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[Scott Holtzman]

Title says it all...Anyone tried one yet?  Price seems compelling, love the fact you can rack it up and hook it up to a multicoupler port.


http://www.rfvenue.com/rf-explorer-rackpro

[Nathan Riddle]

Something to note is the software is Mac only and costs additional (though, $99 isn't bad).

[DavidTurner]

Something to note is the software is Mac only and costs additional (though, $99 isn't bad).

There is Windows software available. Touchstone Pro is $49.


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[Nathan Riddle]

There is Windows software available. Touchstone Pro is $49.

I find it interesting they don't note that or the Clear Waves software they have for it in the main page of the RF Explorer RackPro.

Clear Waves is a real time, Windows based spectrum analysis and RF management application for wireless audio. It is included with every RackPRO.

http://www.rfvenue.com/clearwaves

Ahh, I see; Touchstone is kind of Clear Waves (without the intermodulation feature).
http://nutsaboutnets.com/purchase/

Rather confusing the whole situation.

[Jean-Pierre Coetzee]

I do believe that the RFExplorer stuff was discussed here before, if I remember right it integrates with WWB and IAS. I know I looked at purchasing one of their handheld models in the past but budget hasn't been cleared for it unfortunately.

EDIT:
Don't know if it's still relevant but this article seems to discuss something along those lines.

[Jean-Pierre Coetzee]

I do believe that the RFExplorer stuff was discussed here before, if I remember right it integrates with WWB and IAS. I know I looked at purchasing one of their handheld models in the past but budget hasn't been cleared for it unfortunately.

EDIT:
Don't know if it's still relevant but this article seems to discuss something along those lines.

Looks like the rackpro was bought out by RFVenue. RF Explorer's website did list it as a product in the past but no longer does, I doubt that RFExplorer's touchstone software(free) no longer works with the product since Clearwaves is created by the same company.


wayback machine link to RF Explorer web page

[Scott Holtzman]

All very interesting, take away seems to be that it has gone down in price but you have to buy the software.


Not being familiar with the product I assume it suffers from the same abysmal sampling rates as the handheld unit.


However it does get a few cool guy points.  Use to be a Spectrum Analyzer was cool.  This should give you a quick glance at your RF environment.

[Milt Hathaway]

I have one of those. I always assumed they just took the standard RF Explorer apart and mounted it in a rack chassis. I've only ever used it with the Mac software (Vantage) and exported the files to WWB.

Unfortunately I wish I'd bought the handheld for better portability.

As a rack mount piece the display is really too small to be useful unless you can mount it where you can keep your face within 12" of it (IMHO).

[Nathan Riddle]

Not to derail this thread from Scott's question, it might be okay since we're all talking about RFVenue gear *shrug*

But I'm also looking for something to scan the RF environment. I like to 'see' things to solidify my understandings.

I could cheap-out on the usb model specifically for wireless mic freq's 240-960MHz (which is mainly what I'll be doing)
http://nutsaboutnets.com/rfviewer/

But I see myself maybe needing 2.4/5.0GHz scanning in the distant future and investing now might be a better idea.
http://nutsaboutnets.com/models/

3G model or 6G model might be just the ticket.

Thoughts?

Scott, if this isn't to the intent of your thread I can ask mods to delete it and I'll create my own thread.

[Dave Garoutte]

There are cheepo phone apps that scan the WiFi world fairly well.
Your channel choices are way more limited, so the fine accuracy probably isn't so important.

[Diogo Nunes Pereira]

I always assumed they just took the standard RF Explorer apart and mounted it in a rack chassis.

That's what it looks like.

Not being familiar with the product I assume it suffers from the same abysmal sampling rates as the handheld unit.

Hi Scott. What do you mean by this?

It has an auto-RBW wich is span dependent; For resolution I just go low on span. Here are some of my usual "span-sets":

40MHz - room for 5 TV channels on screen (Yeah... I'm in Europe)
80MHz - room for 10 TV channels on screen
28MHz - more resolution for scans I need to import to WWB. Gives me a step every 250kHz.

There is Windows software available. Touchstone Pro is $49.

Also, there's the FREE windows client, from the official RF Explorer website - here!

I still get better plots from the free client than from Touchstone Pro - which I also own. Averaging is key, and the windows soft does it.

3G model or 6G model might be just the ticket.

Thoughts?

I have the 3G combo. It has two modules: the SUB1G (240-960) and the SUB3G (15-2700). Mostly I only use the SUB1G (left antenna)- this module has better specs (noise floor, amplitude accuracy) - and because most of the time the gear is UHF and most of my scans are limited to the TV channels bands.

The 3G is becoming usefull nowadays as I'm scanning DECT band - one of my clients has a couple of FreeSpeak2 intercoms.

Notice the SUB3G module also goes below into VHF, and that's probably useful for people in the US.

[DavidTurner]

The free client doesn't export pre formatted csv files for wwb. At least the version I got didn't.


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[Diogo Nunes Pereira]

The free client doesn't export pre formatted csv files for wwb. At least the version I got didn't.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I suffered with that for ages...

I've even wrote a tutorial on the procedure to make the scans compatible.

Recently I found out changing the language settings in windows is all it takes. If you live somewhere where the decimal is a point (in Spain the decimal is a comma) you should be good as long as you select a comma separator for .csv files in the RF Explorer settings.

[Scott Holtzman]

That's what it looks like.

Hi Scott. What do you mean by this?

It has an auto-RBW wich is span dependent; For resolution I just go low on span. Here are some of my usual "span-sets":

40MHz - room for 5 TV channels on screen (Yeah... I'm in Europe)
80MHz - room for 10 TV channels on screen
28MHz - more resolution for scans I need to import to WWB. Gives me a step every 250kHz.

Also, there's the FREE windows client, from the official RF Explorer website - here!

I still get better plots from the free client than from Touchstone Pro - which I also own. Averaging is key, and the windows soft does it.

I have the 3G combo. It has two modules: the SUB1G (240-960) and the SUB3G (15-2700). Mostly I only use the SUB1G (left antenna)- this module has better specs (noise floor, amplitude accuracy) - and because most of the time the gear is UHF and most of my scans are limited to the TV channels bands.

The 3G is becoming usefull nowadays as I'm scanning DECT band - one of my clients has a couple of FreeSpeak2 intercoms.

Notice the SUB3G module also goes below into VHF, and that's probably useful for people in the US.

On the 40Mhz range how often is the display refreshed?  I read somewhere it's silly slow, like 4 seconds.  I am use to real time spectrum analyzers like old school IFR and Wavetek

[Diogo Nunes Pereira]

On the 40Mhz range how often is the display refreshed? 

Hi Scott.

For a 40MHz span - using the Windows software - sweep time is about 0.2 seconds in my unit, averaging at 4.7 sweeps per second.

This provides 420kHz RBW with a step every 357.125 kHZ (this is about what you get dividing SPAN/112 - no matter the span, the RFE allways plots 112 points.)  Fastest I could achieve was 6.8 sweeps per second @ 2.8MHz span. With the span to its maximum (600 MHz) sweep time is 1.2 seconds. So, it's never as slow as you read somewhere.

I like the 28MHz span because that divided by 112 gives me a point every 250 kHz - round numbers. I usualy take 12 captures (from 470 to 806 MHz) and get this data on WWB. It's good enough resolution to get an idea of DTV levels to start excluding channels.
I wish I could have more precision (25 kHz) but that would make it impractical. When I have time in my hands I'll try and make Matt Dale's phyton script work for me.

Maybe other analysers go faster, but hey it's a 140$ unit. This (the RFExplorer) and Shure AXT600 are the only analysers I can get my hands into around here. I have a client who's going to borrow me an Anritsu next week. Hopefully I'll understand how to make it work...

Salud,

D

[ProSoundWeb Community]