On 9/5/2011 6:47 PM, Owen Duffy wrote:
Jeff wrote in
:

What bugs me is that the diodes are blowing up despite this rather low
resistance to ground. Either hams are finding some rather high power
ESD sources with which to blow up their analyzers, or some other
failure mechanism is involved.

But the reality is that people do damage these things... and so the
method you suggested earlier is not likely to be sufficient to protect
them.

I am careful to avoid connecting an instrument of this type to an
antenna system unless I have drained any static charge first, and avoid
other transmitters on air nearby.

I think you are correct. I do think that more care needs to be taken
with these devices than with a lot of other electronic items Hams use.
I liken them to RF attenuator blocks. You see a lot of them in company
repair shops, because people are often trying to put too much power
through them.

After getting the new replacement analyzer, and using the dummy load,
and I do the static drain too, plus I keep it away from other people,
it's lasted FB.

- 73 de Mike N3LI -