First off, I would like to thank the all the members, especially the recent additions. The information is very welcome.
The Electrician; Very interesting. You wouldn't happen to have a Rigol DSA1030A (or a 1030) and/or a Agilent N9340B would you?? Of course you know this is throwing a wrench into the works.
One thing you have to admit, the 27xx series has a killer display, the exact opposite of the FSH3.
Sorry, but I don't have access to a Rigol or Agilent.
I also haven't ever had access to a R&S FSH3, but the FSH4 is a newer unit, and I would expect better performance all around.
The FSH4 display has good resolution, but it's not as bright as the Anritsu. The Anritsu is "majorly" bright (as my young nephew would say).
Another thing I notice is that the numbers for sweeps/second on the Anritsu don't make sense to me. I set it up to look at a local TV station (a digital signal here in the U.S.) at around 600 MHz. Using a 5 MHz span and 10 kHz RBW, the instrument reported a sweep time of 900 mS, but the update rate on the display is much faster than that; I would estimate about 50 mS. I see this behavior constantly; the unit is much faster than it indicates. They must mean something different than what I would expect by the term "sweep time". The FSH4 doesn't behave like this. It reports a sweep time that is consistent with what you see on the display.
Both units exhibit the behavior you would expect. For wide spans and narrow RBW, it gets slow.
For other settings, I've seen the FSH4 report sweep times as low as 22 mS, and for similar settings the apparent performance of the Anritsu is just as fast even though it reports a much longer time. I can't explain this.
R&S makes another "semi" portable SA, the FSL3:
http://www.rohde-schwarz.us/en/products/test_and_measurement/aerospace_and_defense/test_and_measurement_instruments/spectrum_signal_analyzers/FSL.html which I have occasionally had access to, and I've seen that unit exhibit sweep times of as low as 2.5 mS! It has a battery option, too.
The N9340B looks good; maybe you can get the Agilent rep to show you one. Their spec of .1 second for a full 3 GHz sweep (RBW unknown) is outrageously fast!
The Anritsu, for a 3 GHz full sweep, 3 MHz RBW, reports 14.785 seconds, but visually I estimate it's taking about 1.5 seconds.