RSA500A

See more with proprietary DPX® technology.

Primer: DPX Acquisition Technology for Spectrum Analyzers Fundamentals

This primer describes the DPX spectrum display and how it addresses situations involving brief, intermittent, complex and / or coincident signals. Also covered are the methods for achieving its key performance specifications.

Discover the most difficult, hard-to-find problems with the powerful real-time architecture of the RSA Series. With the advanced DPX® technology, you can see RF characteristics that are practically invisible to a conventional spectrum analyzer.

Tektronix' patented Digital Phosphor technology or DPX® is used in our Real-Time Spectrum Analyzers (RTSAs), to reveal signal details that are completely missed by conventional spectrum analyzers and vector signal analyzers. The full-motion DPX spectrum's Live RF display shows signals never seen before, giving users instant insight and greatly accelerating discovery and diagnosis. DPX is a standard feature in all Tektronix Real-Time Spectrum Analyzers (RTSAs).

DPX video

SignalVu-PC Software

Powerful and intuitive. Measurement insight at your fingertips.

The RSA500A operates with SignalVu-PC, a powerful program that is the basis of Tektronix performance signal analyzers. The software controls the spectrum analyzer acquisition and updates measurement displays continuously.

The base version ships free with the product; add options for Bluetooth testing, WLAN testing, P25 compliance testing, pulse analysis and modulation analysis to configure the software for your application.

Software update gives dramatic sweep speed increase

Sweep speed comparison

10 Great New Features

The September 2017 version of SignalVu-PC comes with 10 great new features. The most significant upgrade is an increase in sweep speed. Acquire data five to six times faster with this updated version of SignalVu-PC.

Other significant improvements:

• DPX 100% POI Performance Improvement
• Windows 10 support
• CISPR Quasi-Peak, Average and Peak detection in Spectrum and Spurious displays. (Opt SVQP)
• Multiple Traces in 'spurious' display
• SignalVu-PC licenses can now be loaded into the instrument for RSA306/500/600.
• Amplitude Correction for all measurements
• Bluetooth V5 measurements. (Opt SV31 with Opt SV27)
• Midas streaming file support
• 1024 QAM support in WiFi measurements
  
  

Since then, there have been further improvements...

This video covers new EMCVu features, including:

• push button support for multiple standards
• automated multiple measurement / multiple format reporting
• ambient noise calibration and comparison
• harmonic markers and faster scans using peak detector and spot measurements with quasi-peak and average detector failures.

Video: EMCVu Demonstration

Three bandwidth options make DataVu-PC the most affordable way to analyze large files from all Tektronix Spectrum Analysers.

Video: DataVu-PC Introduction

Be In Two Places at Once

With DataVu-PC 3.11, you can now record any signal of interest. Use triggers to start recording and minimize storage requirements and automate your signal search with tools like frequency mask, pulse descriptor words and smart markers. Couple DataVu-PC with two Real-Time Spectrum Analyzers, and you can record and examine two independent frequencies and spans simultaneously. For example, if you’re searching for a specific signal, you can see a very wide bandwidth in one display and zoom in to see certain signals in another display.

Powerful tools to simplify your time in the field.

With a built-in tracking generator for RF component test and a GPS to geo-locate and map signals, the RSA500 makes field test a lot easier. It gives you fast channel insight with 4x faster scanning capability compared to other spectrum analyzers.

Application Note: Interference Hunting

Cable and Antenna Testing.

This application note looks at the basics of  line sweeping measurements on cable and antenna systems including a look at why they are important and how to perform them.

Application Note: Cable and Antenna Measurements

Characterising Radar

Application Engineer Alan Wolke shows basic vector signal properties of a 10.5 GHz pulse Doppler radar, such as spectrums over time, frequency deviation over time, and amplitude deviation over time. He also covers quantitative measurements of pulse characteristics like scalar properties (pulse width, rise time, fall time, average power, repetition interval) and vector properties (frequency and phase deviation within pulses, frequency and phase deviation from pulse to pulse, etc.)

Cable Testing

Watch how the RSA500A and RSA600A Realtime Spectrum Analysers with optional Tracking Generator and software make Return Loss, Distance to Fault & Cable Loss Measurements.

Antenna Testing

In this video, you will see how you can overcome the problems of traditional swept spectrum analysers with their slow, low-power processors and limited-to-no real-time capabilities by using the tracking generator in the RSA507A to tune a Rx and Tx antenna. Return loss and VSWR measurements and testing over the air demonstrates the improvement.

Advanced Spectrum Monitoring

In this video, we give you some tips on how you use the real-time and maths functions of SignalVu-PC software and an RSA507A to look at changes in the spectrum environment..

Interference Hunting on TETRA (and P25) Networks

Interference hunting on a TETRA or P25 network can be challenging and time consuming however this task is made much easier with a Tektronix realtime spectrum analyser and DPX. Here's a simple guide to interference hunting on digtal radio network using the RSA507A to Discover, Capture & Analyse.

Measurement of Power in Radar-like Signals

Do you need to measure RF power on a radar-like signal? In this video, Fredrik from Tek Nordic shows the different ways to do it - and how easy it is to do it - with the RSA507A Realtime Spectrum Analyser!

Testing LTE Downlinks

See how to make off-the-air measurement of an LTE down-link using a Tektronix USB spectrum analyzer and optional application SV28 which enables:

• RF measurements (ACLR, SEM, Channel Power, OBW) per 3GPP TS version 12.5, in addition to Cell ID detection
• Support for both TDD and FDD frame format
• Presets and pass/fail information to accelerate validation

Multi-channel RF Generation

In this short video, you will see how an AWG70001 Arbitrary Waeveform Generator is used to create multi-channel QPSK and QAM16 waveforms which are then analysed using an RSA507A Realtime Spectrum Analyer and SignalVu-PC software.

Quick Demo of Decodio 3rd Party Software with the RSA500A

Watch this quick demo of Tektronix USB spectrum analysers working with Decodio 3rd party software to provide a high-performance solution for wideband signal acquisition, channelisation, demodulation and streaming. Check out the powerful air interface analysis tool for TETRA PMR networks, featuring voice and data content decoding and fast emission detection.