3GHz Spectrum Analyzer - R&S® FPC1000

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About

The FPC-P3 (FPC1000 3GHZ) from Rohde & Schwarz is a 5KHz to 1GHz FPC1000 spectrum analyzer and upgradable to 3GHz with keycode. The R&S FPC1000 spectrum analyzer delivers unexpected performance. Engineered in Germany and designed to the same quality standards as high-end instruments. Extraordinarily low noise floor and high maximum input power combine to provide best dynamic range. Resolution bandwidth settings to 1Hz resolve finer spectral details.

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The R&S FPC1000 features 10.1", WXGA (1366 × 768 pixel) resolution with 26% larger display and has a 160% higher resolution than other instruments. It can be controlled via smart wireless remote control software. This spectrum analyzer is used in education, production, service or basic research. Supports wired Ethernet and wireless Wi-Fi connectivity. R&S InstrumentView for Windows as well as the iOS/Android app-based R&S MobileView platforms enables remote control and measurement anytime, anywhere.

 

Features

  • 100% software upgradeable
  • Provides low noise floor of -150dBm add optional FPC1000-B22 preamplifier to increase sensitivity
  • R&S FPC1000 is capable of measuring high power signals of up to +30dBm (1W)
  • 6 markers shown vividly in different colours
  • Two USB2.0 ports for storage media & connecting accessories, headphone jack, audio speaker, RF input
  • Soft menu selection for quick access to key tools, measurement setup buttons
  • Power key approximately 15seconds boot time
  • Documentation as a screenshot or of instrument settings, control knob
  • Optional R&S FPC-K43 receiver mode, R&S FPC-K7 modulation analysis, R&S FPC-K55 advanced measurement
  • Dimension is 396mm x 185mm x 156mm, weight is 3Kg

 

Additional Information

 

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Important Dates

Enrollment Begins: Oct 19 2017

Enrollment Ends: Nov 20 2017

RoadTesters Selected: Jan 10 2018

Product Shipped: Jan 16 2018

RoadTesting Begins: Jan 23 2018

Reminder/Update Email: Feb 23 2018

Submit Reviews By: Mar 23 2018

 

*The element14 RoadTest Staff will send this reminder/update email.

 

**If a RoadTester is unable to meet the deadline, please notify the RoadTest Program Lead, , as soon as possible before the deadline.

RoadTesters

The following applicants have been selected by the supplier as official roadtesters:

 

Terms and Conditions

3GHz Spectrum Analyzer - R&S® FPC1000– RoadTest

Terms and Conditions

These are the terms and conditions which govern the 3GHz Spectrum Analyzer - R&S® FPC1000 contest. This Contest requires participants to submit an application indicating their previous experience with this type of equipment/component, information on what they would do to test the equipment/component, and the applicant’s desire to post a thorough review of their experience with images, photos, or other supplemental materials. Participants will be required to meet the Conditions for Participation.  The winners of this RoadTest will receive the item(s) listed below. RoadTest Reviews are due no later than 60 days after the receipt of the item(s). No other prizes are offered.

The Principal terms of the Competition:

The following words and phrases are used in these terms and conditions and have the meanings given to them below.

 

3GHz Spectrum Analyzer - R&S® FPC1000

(RoadTest or Contest)

Key dates:

Applications Close: midnight (GMT) on Nov 20 2017

Announcement of Winners (Official RoadTesters) (estimated): Nov 27 2017

Prize

 

3GHz Spectrum Analyzer - R&S® FPC1000

 

Additional Prizes: none

Competition Site: https://www.element14.com/community/groups/roadtest?ICID=menubar_resources_roadtest

Site or element14 Community: www.element14.com/community

Judges: members of the element14 community team chosen at the Organiser’s discretion.

Judging Criteria, All of the following which will have equal weighting:

· Demonstrated competence with the technologies including links or descriptions of past projects

· Qualifications as indicated by current job role and/or schooling/vocational training;

· A thorough description of how the prize would be tested;

· Likelihood that the Applicant will blog about the prize and provide a review on element14.com;

· Originality;

· Innovation.

Organiser: Premier Farnell plc (registered in England and Wales under company number 876412) whose registered office is at Farnell House, Forge Lane, Leeds, UK

Conditions for Qualification: in addition to meeting the requirements of these terms, all persons applying to take part in the Contest (each one an Applicant) must:

· Provide a RoadTest application describing what he/she would do if awarded the Prize including similar previous projects, product experience and qualifications

Terms: these terms and conditions which govern the Competition and to which the Organiser reserves the right to make changes from time to time and the latest version of these Terms from time to time will be posted to the Site.

  1. Eligibility
  2. Applications:
  3. Selecting Winners: 
  4. Liability:
  5. General:

1.1 Save as set out in these Terms, the Contest is open to any natural or legal person, firm or company or group of natural persons or unincorporated body.

1.2 All Applicants must be aged at least 18 at the time of their application.

1.3 Applicants must not enter the RoadTest if doing so or taking part may:

1.3.1 cause the Organiser and/or themselves to be in breach of any agreement (including but not limited to any contract of employment) to which they are a party or in breach of any law, regulation or rule having the force of law to which the Organiser or the Applicant may be subject or any policy of the Organiser or the Sponsor;

1.3.2 Require the Organiser to obtain any licence, authorisation or permission to deal with the Applicant; or

1.3.3 Be in breach of any policy or practice of their employer. Some employers prohibit or restrict their employees from taking part in competitions such as these or receiving prizes under them and the Organiser respects those policies and practices.

The Organiser reserves the right to disqualify any Application made in breach of these Terms and to reject any Application which it reasonably believes may be or become in breach. The Organiser reserves the right to require evidence in such form as the Organiser may reasonably require of any Applicant’s compliance with any of these Terms and to disqualify any Applicant or Participant who cannot provide such evidence reasonably promptly.

1.4 Multiple applications are not permitted.

1.5 Applications may not be submitted by an agent whether acting on behalf of an undisclosed principal or otherwise.

1.6 The Contest is NOT open to:

1.6.1 Any person or entity who is a resident or national of any country which is subject to sanctions, embargoes or national trade restrictions of the United States of America, the European Union or the United Kingdom;

1.6.2 Any employee, director, member, shareholder (as appropriate) or any of their direct families (parents, siblings, spouse, partner, children) (“Direct Families”) of the Organiser and Sponsors; or

2.1 Each Applicant must fully complete and submit a RoadTest Application by the Application Close.

2.2 By submitting a Registration Form, each Applicant:

2.2.1 Authorises the Organiser to use his or her personal data (as defined in the Data Protection Act 1998) for the purposes of running and promoting the RoadTest;

2.2.2 Authorises the Organizer to copy, reproduce and publish their application should they be accepted as a Participant;

2.2.3 Will be deemed to have read, accepted and agree to be bound by these Terms. Applicants are advised to print and keep safe these Terms;

2.2.4 Authorises the Organiser to copy, reproduce and use the Application and/or Review for the purposes of the RoadTest and as otherwise contemplated by these Terms. The Organiser will not be responsible for any inaccuracy, error or omission contained in any reproduction or use of the Project Blogs.

2.2.5 Licenses the Organiser to use the intellectual property in the Project (IP) for the purposes of this Contest. As between the Applicant and the Organiser the IP remains owned by the Applicant.

2.2.6 Grants the Organiser the right to use his or her likeness, photographs, logos, trademarks, audio or video recordings without restriction for the purposes of Contest or the promotion of it or the Site;

2.2.7 Agrees to participate positively in all publicity surrounding the Contest;

2.2.8 Agrees to be responsible for all expenses and costs incurred by him or her in preparing for, entering and participating in the Contest (save for any expenses expressly agreed by the Organiser to be borne by it in these Terms);

2.2.9 Confirms that he or she owns all IP used in his or her application or Project or Blogs and indemnifies the Organiser from any claim by a third party that use of any material provided by an Applicant to the Organiser infringes the intellectual property rights of any third party;

2.2.10 Agrees not to act in any way or fail to act in any way or be associated with any cause or group which would have a negative impact on the reputation of the Organiser and/or the RoadTest.

2.3 All applications submitted to this RoadTest must meet the following criteria:

2.3.1 Applicants must be the author, creator and owner of the proposed review idea. Applicants must not submit someone else’s idea;

2.3.2 The proposed application must be reasonably achievable by the within the time constraints of the Contest;

2.3.3 Applications must not include or propose any of the following, the inclusion of which shall render any proposed application ineligible:

(a) Applications which relate to socially taboo topics, such as illicit drug use or sexual gratification;

(b) Applications that are or could reasonably be considered to be illegal, immoral, discriminatory or offensive as determined by the Organiser;

(c) Applications in relation to them which if accepted would infringe or breach any of the policies or terms of access or use of the Site.

2.4 No Application may contain any of the hazardous substances identified by Article 4 of Directive 2002/95/EC of the European Parliament on the Restrictions on the Use of Substances in Electronic and Electrical Equipment ("the Directive") or the use of such hazardous substances in the in any such Project must not exceed the maximum concentration values set out in the Directive.

3.1 Winners will be selected by the Organiser on the basis of the quality of his or her application and its adherence to these Terms.

3.2 The total number of Winners selected will be at least the minimum number set out above but the actual number is at the sole discretion of the Organizer and/or the Sponsor, if applicable.

3.3 The Organiser will use all reasonable efforts to announce the Winners via an update to the RoadTest page by the date listed above.

3.4 Winners agree to take part in all publicity which the Organiser or the Sponsor wishes to use to promote the RoadTest, the Products featured or other Contests with which the Organiser may be connected from time to time.

3.5 Details of the Winners may also be published in the media.

3.6 Winners are responsible for all applicable taxes, duties or other charges payable in relation to any prize.

3.7

4.1 The Organiser hereby excludes all and any Liability arising out of the Contest or the acceptance, use, quality, condition, suitability or performance of any Prize, even where that Liability may arise from the Organiser’s negligence.

4.2 Nothing in these Terms will affect any Liability of the Organiser for death or personal injury arising from its negligence, for breach of Part II of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 (in the event that any entrant is entitled to claim rights under the Consumer Protection Act 1987) or for any matter in relation to which it would be illegal for the Organiser to exclude or to attempt to exclude its Liability.

4.3 Subject to 4.2, neither the Organiser, any parent company nor any subsidiary of the Organiser or such parent company or any of their directors, officers and employees (together referred to in these terms and the ‘Associates’) makes any guarantee, warranty or representation of any kind, express or implied, with respect to this Competition or the Prizes potentially available under it. Neither the Organiser nor any of its Associates shall be responsible for any Liability that may arise out of or in connection with person’s participation in this Competition, the claiming, redemption or value of any prizes under it, the use or enjoyment of such prizes or any events or circumstances arising out of or in connection with any of them. Any implied warranties of condition, merchantability or suitability or fitness for purpose of any of them are hereby expressly excluded. Wherever used in these Terms, ‘Liability’ shall mean any and all costs, expenses, claims, damages, actions, proceedings, demands, losses and other liabilities (including legal fees and costs on a full indemnity basis) arising directly or indirectly out of or in connection with the matter concerned.

5.1 The RoadTest is organised and sponsored by the Organiser. The Organiser reserves the right to delegate all or any of its powers, rights and obligations arising in relation to the RoadTest to any Associate and certain such rights and powers are assumed by the Organiser on behalf of itself and each Associate. Reference to “Organiser” shall be deemed to include reference to each Associate.

5.2 The RoadTest may be terminated at any time if there are, in the sole opinion of the Organiser, an insufficient number of entries, or if the Applications are not of an appropriate standard for a competition of this nature. The Organiser has the right to cancel or suspend the RoadTest at any time due to circumstances outside its reasonable control.

5.3 The Organiser shall have the sole discretion to disqualify (without correspondence or right of appeal) any Applicant it considers to be adversely affecting the process or the operation of the RoadTest or to be in breach of these Terms or to be acting in a disruptive manner or with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass any other Applicant or Participant.

5.4 The Organiser has the right to amend or add to these Terms from time to time. Revised Terms and Conditions will be posted on the Contest Site and it is a condition of entry to the RoadTest that Applicants agree to comply with these Terms and, if appropriate, such Terms as amended from time to time.

5.5 Headings are for convenience only and do not affect the interpretation or construction of these Terms and Conditions.

5.6 These Terms and the operation of the Contest shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English Law and any claim or matter arising under these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

RoadTest Reviews
Comments
Anonymous
  • Fantastic Peice of gear for our MAKERHUB LAB

  • Really a spectrum analyzer with WIFI? They must have done a really good job isolating the frontend and powersupply so they don't mess up your measurements with that 2.4GHz ;-)

     

    @Alexey: We all agree that this is no FSV, but in its price range it is still ahead of the Rigol DSA832 and the Siglent SA3000X in terms of DANL. I'd also trust R&S's "typical" specifications a little more than Rigols/Siglents ;-)

     

    In that entry level market, the FPC has one important advantage, it withstands a nice 4W (36dbm) for 3 sec, what will make it last significantly longer than for example a Rigol DSA832 (30dBm) image

  • It also looks really strange to have such low price point. But actually noise figure is unexpectedly high, so it should contain less expensive components.

  • I'd imagine that R&S are selling this product at below the cost of the actual hardware component value as otherwise rival manufacturers would be able to undercut them with a 'bare-bones' approach. There must be a great buisiness model to predict sales of the upgrades and how that offsets the subsidised hardware cost.

    Software upgrades are a great concept as R&D teams can almost instantly upgrade should they find a requirement on a particular project while the initial outlay to the buisiness is kept at a minimum. I can imagine a R&D team gradually notching up the capability of their new acquisition over the years to something that their purchase team would never have agreed to initially !

    I know Microchip do a similar thing with their optimised C compilers and their licensing is also available on a monthly basis, which can be really useful: I recently dipped into that short term license when I found that my firmware design no longer fitted the chosen microcontroller part which was already being placed onto the final production run of boards.

  •   wrote:

     

    Software limiting is now called a "UNIQUE frequency update"...

     

    This is still fairly unique, the more traditional method would be to send equipment back for hardware to be swapped out for higher-performance cards, if the user requirements grew, and they needed to extend the frequency range of the product.

    That costs time and effort for the customer and the manufacturer, so it is really attractive to have the hardware on day one, and

    having the enablement done in software when you need it.

  • WIFI built in... Its an RF signal analyzer... Sure lets add WiFi to a product that this great feature will add issues too. Great idea everyone.

     

     

     

    Kas

  • (Dry) Hands off review:

    Looks like R&S taking on Rigol and Siglent...

    Built in WiFi but you can not use it out of the box... so pay up or shut up...

    Love when the test and measurement equipment claim to have "unexpected RF performance" - wonder what it all means..

    Software limiting is now called a "UNIQUE frequency update"...

    https://youtu.be/DlGMbcRBfoI

     

    How much with all options enabled?

     

    p.s. I do not represent any of the above mentioned companies image

  • Hi Ken,

     

    You can apply for and participate in multiple RT if interested.

     

    I am currently testing two products at the moment.

     

    Trent

  • I have an ancient HP SA too, it is finger-crushing heavy : )

    Mine came from the previous owner in a huge green case (of Ericsson origin I believe) that could serve as a military weapons case movie prop! : )

  • Rohde & Schwarz is well known for very low noise front-ends.  I have an old-school HP spectrum analyzer that goes all the way up to 22GHz-- it uses YIG filters and oscillators, and has a very clean architecture with a very low noise floor.  The HP SA is a real beast though-- about 100LBS; so I have to be careful lifting it around (and I usually try to get help if I can).  Also, the sweep is analog, so less accurate than this new SA.  These newer analyzers are much lighter, and use a digital IF with FFT of the range-- and they are very fast-- much more convenient than my old HP.  I will have to think about this-- I'm not sure I want to apply to this road test, as I have already applied for another one-- but it sure would be nice to sell my old HP "boat anchor", if I were to win this one.  I have almost zero need to go above 3GHz.

     

    This SA would be great for pre-EMC checks using a Ramsey Electronics RF-tight enclosure and some near-field probes.  I have those, and they work great with my old HP SA.

  • image

    There seems to be a lot of interest ... more than just the 9 comments above.

     

    Nice piece of kit covering the right spectrum for most hobby applications.

     

     

    Mark

  • Hi ,

     

    Just a quick query, can you confirm whether all the software options will be unlocked for the road test units?

     

    Many thanks,


    Rachael

  • I wouldn't even know where to start on road testing this beast. Oh dear I guess my expertise just does not go far enough to make me want to test this.

    Pity really as it l;ook like a nice piece of kit. But it would just collect dust in my workshop.

    image

  • image Roadtest a spectrum analyser   +   image R&S Quality   =   image add reminder to Google calendar to submit application

  • I agree with the enthusiasm for this spectrum analyzer.  The specs look great for doing all sorts of RF work including the 2.4 range.  Nice job, Randall - you've hit another home run.

  • Awesome piece of equipment to test.

     

    Too bad I am not ready to do research at these frequencies or I would jump at the chance.

     

    DAB

  • Wow!  I love the huge wide screen on this instrument! Plenty of room to spread out all the markers, menus, labels, and numerical data that can clutter a smaller display.

    And the pricing I've found is reasonable: about $1800 US for the 1 GHz model and $940 US for the 3 GHz upgrade.

    The 3 GHz upgrade is pretty much a must have for me.  Some of the popular RF data communication standards operate above 1 GHz.

     

    Although, for the immediate future I'm most likely to be playing with LoRa WAN for IoT applications, and here in Canada, LoRa operates in the sub-1 GHz space, so the base model would be okay.

  • Wow, this will be a great roadtest.

    In March 2013 I already opted for testing a spectrum analyzer, when Nicole Fusz asked what product(s) we would love to get our hands on? (http://www.element14.com/community/message/71435/l/re-hey-road-testers-what-products-would-you-love-to-get-your-hands-on#71435)

    This R&S 3GHz in all aspects outperforms the one I mentioned there. Thanks R&S and Element14 for making these available.

  • What a fantastic piece of kit!

  • And & E14 add another quality roadtest to the line up... With so much good equipment on the line its hard to not apply for them all.

     

    Thanks

    Kas