HP 4195A network /spectrum analyer

[Mike Watterson]

Good result!
Not a cheap bit of kit originally, in real terms.

[ppppenguin]

Not a cheap bit of kit originally, in real terms.

I think it was about £20,000 c1990. It really hurt to buy it, but I desperately needed it for the work I was doing. It gave me a lot of credibility with clients 

Some years later I was working with a client to find out why their (different) network analyser was giving different results to mine. It was only about 0.05dB but it mattered when the product spec was accurate to 0.1dB. After a lot of very careful work with both analyser in my lab we found it was due to poor return loss on one port of their kit. Simple solution was a 6dB pad on that port and re-run the self calibration. Then we agreed within 0.01dB.

[PerdioPal]

That is a lot of money, my current house cost less than three times that in 1991!