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Reviews For: HP 8924c Service Monitor

Category: Tools & Test Equipment for the amateur radio work bench

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Review Summary For : HP 8924c Service Monitor
Reviews: 3MSRP: 30,000
Description:
AM/FM service monitor with many features that will serve for Amateur Radio service and maintenance
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0035
K9MHZ Rating: 2012-10-27
Finest test gear piece that I own Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This thing is fabulous. It has so many functions that your learning curve will be steep, but it's well worth it. Don't be steered away because it's a CDMA test set, its analog functions are very, very good. I think the only regret that I have is not knowing ahead of time that I was getting a 3 watt maximum input model. Not a problem, as a simple RF sampler between the rig and a dummy load works quite nicely, but knowing to get a 60 or 100 watt model would have helped immensely. You will not be disappointed with this very fine piece of test gear.
K7LZR Rating: 2012-06-27
Great value for the money Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Although primarily designed for CDMA cell phone testing, the HP 8924C is also a full featured service monitor.

These units will do everything that you need for electronics design & repair and they are laboratory quality.

Only drawback is limited portability - these sets are large, heavy, and meant for bench use but you can take one in the field if you are strong enough :).

The 8924C includes a very good spectrum analyzer and tracking generator - these things alone can cost many thousands of dollars when purchased as stand-alone units. There is also a built-in frequency counter with resolution to 1 hz.

Testing capabilities of this magnitude were way outside of reach of the average ham just a few years ago, but thanks to surplus units such as the HP 8924C, this has changed.

So if you need a great service monitor at an affordable price, the HP 8924C is a very good choice!

K7NG Rating: 2012-05-01
Super test item Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The 8924c is almost identical to the portable 8920 service monitor in basic function. It is much larger and heavier than the 8920, however. The 8924 was designed to test CDMA cellphones and base station equipment, so a very large subset of its functions are not useful for Ham Radio, but it has all the essential capabilities for testing radio equipment and antennas from HF to GHz.
Earlier versions of this instrument have electromechanical attenuators and work fine to well below 10 MHz (mine goes out of level calibration around 4 MHz), where later versions have PIN attenuators and work to the upper HF band only. All versions work above 2 GHz. It has a built in spectrum analyzer and tracking generator for filter and antenna tuning, a signal generator, CTCSS tone encode/decode, AM and FM modulation and demodulation, etc. Some versions have 60W or 100W power handling (beware, some have 6W max), and kits can be obtained that will allow uprating a 6W model to 60W. They can be found in good condition, at least working in all respects if not completely in calibration, for less than $1000. Mine was as close to calibrated as I could measure with my other calibrated equipment. It is the primary piece of RF test equipment on my bench.