I know that quite a few of you are, like me, owners of the Rigol DSA815-TG. It’s been a reliable workhorse in my lab since I’ve acquired it, but the one thing I believe that I’ve wanted to most from it is a an RBW minimum of 10 Hz instead of the specified 100 Hz. That would allow for better characterization of narrow filters like crystal ladder filters and would let you better see fine details about signal.

Well, it looks like today is our lucky day. I’ve received an email from Rigol that indicates that a new firmware update is available that will turn on 10 Hz RBW! Quoth Rigol:

Improved RBW — We have improved the RBW spec on the popular DSA815 to 10Hz. This improvement provides users with greater frequency resolution and lower noise floor. 10Hz RBW is now specified on all of our DSA800 Series (1.5GHz, 3.2GHz, 7.5Ghz)

…

Existing DSA815 owners at 1.09 FW or above can upgrade to the latest 1.18 FW version to activate the 10 Hz capability.

Download new Firmware.

I believe that the link provided at the end of the email was a custom tracking URL for me, so I’ll direct you to the Rigol NA DSA800 product page, which has a link for acquiring the latest firmware. Make sure that you are getting the 1.18 version of the firmware. The installation is a snap and the RBW improvement is an exciting new feature to get for free. Thanks Rigol!