[time-nuts] Re: E5500 blues

[Magnus Danielson]

Hi Rick,

Just following the manual, I've done the first confidence test setup, 
and that worked fine, and then went on to do the first measurement of a 
source, which is the first step to advance things. The feature set, 
emphasis on the many things it can do etc does not reflect at all what 
you say. It can do way more than just residual even if absolute phase 
noise measurement was offered in a more gift-wrapped form with the 
E5052, but then that's not what we discuss here and becomes meaningless. 
I seek advice to get the E5500 do the things it is able to do, I'm just 
having trouble getting even the basic measurement to work. So, I took a 
5 MHz of a source and just wanted it to do a measure on that signal, to 
see that things work, all per basic manual example. I do not even 
attempt to push it to phase-noise limits, then a different setup with it 
would be recommended and I will do that later.

So, with a 5 MHz source, a RF generator that is doing DCFM lock of PLL 
and then analyse spectrum of that, that fails to lock this PLL loop, and 
I fail to get a monitored beat note that makes sense. So, I was hoping 
someone had done this and could help me with the teething problems. Once 
that is done I intended to redo this at 180 MHz and 1440 MHz just for fun.

Thus, 3047, 3048 and E5052 becomes off topic, and not part of this exercise.

Cheers,
Magnus

On 2021-08-18 20:49, Richard Karlquist wrote:
>
> Before attempting to help you, it would be useful if you could give us 
> more details as to what you are trying to accomplish with the E5500.  
> The E5500 is primarily positioned as a RESIDUAL phase noise analyzer.  
> The fact that you are talking about the PLL feature implies that you 
> are not measuring residual phase noise, but rather are measuring the 
> noise of some source.  That is a legacy feature carried over from the 
> 3047/3048, etc products that were sold before the introduction of the 
> Keysight E5052B Signal Source Analyzer.  If my guess is correct, then 
> I would recommend that tool.   It is vastly easier to use than the 
> E5500.  There are also many other solutions from vendors besides 
> Keysight that evaluate source noise.  Possibly, even though you are 
> measuring source noise, you have a corner case where the E5500 
> is nevertheless essential for some complicated reason.
>
> ---
> Rick Karlquist
> N6RK
>
>
> On 2021-08-18 06:42, Magnus Danielson via time-nuts wrote:
>
>> Fellow time-nuts,
>>
>> Is there anyone out there that may ease my teething issues on getting 
>> my E5500 phase-noise setup to start working?
>>
>> So, I have an E5500 variant based on 70420A, 89410A, E4420B, 53132A 
>> and 8563E. It fails to lock the PLL up and I fail to get a beat note.
>>
>> Someone that have some experience to share and help me on the way?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Magnus
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