Most older RF gear such as spectrum analysers and attenuation
calibrators use diode mixers, this means their sensitivity/noise performance
is limited even with signal averaging applied. The performance also deteriorates
for harmonic mixing which such calibrators often use at higher frequencies.
The first set of results is taken using my HP8560A spectrum analyser.
The signal peak shows that a -110dBm signal can be resolved at 8dB above the noise level. Many modern signal generators are capable of going down to -140dBm !!
The 3GHZ wideband amplifier is capable of improving this capability by a typical 30dB at 1GHZ as shown by my next graph.
