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A dip meter is principally a coil of wire that, once you excite it, you should use to inform if one thing inside that coil is resonating alongside. This allows you to measure unknown radio circuits to determine their resonant frequency, as an illustration. This week, we featured a intelligent method to make a dip meter with a nanoVNA, which is an odd hack just because a dip meter was a typical spare-parts DIY machine, whereas a vector community analyzer used to price greater than a home.
Occasions have modified, and for the higher. These days, any radio newbie can choose up a VNA for lower than the price of all however the cheesiest of walkie talkies, placing previously unique check tools within the palms of untrained mortals. However what good is a fancy-pants device should you don’t know easy methods to use it? Our personal Jenny Listing confronted precisely this downside when she picked up a nanoVNA, and her first steps are price following together with if you end up in her footwear.
All of this jogged my memory of a superb collection by Mike Szczys, “Scope Noob”, the place he chronicled his forays into studying easy methods to use an oscilloscope by working all the primary features by working by a bunch of check measurements that he already knew the reply to.
It strikes me that we may use one thing like this for practically every bit of measuring tools. One thing extra than simply an instruction handbook that walks you thru what all of the dials do. One thing that takes you thru a bunch of instance initiatives and reveals you easy methods to use the device in query by a handful of initiatives. As a result of today, entry to many previously unique items of measuring gear has enabled many people to have gear they by no means would have had earlier than – and all that’s lacking is understanding easy methods to drive them.
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