I have been trying to keep up with the discussion, but lack the experience to see the strengths/weaknesses most of you do. Though I understand some of the obvious bits like steps/points per span etc.
@Howardlong I for one would be saddened if you stopped sharing this sort of information. To all that take the time to produce and share such info I must say thanks, it is invaluable to the likes of me. Especially the inevitable discussions that arise, I find them very informative and view such as a learning experience.
+1
Howard your tests and observations are always useful, insightful, and much appreciated. Sometimes readers take input and go off in some new direction of interest - it’s kind of like impedance matching for humans in forums.
Everyone here in their own way is doing their best to learn and/or contribute, and your learnings/findings, observations/contributions are consistently excellent - so no worries, at all.
This is a very good thread, I think, and I hope everyone keeps going with the various tests, observations, comments, and questions. This thread seems to sit at the intersection of lots of interesting EE concepts including reactance/impedance plus math/measurements plus evolving test equipment - and the journey from freq to phase through resistance, capacitance, and inductance and FFT and BP to new scopes and SAs to VNAs is a very fun and useful journey. In the end we are learning through measuring and visualizing attributes and their interactions in dimensions with pretty big dynamic ranges while revealing subtleties and complexities that have been historically well beyond the resources and grasp of most of humanity and I think these insights can be very useful/important and and definitely fascinating.
In the process, metaphorically, we are kinda like cats herding ourselves in rabbit holes - and while it can occasionally be frustrating when one or more cats stray in an unanticipated direction overall the herd is learning, teaching, and hopefully having some fun - each in our own way while generally, I think, making the herd ever stronger.