May 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Glenn Bischoff

Anritsu (www.anritsu.com) launched a line of spectrum analyzers that the company is billing as an economic alternative for bench testing microwave components, subsystems and systems.

The devices are designed to meet the needs of repair centers, design centers and manufacturers of commodity products such as low-end cellular telephones, said Tom Brinkoetter, product manager. “The need has been out there for a long time,” he said.

Because bench personnel will use the analyzers rather than field technicians, they did not have to be ruggedized. Anritsu also was able to eliminate the battery in each device and limited their options compared with the company's hand-held analyzers. “GPS doesn't make sense in a bench model,” Brinkoetter said.

These design changes were the largest factors in Anritsu's ability to significantly lower the cost of the devices, which is about $1000 less than comparable hand-held analyzers and far less than typical bench-top analyzers, Brinkoetter said.

In the future, Anritsu will explore the addition of a remote control capability and the ability to let users move data collected by the analyzers to a central computer for quality control purposes, Brinkoetter said.

The 9 kHz to 7.1 GHz analyzer has a base price of $12,950, while the 9 kHz to 13 GHz and 9 kHz to 20 GHz devices start at $16,950 and $19,950, respectively.

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