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I need to check the cables on one of our towers. The coax sizes are 1 5/8" and 7/8". Does anyone have an affordable TDR that they would recommend?
Thanks.
The NanoVNA TDR function works reasonably well. You can calculate length of cable and distance to a fault. Not quite as accurate as a real TDR but for around $150, what do you expect.
The NanoVNA does work well for a low budget piece of test gear. However they don't work well if there is any nearby or co-located RF. I have an Agilent Field Fox for accurate measurements.
Please don't laugh but I have a complete HP 8510 VNA with most of the accessories. It is larger/heavy and built like a tank. I can almost operate it blindfolded. Still works great after all these years. They were >$150K in the 1980s and can now be bought cheap on ebay. Also have a Sitemaster that works well in the field and I use the 8510 at the station. There are a number of other VNAs like the HP8757 that are also great and smaller.
I use a Tektronix 1502 for short runs and a Tektronix 1503 (very seldom) for long runs. Note that neither has a letter suffix - they are the original instruments which use a CRT.
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