Been a few months now. Thought I better pop in and say that I have got absolutely nowhere with mine since I last posted. Haven’t had the time unfortunately so have taken on some slightly less ambitious projects.
With respect to tracking generator you should just be able to mix your LO with the 2nd IF frequency and low pass it and that will give a tracking output. Getting it to stay in the passband of the spectrum analyser’s IF filters isn’t easy apparently if you have a relatively low RBW. Also the TG really needs some levelling to get rid of any fixture or cable side effects so you’re actually measuring the DUT. This is easier if you have a computer in the loop.
However I’m becoming slightly disheartened with all of this and the associated performance once I’ve expended the effort and money and I reckon I’m actually going to be up a lot of time if I just buy one. Rigol do some cheap ones (for a spectrum analyser anyway) with TG. I’m considering shelving buying a new car for a bit and just footing that. The wife spent more on clothes last year so there’s no complaining to be done
