Avian’s Blog

I've recently stumbled upon this thread in the NanoVNA forums. Glen Jenkins points out that the 50 Ω calibration load that was shipped with the NanoVNA measures about 51 Ω on the multimeter. The thread contains quite a few replies that attack or dismiss this concern. It's sad that some see striving for better measurements as pointless for anyone outside of a metrology lab. Anyway, I think the question of why the load does not measure closer to 50 Ω is a valid one. I've written about cheap 50 Ω terminators before, but this story has more to it than someone simply using a standard E24 resistor.

I've found two interesting comments in that thread. Hugen replies that the loads shipped with NanoVNA-H4 are intentionally using a slightly too large resistor to offset parasitic effects at high frequencies. Supposedly they are designed so that the return loss is better than 40 dB up to 1 GHz and better than 30 dB up to 6 GHz. Later David Eckhardt shares some resistance measurements of precision Hewlett Packard calibration kits using different multimeters. Those kits don't measure perfectly 50 Ω at DC either, although it is unclear to me whether that is an error due to inaccurate multimeter measurements, or an intentional design decision.

Earlier this year I bought this no-name SOLT calibration kit for around 50 €. The load from this kit measures 51.3 Ω at DC on my Keysight U1241C multimeter (with the effect of the leads nulled). For comparison, the load that came with my NanoVNA-H measures 51.0 Ω using the same method. My calibration kit also came with recorded measurements of all the included standards that look like they were made on a professional VNA. I have no means of verifying that these measurements are actually correct and have not, say, just been copied from some other more expensive set. Let's just assume they are genuine for a moment.

The load standard came with a 9-point VSWR measurement that looks like this:

Unfortunately, it's impossible to calculate the full complex impedance of the load back from the VSWR. However, if I take some liberty in choosing the sign of the reflection coefficient and assume that the load impedance only has the real component I can get the following impedance vs. frequency curve for the load that matches the VSWR measurement:

The impedance starts above 50 Ω, then dips below and starts rising again toward the high frequencies. The interesting thing here is that if you extend the impedance curve down to DC it indeed crosses the axis at about 51 Ω, just like my multimeter measurement.

Let's say that the shape of this impedance curve is constant, but we can arbitrary choose the starting point at DC. In other words, assume that the shape is due to some unavoidable parasitic effects inside the resistive material, SMA connector or the casing. However we can shift the curve up and down by choosing the dimensions of the deposited resistive trace.

This is how the worst 0 - 6 GHz return loss of the load looks like depending on the choice of the DC resistance:

As you can see, the optimum choice is right around 51.3 Ω, just like what I actually measured on the load. With DC resistance chosen like that, the load has -30 dB or better return loss from 0 to 6 GHz. The same load with DC resistance chosen to be perfectly 50 Ω would indeed have a better return loss at DC, but it would also have about 3.5 dB worse return loss overall. Hence it would not meet the same return loss specification.

Perhaps this explanation is a bit handwavy. I make some arbitrary assumptions and I've used data from a different calibration kit and not the one that comes with NanoVNA. However it does in principle support what Hugen said in the forum thread. The fact that a load does not measure 50 Ω at DC can be an intentional decision to meet some specification and not a sign of cost cutting or poor engineering.