what is the most common impedance used with S-parameter test sets - 50
or 75 Ohms? my guess would be 50 Ohms, based on no knowledge whatsoever.
Most common would be 50. In the CATV biz I suppose it would be 75.
what would be the pros and cons of one vs the other?
Unless you're in the CATV (video) biz, there is no pro for 75.
I am looking at buying one for my 200MHz HP3577 network analyser
Wow, how did you acquire one of these? Before my retirement I had one
in "my" (Hughes) lab. I seldom used the s-parameter TS, since I also
had available an HP8510C. If I remember correctly (risky propostion
these days), the TS was not a true reversing one where all four
parameters could me measured with one connection. There certainly
wasn't enough trace memory for all four parameters, maybe that was the
limitation. Anyway IIRC you will need software to make full two-port
measurements.
Mine wound up being mostly used to characterize quartz crystals. I
wrote software (HP-Basic) that my friends tell me is still cranking
away. I made extensive use of the trace math capability of the
analyzer to limit the workload of the computer. (HP-9836 fully loaded
with a whopping 1M of RAM!)
Today in retirement, I'm content with my N2PK network analyzer.
www.n2pk.com