A comparison of spectrum analyzer-based techniques for environmental EM field intensity measurements

The paper presents a critical comparison of some spectrum analyzer-based measurement techniques for the evaluation of the environmental electromagnetic field intensity. The goal is both to show when a given technique can be more efficiently exploited and to suggest practical hints for improving accuracy and measurement time. To this aim, suitable experimental examples provided on some real-life telecommunication signals are proposed. The examples show that better results can be easily achieved by following some simple guidelines on the choice of analyzer parameters such as the resolution filter bandwidth, the frequency span and the number of sweeps.