Hz

19.0 Spectrum analysis basics

Summary of Contents for NF-5030S

Page 1: ...Manual SPECTRAN NF Rev 1 33 EN 14 03 2013 M a d e i n G e r m a n y ...

Page 2: ...005 2013 by Aaronia AG D 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 1 Please read the following manual carefully before starting up your measurement device The manual gives you useful instructions how to operate the unit correctly ...

Page 3: ...hich you can obtain from Aaronia at any time by paying the corre sponding price difference Upgrading to a higher grade SPECTRAN model for example an NF 5030 instead of the NF 1010E is possible at any time Likewise OPTIONS like memory expansions frequency expansions or a higher grade battery can also be purchased and added to your unit whenever you need them In case of replacement our devices are o...

Page 4: ...m 1D 2D or 3D measurement 25 7 7 VBW video filter 25 7 8 SpTime Sampletime 25 7 9 Reflev reference level 26 7 10 Range dynamics 27 7 11 Atten attenuator 27 7 12 Demod demodulator audio output 28 7 13 Detec RMS or MinMax detector 28 7 14 Hold activate HOLD mode 28 7 15 Unit select physical unit 29 7 16 UScale set scaling of physical unit 29 7 17 MrkCnt set number of markers 30 7 18 MrkLvl set start...

Page 5: ...ment of static magnetic fields 41 10 0 Measurement in 1D 2D or 3D 42 11 0 Aligning the sensor 43 12 0 Physical units 44 13 0 Tips and tricks 45 14 0 Exposure limits 47 14 1 Limits for personal safety 47 14 2 Device limits 48 14 3 Construction biological limits 49 15 0 Connections 50 15 1 SMA input measurement of external signals 50 15 2 External DC input battery charging 51 15 3 Audio output 52 15...

Page 6: ...easurement device is maintenance free Only clean it outside with a damp cloth Do not use any cleaning supplies ATTENTION Always screw antennas and adapters always in a non violent way Please use for loosening or screwing of SMA connections ONLY the enclosed SMA tool which offers an over tightening protection 1 0 Safety instructions Firmware V 1 0 2005 2013 by Aaronia AG D 54597 Euscheid www aaroni...

Page 7: ... CD containing this manual MCS PC Software Windows MAC Linux and more 2 SPECTRAN NF Spectrum Analyzer incl 1300mAh Battery installed 3 Small aluminum transport case When purchasing a measurement Bundle the bigger version of the transport case is included in delivery 2 0 Scope of delivery Firmware V 1 0 2005 2013 by Aaronia AG D 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 6 1 2 3 ...

Page 8: ... 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 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 12 11 10 9 13 14 15 3 0 LC Display Firmware V 1 0 2005 2013 b...

Page 9: ...tion of menu entries 2 In Spectrum analysis mode Right left key move frequency range by one SPAN Up down key move reference level by 10dB 3 In Exposure limits mode Right left key select exposure limit 4 In Audio mode Right left key move center frequency by one RBW Up down key decrease increase RBW bandwidth 5 Dot key 1 Modes Spectrum analysis Exposure limits HOLD on off 2 Mode Audio Switch between...

Page 10: ... the magnetic field of the power supply as follows 5 0 Your first measurement Modes Firmware V 1 0 2005 2013 by Aaronia AG D 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 9 BARGRAPH trend display when Reflev is not in Auto mode Depending on signal strength the half circle will grow or shrink A very handy function for quickly changing levels INFO display Displays the current physical unit and various menu informa...

Page 11: ...use further features 5 1 Choosing the sensor Key 6 In general you should know that there are two different kinds of fields that are measurable with SPECTRAN in the proximity of electrical appliances and installations electric alternating fields and magnetic alternating fields For each of these field types you need an appropriate sensor Both sensors are already integrated into our SPECTRAN devices ...

Page 12: ...display of signal levels and frequencies EXPOSURE LIMIT display percentage of a particular exposure limit AUDIO output makes modulated signals audible You can switch between the different modes of operation at any time by using the Enter key 5 3 Mode Spectrum analysis The DISPLAY MODE status field displays SPECTRUM Press the Enter key until the display mode status field reads SPECTRUM SPECTRAN wil...

Page 13: ...place 5 4 HOLD mode The MODE status field displays HOLD As you have probably already noticed the display chan ges constantly This is completely normal as the field strength also changes with distance to the signal sour ce Simply try it out yourself move the device around the signal source and keep an eye on the display and the changing readouts Often the user just wants to check the highest possib...

Page 14: ...ectrical wiring During measu rement the displayed signal strength will rapidly increase until at some point it will stop changing and freeze at the signal maximum This can take several minutes when testing an entire room After completion of this procedure the maximum signal strength found in the entire room is shown on the display As field strength diminishes very rapidly with increasing distance ...

Page 15: ...r keys Find a more detai led introduction to these exposure limits on pages 47 and following in this manual Please try it yourself Select all the different exposure limits and compare the results The available exposure limits are xTESLA Shows the readout in Tesla ICNIRP ICNIRP recommendation also German limit General population BGRB11 BGFE limit for workplace exposition exposition class 2 BImSch 2...

Page 16: ...nd our free PC analysis software which offers a lots of additional fea tures Another approach to precisely locate a signal or determine its origin is demodu lation This feature allows you to hear potential pulsing or modulation of a signal source As with other features SPECTRAN has a special mode for this kind of operation 5 0 Your first measurement Modes Firmware V 1 0 2005 2013 by Aaronia AG D 5...

Page 17: ...N During audio analysis the entire display will be frozen and the pixel field is turned off com pletely to save computing power for demodulation Then ONLY acoustic reproduction of the signal is car ried out In contrast to simple broadband detectors SPECTRAN performs its demodulation only at a specific frequency center frequency Thus you can selectively listen small individual frequency ranges Howe...

Page 18: ... the filter you have previously selected For example should you have chosen a 1kHz filter fine adjustment will take place in steps of 1kHz and so on The new center frequency will be shown on the large INFO dis play after changes ATTENTION For optimal audio reproduction of signals their levels should be significantly higher than the noise floor 5 0 Your first measurement Modes Firmware V 1 0 2005 2...

Page 19: ...e you simply need to know the start and stop fre quencies of the subject to be measured and provide them to SPECTRAN You can find an excerpt from the start and stop frequencies of various signal sources in the frequency table on page 56 Manual adjustment There are two ways for setting up the requested frequen cy range exactly You can either go in the menu to the Start and Stop frequency or just wo...

Page 20: ...number keys In our case we want to measure up to 70kHz so enter 70 Again press the Enter key to confirm your entry Leave the the entry by pressing the menu key and you are back in the main menu As the next step we need to select the appropriate filter and sampletime display speed 3 Choose a filter RBW in the menu at RBW The filter should be at least 10 times smaller than the SPAN at our example 70...

Page 21: ...pletime the more accurate are the measured values but the longer time takes the sweep 2 The bigger the RBW the lower is the required sampletime to get accu rate measurements Please note that only full kHz will be displayed for all frequency redisplays in the menue because the display is limited to 4 digits 9999 For example an entry of 50Hz will result a 0 0kHz display and 6 788kHz will be displayd...

Page 22: ...nd STOP frequencies as integers in Hz kHz or MHz In the next line the current settings for Range MrkLvl and Reflev are display ed This is very practical For example you can query the current frequency range among other settings at any time during a measurement by just pres sing the menu button After you have checked the current values please just press the menu button again and the measurement wil...

Page 23: ...e Mag internal 3D air core coil for magnetic alternating fields XY Mag X axis resp X Y axes when doing a 2D measurement YZ Mag Y axis resp Y Z axes when doing a 2D measurement ZX Mag Z axis resp Z X axes when doing a 2D measurement MSta internal static magnetic field sensor only available with Option 006 Measurement of static magnetic fields geomagnetic field magnets X MSta X axis resp X Y axes wh...

Page 24: ... before men tioned Center frequency of the display By changing Span the Start Stop fre quency see following description is automatically adjusted to be able to con form to the Span Therefore the Span function can be compared to a magnify ing glass though only operating in the X axis EXAMPLE You have chosen 2kHz as the Center frequency Now choose 2kHz as Span and it will be sweeped from 1 to 3kHz C...

Page 25: ...ity at the same time When bandwidth is setted at a very high value or even FULL the sweep will be very fast however the display becomes comparatively inaccurate and sensitivity 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 precise and weaker signals can still be displayed Thus for example a single ...

Page 26: ... suppress unwanted noisefloors harmonics or sporadic peaks However with a low Video filter setting the dis play can become less meaningful In our example there might be there three separate signals However the low video filter straightens these signals out to become one single smooth signal The alleged noise band around the signal has also been smoothed out Thus when dealing with weak signals the ...

Page 27: ...changing the reference level the display can always keep jumping which might be interfere when doing slow sweeps Another problem is that background noise would be displayed as a full signal when there is no other signal To alleviate this problem you can set a fixed reference level by using one of the Unit m Unit µ Unit or n Unit settings and get a background noise less display With these settings ...

Page 28: ...st possible overview of all signal sources The lg100 and lg10 settings in turn provide more detail however parts of the signal sources above or below could now be cut off The range setting can be therefore compared with a magnifying glass that only affects the Y axis The vertical bars caused by the individual signals are virtual ly squeezed in order to be able to display them all 7 11 Atten attenu...

Page 29: ...ifferent detectors Possible choices are RMS Default MinMax This mode allows you for instance to find out if a certain signal is modulated When the displayed signal level is larger in MinMax mode than in RMS mode the signal must be modulated If both modes show a nearly identical display the signal is unmodulated HINT You can change the detector at any time by just pressing the Shift key 7 14 Hold a...

Page 30: ... up because of the automatic scaling Such a combination of settings is generally of limited use 7 15 Unit Select physical unit The Unit setting allows you to specify the physical unit used to display measu rement results Options are Tesla Gauss and A m Two further options Volt external SMA connector and V m E field sensor are automatically chosen when the corresponding sensor is selected Hint In E...

Page 31: ...Dis Marker display mode The marker display mode determines how markers are displayed As the avai lable display space for showing markers very differs in size and readability two different modes are available Freq frequency displays the frequency of each marker in the large display Its amplitude or similar applicable property is small displayed beneith the fre quency Ampl amplitude displays the amp...

Page 32: ... of the pauses between the individual logs in seconds FILEId Enter the program number used to store the recorded data This number is later used to download the recorded data using our PC software ATTENTION Currently our PC software only supports program number 1000 After setting FILEId the memory status field will show RECORD and the log ger is armed Press the menu button again and the recording w...

Page 33: ...nfiguration Use Setup to manage individual configurations and programs The Store option will save the current configuration fLow fHigh RBW VBW SpTime Atten RefLev Range Detec as its own little program Please enter a number above 200 to store configurations The previously described RunPrg function can be used to recall a configuration Del deletes a previously stored configuration please just enter ...

Page 34: ...ickly hit physical limits in this range To achieve still the best possible sensitivity at least the resi dual noise of the amplifiers i e the measurement electronics themselves has to be kept to a minimum by using only high grade extremely low noise ampli fiers like in SPECTRAN which actually goes quite close to the actual physical limits When doing measurements close to 0Hz pay attention to the f...

Page 35: ... This has the side effect of a very low sensitivity in the lower frequency range Thus do not expect a 50Hz signal to be measured correctly when using a sweep of 0Hz to 100kHz However should you despite of this wish to measure close to the 0Hz spike for example 50Hz mains or 16 7Hz traction power you should use the smallest possible filters 0 3Hz 1Hz or 3Hz However this naturally leads to an extre ...

Page 36: ... smaller SPAN 500kHz set filter to 100kHz or 30kHz or smaller However note that the selected filter directly influences the sweep speed and display accuracy the larger the selected filter the faster the sweep but the less accurate the display The following illustrations explain the filter problem assuming a sweep from 50 to 60 kHz The grid lines show the visible range 8 0 Correct measurement Firmw...

Page 37: ...easy to detect The levels will fre quently change a lot after each sweep If you use our free PC Software you will then see a snake like graph in the spectrogram window Simply change the sampletime to a higher value until you get a stable reading after each sweep 8 5 Measurement of electric fields all fields above 500kHz Correct measurement of potential free electric fields or magnetic fields above...

Page 38: ...ir measuring instruments wrongly measure potentials with ground reference This approach violates any applicable EMC security standards and is thus ly WRONG and legally worthless Consequently the results obtained from such measurements are not compa rable at all to results obtained with SPECTRAN as SPECTRAN measures according to standards potential free without ground reference 8 6 Sensitivity Plea...

Page 39: ...splay and demodulation now EXCLUSIVELY represent the frequency at the current cursor position The current frequency and level display at the cursor position only get updated after each sweep and are displayed in the first leftmost marker field Naturally no auto marker functionality is available in this mode Once you have positioned the cursor you can zoom into a signal by pressing the Jog Dial Thi...

Page 40: ...ver it is still possible to locate quickly a signal source or verify its presence More information on DFT mode can be found in the section The 0Hz spike and the noise floor 8 10 Choosing the right attenuator SPECTRAN contains a highly accurate internal attenuator allowing the attenuation of input signals to prevent overdrive of the internal amplifier Without using the attenuator serious measuremen...

Page 41: ...plifies the display enor mously One possible illustration would be 0 797µT 0 7 millionth of a Tesla another 797nT 797 billionth of a Tesla As this example clearly shows the rea dout would literally drown in a huge pile of zeroes without the autorange func tion However using the µ or n prefixes display is still accurately possible even with just 4 digits This of course also works with very large va...

Page 42: ...ny a flux density of approx 45µT is common This so called geomagnetic field can be drastically influenced by construction materials in buildings Therefore the results of indoor measurements will dif fer significantly depending on the location Even in the field measurement results can differ widely as the earths geophysical characteristics distort the magnetic field That s why even detailed maps of...

Page 43: ... The only disadvantage of this technology is the higher sweeptime A 2D or 3D measurement will general ly be slower by nature as obviously the number of necessary sweeps will increa se 2 or 3 fold However should your instrument be equipped with the DDC opti on option 005 the sweep times in 1D and 2D mode will be the same as two channels can be measured at the same time In 3D mode likewise sweep tim...

Page 44: ...he X axis only the magnetic field needs to be aligned that it goes through the front of the unit Likewise it needs to go through the sides for Y axis measurements or through the top bottom for Z axis measurements see picture The sensor is located at the center of the devi ce below the INFO display M field sensor static magnetic fields e g magnets geomagnetic field The sensor for static magnetic fi...

Page 45: ...ss T Tesla or A m Amperes meter As the readout can quickly turn into a gigantic row of digits when measuring field strengths SPECTRAN offers a very practical autorange feature instead of an endless row of digits it simply adds a corresponding prefix to the readout such as p n µ or m for example mT Measuring voltage V When using direct signal input via the SMA connector you can directly measu re th...

Page 46: ... in order to be still measurable Mapping keys with your own parameters and settings Keys 0 till 9 can be also mapped with custom configurations including start stop frequency RBW etc Program numbers 100 till 109 correspond to keys 0 till 9 and can be used for assignment to these keys Simply store the current confi guration in one of these program numbers using the menu entry Setup Store You will t...

Page 47: ...lysis software LCS or MCS for such tasks Here you can find many optimized profiles from mains power to TCO99 or energy saving lamps In addition information such as channel numbers etc are also displayed These parameters can then simply be copied and transferred to SPECTRAN However we also have a special setting just for 50Hz 60Hz mains power Simply use quick measurement via key 2 In this mode 50Hz...

Page 48: ...e German exposure limits are intended for quadratic means of measurements taken during intervals of 6 minutes and subdivided by frequency ranges Furthermore there are seperate limits depending on the group of persons affec ted As an example we will use the limit for the generic population Frequency E field V m H field µT M field A m Below 1 Hz 40 000 32 000 1 8 Hz 10 000 40 000 f 32 000 f 8 25 Hz ...

Page 49: ...such as TVs computers and monitors are neglectible as they are mostly shielded very well TCO99 or operated at large distances TV and thus exposure levels are very low 14 2 Device limits In contrast to limits for personal safety the so called device limits are often SIGNIFICANTLY more restrictive and are subject to greater variations depen ding on frequency For example a hair dryers limit is totall...

Page 50: ...led broadband diode detector technology However it is physically impossible to conduct frequency selective measurements with these devices Hence frequency selective construction biological limits would simply not be manageable In any case this might change very soon thanks to SPECTRAN as frequency should really not be swept under the carpet Even if supporting such trivial precautionary limits in a...

Page 51: ...odel down to 0 74nV Hz has specifically been designed for measurement of extre mely weak signals thus the maximum allowable input voltage is very small The maximum input voltage is 200nV to 200mV 0 2V with a frequency of max 30MHz if the SPECTRAN is equipped with this option WARNING Be sure not to overload the input The maximum allowable voltage is just 200mV 0 2V Voltages more than 10V can destro...

Page 52: ... SPECTRAN independently of the internal battery pack You can also connect other DC power sources from 8V to 12V max by using a 3 5mm phone jack Polarization 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 wall p...

Page 53: ...rrowkeys turn the jog dial and the Enter key briefly press the jog dial You can e g con trol the complete menu system just with this practical litt le wheel However with the demodulator activated this jog dial can be used as a volume control As precaution before connecting anything to the audio output you should turn this volume control down to zero to avoid overload 15 5 USB connector The 5 pin m...

Page 54: ... outlet 200 V m Fuse box 300 V m 500 nT Computer screen 200 V m 1 000 nT Measurements at larger distance Beneith a 10kV high voltage line 500 V m 5 000nT Beneith a 110kV high voltage line 3 000 V m 20 000nT Beneith a 380kV high voltage line 10 000 V m 50 000nT In the vicinity of a 380kV substation 15 000 V m 500 000nT 16 0 Typical readouts in practice Firmware V 1 0 2005 2013 by Aaronia AG D 54597...

Page 55: ... G Gauss T Tesla n nano one billionth µ micro one millionth m milli one thousandth 1 Gauss 1 Oersted Oersted is used in various countries mostly in eastern Europe Conversion table for ELECTRIC FIELDS 0 01 mV m 0 000 01V m 0 000 000 01 kV m 0 1 mV m 0 000 1V m 0 000 000 1 kV m 1 mV m 0 001V m 0 000 001 kV m 10 mV m 0 01 V m 0 000 01 kV m 100 mV m 0 1 V m 0 000 1 kV m 1 000 mV m 1 V m 0 001 kV m 10 ...

Page 56: ...0dBW 0 000 001W 1µW 40dBm 70dBW 0 000 000 1W 100nW 50dBm 80dBW 0 000 000 01W 10nW 60dBm 90dBW 0 000 000 001W 1nW 70dBm 100dBW 0 000 000 000 1W 100pW dBm decibelmilliwatts dBW decibelwatts W watts mW milliwatts µW microwatts nW nanowatts pW picowatts Table 4 Frequency wavelength and official band abbreviation 3 Hz 30 Hz 100 000 km 10 000 km ULF 30 Hz 300 Hz 10 000 km 1 000 km ELF 300 Hz 3 kHz 1 000...

Page 57: ...0Hz Mains power US and others 50Hz 200Hz Welding and high voltage utility network 200Hz 1kHz Power converters and high voltage utility network 31kHz CRT TV 40kHz Energy saving lamp 21W Osram 42kHz 30 TFT monitor Dell 45kHz Energy saving lamp 8W Osram 49kHz 17 TFT monitor Dell 52kHz 24 TFT monitor Dell 56kHz 20 TFT monitor Dell 60kHz Battery charger noname 77 5kHz DCF77 German reference time broadc...

Page 58: ...l applications can be avoided just as with the different vehicles on the motorway so that for instance a cellphone cannot disrupted by a high voltage line 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 cars might go at up to 300km h Exposure limits for applica...

Page 59: ...n analysis of the entire lane range of 0 400m Or in other words you have performend a RANGE ANALYSIS Analysis as you know means dividing something into smaller pieces and eva luate those In our case the wide motorway was that something and the smal ler pieces were the individual lanes Now the word range can be replaced with the word SPECTRUM and there we are we have just performed a SPEC TRUM ANAL...

Page 60: ... also providing us with the signal strength in each of the frequency ranges Some practical examples Let s assume we want to accurately study the frequency range from 0Hz to 400Hz and let s further assume that the following 3 applications are currently active in this range with varying signal levels in practice you will often find a far bigger number of applications Frequency range MHz Application ...

Page 61: ...s all quite simple at the end wasn t it We now have a single display consisting of ALL information available about the three signal sources In practice this display could look similar to the following image on an idealized measurement device This example image also shows 3 main signal sources from left to right Signal 1 16 7Hz at 63dBm Signal 2 50Hz at 23dBm Signal 3 350Hz at 42dBm 0Hz 400Hz 1 6 7...

Page 62: ...process is called sweeping What information did we get from the entire process 1 In the entire frequency range from 0 to 400Hz there are 3 main signal sources 2 The frequencies and signal strength of all 3 signal sources are exactly known As the exact frequencies of the signal sources are now known it is now easy to determine the actual entity or service emitting the signal by using a so called fr...

Page 63: ...ranteed replacement in case of product range additions As soon as new instruments are ready for launch you can upgrade your product to a more current model at any time by paying the price difference Our customers have first taken the opportunity to accept this offer in the year 2000 when upgrading from the older Multidetektor 1 series to the new Multidetektor II models These customers only needed ...

Page 64: ...ronia com 63 Please visit our support website http spectran developer net This site offers Free Firmware updates Free PC Analyzer Software MAC OS Linux and Windows Free ASDK Aaronia Software Developer Kit P CODE programing samples and SPECTRAN TUNING User Forum incl FAQ News on latest Aaronia products ...

Page 65: ...22 0 Frequency charts Analyzer Antennas Firmware V 1 0 2005 2013 by Aaronia AG D 54597 Euscheid www aaronia com 64 SPECTRAN Spectrum Analyzer HyperLOG and BicoLOG Antennas and Probes ...

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