Re: What's a waveform monitor?

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "marc metlicka by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <mystuffs-at-orwell-dot-net>



Tesla list wrote:
 >
 > Original poster: "Scott Hanson by way of Terry Fritz 
<twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <huil888-at-surfside-dot-net>
 >
 > Marc -
 >
 > What you saw was a spectrum analyzer, not a waveform monitor. A spectrum
 > analyzer displays the frequency and relative amplitude of a specific "slice"
 > of the radio frequency spectrum. Just connect a short antenna to the input,
 > and you will see dozens of "peaks" from cell-phone bands, garage-door
 > openers, portable phones, aircraft radios, etc, etc. I have monitored the
 > output of a small Tesla coil using a spectrum analyzer, and the result was
 > that there was so much RF noise spread from a few kHz to over 2 GHz that I
 > really couldn't "see" much of interest. Unfortunately, the Tesla coil and
 > the spectrum analyzer were powered from the same AC branch circuit, so much
 > of the noise may have been conducted into the analyzer via the AC line. I'd
 > like to try the experiment again using a battery-powered analyzer. Bear in
 > mind that even on the surplus market spectrum analyzers are much more
 > expensive than oscilloscopes.
 >
 > Regards,
 > Scott Hanson
 >


  I think i spoke out of context, since i don't know what a wave form
monitor is, i assumed it to be a spectrum analyser? i apologize for my
ignorance in this field, forgive me.
Marc M.