The VSG25A hardware features a 12-bit I/Q baseband arbitrary waveform generator which can be clocked at virtually any frequency from 54 kHz to 180 MHz, and includes a 4096×16 bit pattern buffer for built-in or custom modulation.
Read This! The VSG25A is named Microwave Journal’s MVP for the month of May, 2015! Read the full article (1.8 MB PDF).
The included software automatically generates:
- CW: 100 MHz to 2.5 GHz, -40 dBm to +10 dBm
- Unspecified operation down to 80 MHz, or -70 dBm to +13 dBm
- AM / FM: 30 Hz to 40 MHz modulation rates, sine, triangle, square, ramp
- Pulse: 6 ns to 25 ms width, 12 ns to 1 second period
- Multi-tone: Up to 1023 tones with optional center notch
- Use random phase + notch for Noise Power Ratio testing
- Use parabolic phase for best signal / noise
- PSK: BPSK, DBPSK, QPSK, OQPSK, DQPSK, π/4 DQPSK, 8-PSK, D8PSK, 16-PSK
- 4k to 45M symbols per second
- Optional raised cosine, root raised cosine filtering
- Up to 512 symbols, streamed continuously in a loop
- Binary symbol editor features 1-click insertion of PN7 / PN9 sequences
- QAM: QAM-16, QAM-64, QAM-256 (same features as PSK)
- ASK / FSK: 4k to 45M symbols per second
- Optional Gaussian filtering
- Up to 512 symbols, streamed continuously in a loop
- Sweep
- Arbitrary Custom Modulation
- Load a CSV file with I and Q values, specify center frequency, amplitude, pattern length (up to 2048), pattern period (up to 65535), and clock rate.
The VSG25A vector signal generator does have some limitations. The pattern buffer is small and cannot be upgraded. There is no reconstruction filter on the I/Q baseband, resulting in out-of-band spurious signals, and there is a single 2.7 GHz low pass filter on the RF output, so 3rd harmonics below 3.6 GHz may need to be filtered externally. If these are not show-stoppers for you, the VSG25A is an unbeatable value.
Nestor V. (verified owner) –
works great. software interface could use some improvements.
jayprakash –
this is good product its economy price
Andrew Lenton –
It is a shame it does not go down to 2 MHZ, any chance? I also need to cover the lower VHF bands 30-100, VHF FM starts at 88 MHz!
Cory Allen –
Hi Andrew. We don’t have plans to go any lower on the VSG25. This may be overkill for your application, but our VSG60 is capable of going to 30MHz (despite the specification only going to 50MHz).
Frederick Mak –
We bought 2 of these and for a product with this pricing and performance, I would love to rate above 5 stars if that’s possible. Thank you for having such a great product!
Cory Allen –
Thanks for the support and a great review!
Waseemv –
I am wondering if VSG25A can achieve AM modulation whilst running a frequency sweep between 100 to 1000MHz!
Clint Burgess –
Thank you for the question. These modulations can be performed independently but cannot be combined in this way. Be in touch if we can answer anything else related to VSG25A functionality.