A little while ago, I discovered that my little 2m/400 SWR/Power meter had bit the dust while I was trying to tune a 440Mhz base antenna. Unfortunately, my MFJ-259 analyzer only covered up to 2 meters, so I decided it was time to look for a new analyzer that could cover HF through 400+Mhz. I had been looking lustily at the RigExpert line of analyzers and decided to go with the AA-600 analyzer that covers 0.1-600Mhz. I ordered the unit from rigexpert.net at a price of $575 shipped and had the unit in my hands in a few days.
Here is everything that comes in the package: The analyzer, a carry pouch, the manual, Antscope software, USB cable, 3 NiMh AA batteries with charger, and a S0-239 to N connector adapter.
Here is a close-up shot of the analyzer turned on showing the initial menu:
The menu items correspond to the numbered keypad. If you look closely, you can see that the text above each keypad number is also the same as the screen menu. This is helpful because the functions or settings accessed by the keypad are also accessible while using the various screens - you don't have to memorize them because they are shown directly on the keypad. To access the blue function to the left of each keypad number, you just hit the blue F key first on the bottom left.
The first thing you typically need to do to start using the analyzer is to punch in the desired frequency that you want to take a measurement of:
After you do that, you will be taken back to the main menu where you would typically choose to either scan the SWR for a desired bandwidth, or just show the SWR at the entered frequency. Here is a pic of the basic "Show SWR" menu item:
If you choose the "Scan SWR" menu, you will first get a blank graph with the chosen frequency at the top, with a +/- scan range. Simply press the up (range+) or down (range-) buttons to narrow or widen the scan range and then hit the check or OK button to scan. The end result will look something like this:
In this example, the center frequency is 441.860 and the left and right edge of the graph are 431.860Mhz and 451.860Mhz, respectively. The graph represents the SWR across the scan range.
When displaying an SWR scan, the red carrot at the bottom of the graph corresponds to the frequency displayed at the top. In this example, I hooked up the analyzer to my Alpha Delta DX-CC and set the frequency to 3.860Mhz with a total scan range of 200 khz:
As you can see, the SWR at the cursor is about 1.3:1. Using the left and right arrows on the analyzer, I moved over to 3.9Mhz to reveal that the antenna reads about 2.8:1 SWR:
One of the very useful features of the analyzer is that you can save a sweep to memory and then retrieve it on your PC later. You do that by hitting key 6 (Save), then using the up and down arrows to pick a memory slot and then punching in a memory name:
When you pull it up on the computer using the supplied software, you get a nice image that you can use for various purposes that looks like this:
I'm just getting started on the many features of this analyzer, so stay tuned for more...
Here is everything that comes in the package: The analyzer, a carry pouch, the manual, Antscope software, USB cable, 3 NiMh AA batteries with charger, and a S0-239 to N connector adapter.
Here is a close-up shot of the analyzer turned on showing the initial menu:
The menu items correspond to the numbered keypad. If you look closely, you can see that the text above each keypad number is also the same as the screen menu. This is helpful because the functions or settings accessed by the keypad are also accessible while using the various screens - you don't have to memorize them because they are shown directly on the keypad. To access the blue function to the left of each keypad number, you just hit the blue F key first on the bottom left.
The first thing you typically need to do to start using the analyzer is to punch in the desired frequency that you want to take a measurement of:
After you do that, you will be taken back to the main menu where you would typically choose to either scan the SWR for a desired bandwidth, or just show the SWR at the entered frequency. Here is a pic of the basic "Show SWR" menu item:
If you choose the "Scan SWR" menu, you will first get a blank graph with the chosen frequency at the top, with a +/- scan range. Simply press the up (range+) or down (range-) buttons to narrow or widen the scan range and then hit the check or OK button to scan. The end result will look something like this:
In this example, the center frequency is 441.860 and the left and right edge of the graph are 431.860Mhz and 451.860Mhz, respectively. The graph represents the SWR across the scan range.
When displaying an SWR scan, the red carrot at the bottom of the graph corresponds to the frequency displayed at the top. In this example, I hooked up the analyzer to my Alpha Delta DX-CC and set the frequency to 3.860Mhz with a total scan range of 200 khz:
As you can see, the SWR at the cursor is about 1.3:1. Using the left and right arrows on the analyzer, I moved over to 3.9Mhz to reveal that the antenna reads about 2.8:1 SWR:
One of the very useful features of the analyzer is that you can save a sweep to memory and then retrieve it on your PC later. You do that by hitting key 6 (Save), then using the up and down arrows to pick a memory slot and then punching in a memory name:
When you pull it up on the computer using the supplied software, you get a nice image that you can use for various purposes that looks like this:
I'm just getting started on the many features of this analyzer, so stay tuned for more...