Sort of DIY 2.4Ghz Spectrum Analyzer

[village_idiot]

http://www.circuitcellar.com/library/print/0406/Armitage-189/
I intend to build at least one of these when he gets boards in stock. His website (dunehaven) says something like March, but if there is a big enough demand maybe he will bring them a little earlier.

Bonus for me is that it is AVR based, so I can program the MCU with his code.

More details about ordering the board:
http://www.dunehaven.com/wireless.htm

[Zlatko]

Hi VI,

That will only give you a 2.4GHz band scanner/analyzer.

I thought it would do a range from say 10MHz - 2.4GHz ... now that would be useful :).

If you have a PC / Laptop / PPC with a 801.11 b/g/n network card , a program called NetStumbler may do.

http://www.netstumbler.org/f20/official-netstumbler-0-4-0-readme-10366/

Cheers

[TheSteve]

I'll be building one of these when the boards are available.

Netstumbler is a great program but only useful for sniffing 802.11b/g lans, thats a far cry from being able to see the presence of any kind of 2.4Ghz signal.

[village_idiot]

I have an old Proxim card that gets most of the 2.4 band, but it doesn't really show the waveform the same way a real spectrum analyzer shows, like this kit device shows.

Just wish he had boards now, for the cost one of the old boards would be fine, and I could buy one of the new ones when they are ready. (I really need two of them, one at home and one at work)

And yes a wider range would be great, but you get what you pay for. If I had the money I would probably get one of the Protek spectrums, but somehow I never seem to have the $3000 in my pocket long enough to get one.

If it would cover between 800mhz and about 2.5Ghz that would be great so I could use it to look at the block down converted signal off of our satellite receivers.

[avatar.rc]

Hi,
look this:

http://www.elektor.com/magazines/2007/june/2-4-ghz-wifi-spectrum-analyser.91864.lynkx

NVH

[Ralph Weaver]

What exactly would this be useful for?

[village_idiot]

The new version is up, but the changes are not what I would called wonderful. It is said to be cheaper, but that is not correct after you now buy they prototyping board with the MCU in place, comes out to almost $100 by my rough searching so far. Not sure if I am going to buy one of these or not yet, so if you are waiting for a review, you might be waiting a long time.

Just took a longer look at this spectrum analyzer... Without the external antenna this is much less useful to me. So much less that I will not be building it.

[TheSteve]

It still might be worth it for me but I was hoping to get to assemble it myself, now it seems its just ordering 2 boards from 2 different places(double the shipping costs now as well)

Maybe I'll go back to the one I was going to build using a Cypress module, you can sample the module for free and there is free software for it, its limitation is that its linux only and requires a parallel port.

[olmod]

http://www.dunehaven.com/minisa.htm (cheap but wont send out from north america)
you will note that another card is also needed.

[village_idiot]

Thanks, I forgot to mention that he won't send outside of North America, another reason we don't want it.

And Steve I was looking forward to building it myself too. I do have the schematics for the old version stored away if you know someone that would be willing to run it through a CAD to design the board.

The one Xjet made sounds like it might be nice, but he is swamped with work so it may be a little while before we get to look at it.

[Pete P]

The WaveLan cards that predate 802.11b standards have a util which can do a spectral analysis- I'll see if I can find mention of it on Google.

[village_idiot]

I've got an old Proxim card that has a spectrum function, but it is pretty primative for our needs.