Meet the Handheld Spectrum Analyzer

It’s been more than half a year we help with this handheld spectrum analyzer with Arocholl. The process is much more complicate for a nearly complete product. We learned a lot from Arocholl’s detail oriented attitude and professional engineering efforts. It’s an honor to present “RF Explore” beta batch to community:

As wireless communication devices grows in use everywhere, so it does the need to monitor, test and diagnose them.

RF Explorer is an extremely affordable Handheld Spectrum Analyzer designed from scratch to be a sort of Swiss Army Knife for the specific needs of ISM band digital communication. (from Arocholl’s introduction)

RF Explorer currently supported workflows

  • Monitor continuous wave (CW) and temporary transmissions in specific ISM band.
  • Detect whether a device is transmitting in the expected frequency and with expected power
  • Check whether an antenna or amplifier change makes a difference in power, orientation and noise
  • Detect band occupancy to move your gadget to a different channel
  • Works as RF Generator to transmit pure RF tone from 0dB to +20dB so you can test your RF link in seconds
  • Works completely automatic so you do not need to be an expert to use it. It will resolve RBW, Sweep time, for you.
  • Offer spectrum data in Normal, Average, Peak Maximum calculator modes
  • Open source PC client software, unlimited capture and post-processing storage
  • Optimized for worldwide ISM bands: 433Mhz, 868Mhz or 915Mhz.

RF Explorer future extensions

  • Transmission test tones in OOK and FSK
  • Digital transmission decoding and packet sniffing for OOK and FSK, including Manchester code support
  • Logging features for multi-hour transmission monitoring
  • Frequency counter
  • Automatic peak detection
  • Storage for up to 5 screenshots in internal memory
  • Expansion modules for additional ISM band support, including popular 2.4Ghz

For an example of how easy and powerful RF Explorer is in a real use case, check this tutorial.

Application: RFBee monitored by RF Explorer

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