![[Graph showing capacitance of Keysight N 50 Ohm standard compared to BNC connector standard]](../../images/calibr10.gif)
Table 1 Offsets with DEFAULT definitions.
| Type | Sex | Frequency @ Upper OFFSET LOSS Limit of 0.033dB (MHz) | Frequency @ Upper PHASE ERROR Limit of 0.33 deg (MHz) | DELAY OFFSET ERROR at 0.3 MHz (ps) | |
| BNC | SHORT | Male | 159 | 10.6 | -84.609 |
| OPEN | Male | 288 | 10.9 | -86.219 | |
| SHORT | Female | 110 | 15.3 | -41.384 | |
| OPEN | Female | 650 | 22.8 | -42.355 | |
| SMA | SHORT | Male | 272 | 21 | -26.929 |
| OPEN | Male | 1780 | 23 | -28.809 | |
| SHORT | Female | 709 | 26 | -21.462 | |
| OPEN | Female | 1350 | 28 | -24.035 |
COMPARING STANDARDS
A large improvement over the BNC performance results obtained in Table 1 can be made by entering the the characteristics of the standards into the VNA definition table. This is because the errors in the BNC connector standard are far greater than those of a dedicated calibration kit. The home made BNC(m) standard is basically a long centre conductor in a long tube with a solid dielectric, which results in a large capacitance and also an even longer electrical length due to the resulting velocity constant caused by the solid dielectric. Whereas the comparable Keysight N 50 Ohm standard is little more than a centre contact virtually supported in mid air within a screening 'tube'. The difference between the termination Box BNC(m) OPEN and the Keysight Type N 50 Ohms Male OPEN can best be appreciated by looking at Figure 10 which shows the capacitance vs. frequency of the two standards. The delay of both standards has been included into C0 in order to give an easy visual comparison.
STANDARD DEFINITIONS
The Termination Box was fitted with different connector types and the characteristics determined by our measurement method (see Table 2). It was not possible to find the ideal capacitor coefficients for any of the BNC OPEN 'standards' because at least one coefficient for each standard exceeded the VNA input range of ±10K. This meant that the coefficients had to be selected manually and were therefore subject to selection interpretation.
Table 2 USER definitions of characterised standards.
| Type | Sex | C0 10-15 F | C1 10-27 F/Hz | C2 10-36 F/Hz2 | C3 10-45 F/Hz3 | Delay (ps) | Loss (MΩ/s) | |
| BNC | SHORT | Male | 101.34 | 1300 | ||||
| OPEN | Male | 0 | 1500 | 10,000 | 500 | 100.71 | 1300 | |
| SHORT | Female | 58.079 | 1300 | |||||
| OPEN | Female | 6 | 5,000 | -3,500 | 10,000 | 56.846 | 1300 | |
| SMA | SHORT | Male | 43.624 | 1300 | ||||
| OPEN | Male | 0 | -2140 | 3534 | -688 | 43.3 | 1300 | |
| SHORT | Female | 38.157 | 1300 | |||||
| OPEN | Female | 0 | -5617 | -2448 | 347 | 38.526 | 1300 |
RESULTS WITH USER DEFINITIONS
The residual OFFSET PHASE was calculated from the measured phase characteristics of the BNC(m) OPEN standard and the user values given in Table 2. Figure 11 shows the resulting Phase errors for OPEN standards and it can be seen that the BNC(m) connector standard is now usable up to 2.0 GHz for Phase within the previously set limit of 0.33°. The exercise was repeated for the BNC(f) OPEN connectors and then both the SMA OPEN connectors and the results are shown in Figure 11 and Table 3.
![[Graph showing calculated OFFSET phase of OPENS using USER definition]](../../images/calibr11.gif)
The residual OFFSET PHASE was also calculated for the BNC(m) SHORT standards. Figure 12 shows the resulting Phase errors for SHORT standards and it can be seen that the BNC(m) connector standard is now usable up to 1.92 GHz for Phase within the previously set limit of 0.33°. The exercise was repeated for the BNC(f) OPEN connectors and then both the SMA OPEN connectors and the results are shown in Figure 12 and Table 3.
![[Graph showing calculated OFFSET phase of SHORTS using USER definition]](../../images/calibr12.gif)