CORRECTING MISUNDERSTANDINGS ON SPECTRUM-ANALYZER RMS DETECTION

SPECTRUM analysis has often stirred debate among engineers on how to s pecify the instruments themselves and their measurements. For example, while some manufacturers define resolution-bandwidth filters by their 3-dB bandwidths, others prefer to use the filters' 6-dB bandwidths. W hat follows are two letters from leading equipment manufacturers, moti vated by an article on spectrum analysis appearing in the January 1997 issue of this magazine, The first letter is a comment on the original article; the second is a reply to that letter from the authors of the original article.