panadapter signal level units

Mike - K6QY

New to Flex Radio, so this question might be something that's general knowledge for y'all. However, the Flex literature does not speak to this question at all...

Power spectra have units of (power)/(measurement bandwidth). The Flex panadapter on my 6400, however, is calibrated only in terms of power. So... are the true values of the spectral densities displayed to be interpreted as the "dBm level" indicated, divided by the bandwidth I've selected within the chosen operating mode (e.g. USB/LSB/CW/...)? Or are they calibrated in terms of a fixed bandwidth already and just not labeled correctly on the panadapter's y-axis?

On the other hand, the standard value for spectral densities in the measurement community is typically in dBm/Hz (although some folks in the amateur community seem to prefer dBm/MHz).

Which is it for the Flex signature series?

-thanks,
Mike / KB2TO 

VK7WH Winston

Mike, there are others better qualified than me to comment, however I believe Flex use a bandwidth of 500Hz for calibration. Steve, FlexRadio VP of Engineering wrote an excellent paper on this subject. I will try and locate it for you. Welcome to Flex. I’m sure you will enjoy the ride. Winston

Mike - K6QY

Mike - K6QY

Mike - K6QY

And I must add one clarification to what Steve said... in the fifth paragraph, the units should actually be -104dBm/500Hz = -131dBm/Hz

Suggestion to Flex: I would like Flex radio to output the y-axis in dBm/Hz, just like all of my lab's HP/Agilent/Keysight spectrum & network analyzers. Hey, why not... all the requisite goodies are already in the Flex hardware & software! I think it's high time for hams to move away from ambiguous, situation-dependent metrics like "S"!!

Steve-N5AC

Craig Williams

2 my distractor, see, this is a useful conversation for everyone in the community. VS whining about the ANF, forever.