Difference between spectrum analyzer and network analyzer

    Spectrum analyzer is used to analyze the signal strength at each frequency. For example, the calibrated frequency of an FM transmitter is 153.000MHz. If the spectrum response is relatively high at the position 2M near 153M, it means that the bandwidth of the transmitter is about 2M. And if the transmitter has high fluctuations at frequencies such as 51M, 102M, 204M, 255M, etc. during transmission, it means that the bandpass filter of the transmitter is poor and the third harmonic is not filtered out (the above frequencies are only examples, and the relevant frequencies are related to the frequency multiplication method of the transmitter).

    An analog spectrum analyzer is called a sweeper, which is equivalent to a receiver that continuously changes the receiving frequency and then displays the received field strength amplitude at each frequency. A digital spectrum analyzer first performs broadband sampling and then performs FFT processing through DSP to obtain spectrum information in real time.

    There are many network analyzers, but no matter it is Ethernet or mobile GSM network, only digital network will use network analyzer, which is based on protocol, normally captures the data in the network, and then analyzes it according to various indicators. For example, in Ethernet network analyzer, there will be bandwidth usage, sent packets, number of received packets, TCP packets, UDP packets, ICMP packets, IGMP packets, etc., to analyze the data flow in the network. For example, monitoring ARP attacks can capture and analyze a large number of MAC addresses and IP addresses that send ARP packets.

    Network analyzers can be used in filter measurements, gain and phase measurements of various signal circuits, reflection coefficient measurements of microwave circuits, etc.