The instrument is part of a new family, called RSA3000, which also includes a 3GHz version and follows on from the higher spec RSA5000 family announced earlier this year.

“With the 40MHz option applied, the RSA3000 delivers the same seamless capture, minimum probability of intercept [POI] of 7.45 µs, seven visualisation modes and triggering capability as the RSA5000, providing a complete real-time analysis package for engineers at lower entry price,” said Rigol.

Yesterday Rigol announced a new oscilloscope, as did Rohde & Schwarz, the latter with an 8GHz model.

As well as real-time, the RSA3000 can also function as a traditional swept spectrum analyser with 10Hz resolution bandwidth (RBW) and an option for 1Hz, noise floor as low as -161dBm, phase noise of -102dBc/Hz, and a full span sweep as fast as 1ms.

FFTs at 146,484 per second provides the minimum 100% POI of 7.45µs for capturing pulsing, hopping and transients down to this time and to display accurate power 100% of the time. “Signals as low as 1µs can be captured thanks to our seamless FFT capture,” claimed the firm.

Amongst seven available data views: density displays help to see time varying signals and resolve hidden and superimposed signals in the same frequency band; spectrogram displays allow users to evaluate changes in signal behaviour over time, especially useful in identifying hopping patterns and characterising PLLs; and power-versus-time displays show the RF power for the real time span over a user-defined time-span, helping measure the duration and timing of pulsing signals and characterising signals with amplitude modulation like ASK.

As standard, there is an IF output which converts the entire real-time span to a 430MHz carrier.

“Using this capability, along with a 500MHz oscilloscope, the user can correlate events in both the frequency and time domain when integrating wireless technologies,” said the firm, proposing its DS7000 as the scope.