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Hi Robert,
You are correct. ECCN 3A992.a is completely unremarkable and simply means that in addition to the standard embargoed countries of Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Syria, and North Korea, there is one additional country, Sudan, that these products cannot be shipped to without an export license. Yes, all of our products are correctly assigned ECCN 3A992.a. In fact, I submitted a commodity jurisdiction request to the US State Department for the BB-series spectrum analyzers and it was returned with the assigned ECCN of 3A992.a.Now the “why”: in the past, we have had several shipments of our products that were delivered to freight forwarders without our knowledge. There are many freight forwarding companies whose name obscures that they are a freight forwarder. Where did each shipment go? I hope it went to the stated destination provided by the buyer. But simply hoping that they were not illegally diverted to an embargoed or trade restricted country is an inadequate defense. So it is prudent to notify our customers that the spectrum analyzer they are buying has some trade restrictions. Doing so IS legally adequate when selling to destinations in the USA, provided it is not a freight forwarder. We carefully scrutinize shipments going to freight forwarders now to minimize the risk of diversion.
Why do we not make the same notification to customers when selling our generators. Because, in our judgement, there is less interest in diverting our generators as compared to our spectrum analyzers. So, again, you are correct: Our generators also fall under the ECCN of 3A992.a, but I perceive far less risk of diversion for our generators so we don’t post the same notification when selling them.
I hope I haven’t given too lengthy an explanation. Anything involving export control is never a short explanation.
For anyone else that is curious, The BB60C has a 50Ω input impedance and AC input coupling so it won’t look like 50Ω using a multimeter but at RF frequencies it is 50Ω. The SA44B has a DC coupled input so it will look like 50Ω to a multimeter.
Bruce
Hi Everyone,
I have scheduled Justin to write and publish BB60A/TG compatibility software by the end of September 2015. Thanks for all your input and patience.
Bruce
Hi Julian,
I don’t know if you ever got an answer about the BB60A current draw. It draws around 1.2A. We shipped it with a USB3.0 Y-cable so users could spread the current draw over 2 USB3.0 ports.
Bruce
Hi Tom and Andy,
I have scheduled Justin to write the 5MHz RBW into Spike by the end of September. Thanks for your input and patience. We are looking for another programmer so that we can increase our software writing capacity and respond quicker to customer requests. Signal Hound keeps Justin and AJ pretty busy. Its time for us to expand a little.
Bruce
Hi Mervin, yes, we have began the design cycle work on a 100kHz to 20GHz spectrum analyzer. I don’t know the price or the size it will be yet. It will be known as the model BB200A. It will operate much the same as the BB60C with specifications that are also very similar. The instantaneous bandwidth will be the same as the BB60C and it will also run on Spike software. I estimate it will be in production by the end of the year.
Hi Marholt,
We have successfully used the Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet with the Spike 32-bit version 3.0.2 and saw minimal slowdown in the sweeps. The user interface is small however so you would probably want to use a stylus pen for navigating.Hi Mervin, the Smith Chart utility is still available in version 2.18B which can be downloaded from our website. Both Spike and 2.18B can be loaded on you computer at the same time. Just choose which one you want to launch depending on the work you are doing.
I have scheduled AJ to write software that should be done by the end of April 2015 for the TG44A and TG124A tracking generators to become compatible with the BB60C.
Hi Again Phil, Justin told me that the manual has instructions to combine multiple data files in a MS Excel datasheet, save it, and then load it into the path loss table. So it can already be done. You are the only one that has requested this function so it is not a popular enough function for us to write the code. You’re still batting a 500. One out of two is doing great.
We are scheduling the release date of the SA/TG software rewrite for 10 Feb 2015, which is less than a month away. I would like to notify you of the great strides we are making regarding the functionality of the software. This rewrite integrates the SA/TG-series devices into the BB60C open source spectrum analyzer/GUI software platform which will now work with all Signal Hound products, past and present. The new software also allows the SA’s to function as real-time spectrum analyzers for sweeps of 250 kHz and less—that means every RF event will be captured when using spans that are ≤250 kHz. Another improvement is 8x faster sweeps at a 500 kHz span, and 2x faster sweeps at a 5 MHz span with a linear transition between the two stated spans. In addition, the SA graphics now include color persistence and a 2D waterfall display. The TG devices are also benefitting from the rewrite. Long standing stability issues are resolved, to include making the high dynamic range user friendly and efficient.
Developers will be able to change the open source spectrum analyzer/GUI code, which makes its function calls to a unified and compiled API. Modifying, adding, and deleting functions, layouts, and utilities in the SA and TG devices is now possible. A liberal software license allows developers to compile the modified spectrum analyzer code for redistribution. All the great spectrum analyzer/GUI code that has been written for the BB60C, and the lessons learned, is now leveraged in the SA and TG devices. Even though the SA-series devices are hardware limited when compared to the BB60C, they can now enjoy the flexibility and power of the BB60C software platform. Best of all, the new software is going be a free download. This has been made possible because of the continued support and loyalty of the Signal Hound user community.
Best regards,
Bruce Devine
Signal Hound Owner & CEOHi Phil, this is a killer function. Thanks again for bringing it to our attention. I spoke with AJ and Justin about it. They both agree that this is low hanging fruit so we will be implementing it as part of the SA/TG rewrite that is scheduled to hit the street, in less than a month, on 10 Feb 2015.
There will be at least 1000 data points allowed to be saved in a file, from TG sweeps. The user will then be able to load the saved file in the path loss table. This should be a real time saver when making precision measurements over a broad range of frequencies.
