Test Equipment

Whilst building or setting up electronic projects it is useful to have a reasonable amount of test equipment available to assist you.

The Multimeter Analog & Digital versions

Perhaps the single most useful item is the Multimeter, whether it is one of the newer digital type or an analogue movement meter. Whilst setting up or tuning R.F circuits the analogue meter is found to be best, as very small movements can be seen at a glance. The cheaper analogue style meters are available from well under £10.00, but you really do get what you pay for so don't expect great accuracy within this price range.

The RF Frequency Counter

If you intend to build numerous R.F circuits then some means of determining the output frequency of such devices is a useful facility to have at your disposal. Whilst the meter shown below is only specified to operate to 1GHz it will function upto 1.3GHz with out any noticeable drop in it's sensitivity.

If the counter you use is reasonably sensitive you will not have to make a direct connection to the circuit under test, but instead rely on enough R.F energy being present from the device. If you have to make a direct connection to take a reliable frequency reading then it may become necessary to use an attenuator of somekind to protect the counters front end electronic circuitry from too much R.F

The Cathode Ray Oscillosope

An Oscilloscope is used to view waveforms from electronic circuits or devices under test. It is a most useful instrument to see whether a signal is present or not from a device being tested or newly comissioned on your workbench.

Spectrum Analyser

A spectrum Analyser, on first look seems just like an Oscilloscope, but has a much more important role to play when setting up RF equipment. With the Analyser you can view Harmonics (that the RF circuit will generate) and filer or tune these out to the best of your ability. The Spectrum Analyser can be classified as a very specialist & expensive instrument. Hence not an item to be found in the average radio amateurs shack.

RF Dummy loads

One essential peice of equipment that we should all own is the dummy load. The load shown below will operate upto the 23CMs band, with a quoted power rating of 25Watts.

The Colour Bar Signal Generator

Other items of equipment that can be very useful around the TV Amateurs shack are test pattern generators. Perhaps the one with most value to us is the Colour bar generator. With this equipment you can set up monitors and cameras. The one shown above will generate various test screens. It also has a simple programmable character generator built in to allow idents to be placed over the test patterns.