MICROWAVE TEST EQUIPMENT

Tere are any number of different pieces of test equipment that can be very useful for micorwave work. Wether you build your own microwave equipment, use modified commercial equipment, or buy it ready to go, test equipment is usefull in order to get teh most out of your equipment. Adjusting your equipment for the lowest noise figure, maximum ouput power, or to minimize harmonic and spurious content can all be done with the proper test equipment.

Here is a list of some of the more common and useful pieces of test equipment:

There is a second list of nice to have test equipment but these are less common due to cost:

Many different types of test equipment can be built by an adventuresome Ham. This is quite common for microwave test equipment since they carry such a high price tag. Equipment for HF and even VHF is much less complex and considerably less expensive. However, lower frequency test equipment is much easier to homebrew.

The drawing below is a typical test setup for tuning a transverter: