My spectrum analyzer gave ghost readings for two weeks before I found the issue

Had a bad coax cable from the antenna input that was causing intermittent false signals on the 800 MHz band. Took me swapping every cable in the rack to figure it out. Any of you guys run into weird cable issues that look like equipment failure?

2 comments

2 Comments

ross.jason27d ago

Two weeks of ghost readings? Man, that would have had me pulling my hair out (and probably replacing a perfectly good analyzer). I've definitely had a bad barrel connector cause similar flaky behavior on the UHF band, but it only lasted a day before I tracked it down. That kind of intermittent cable issue is the absolute worst because it mirrors a failing component so perfectly.

the_joseph27d ago

Oh man, @ross.jason you hit the nail on the head - I had a similar ghost hunting session that took me a week to find was just a loose N connector on a jumper. The way those intermittent cable gremlins can perfectly mimic a dying amplifier or mixer input is just maddening. Swapping out cables one by one is the only way to be sure.