A General Purpose Automatic Spectrum Surveillance System

Radio Frequency Interference Analysis has been one of the last measurement systems to be automated. It has previously been accomplished by laborious point-by-point data taking. Measurement of RFI, furthermore, is complicated by the use of a multiplicity of transducers, non-standard test setups, variations in specification limits, and the almost infinite variety of equipment under test which creates signal intercept problems. Automatic RFI/EMC measurement systems proposed or marketed to date have either been massive and mechanically tuned, using combinations of adapted commercial equipment, or were designed for a narrow range of uses. The FSS-250 system described in this paper is composed of instruments specifically designed for system usage, and in combination offer simplicity, compactness and a variety of uses previously unavailable.