In past years, the oscilloscope was likely the first instrument that came to mind when thinking of Tektronix. This thinking was certainly justified, as the company’s history with oscilloscopes dates back many years. However, while Tektronix is clearly still at the forefront of this area, the company now offers a wide range of other test-and-measurement instrumentation. These instruments include spectrum analyzers, vector signal generators (VSGs), arbitrary waveform generators (AWGs), and more.
However, one critical test instrument still had not been offered by Tektronix: the vector network analyzer (VNA). That finally changed earlier this year when the company released its new TTR500 Series of USB-based VNAs.
This article takes a firsthand look at a TTR500 Series VNA thanks to a demo kit the company provided. For purposes of the demonstration, a bandpass filter measurement is described here. While measuring a bandpass filter with a VNA may seem like something pretty basic to some engineers, the example presented is intended to illustrate how the TTR500 Series has a rightful place in the VNA arena.