6. Closing Thoughts

While ASA is functionally in pretty good shape for a 1.0 product, there is also room for improvement. I came up with this list of User Interface "issues", some of which I admit could be considered personal preferences:

The Spectrum feature can display up to nine plot sub-windows at once, but you can't rearrange, resize or detach them. I'd prefer to see close, hide and restore boxes on each sub-window, too When working with the Power vs. Frequency plot, I first thought the ability to change the resolution bandwidth (RBW) was broken, since whatever value I set would get changed back to the original value. But I finally noticed that the desired value was shown in the display and that this was a bug with the control Opening a new plot is always done with all traces turned off, so nothing is displayed The mechanisms for changing Control settings are hidden until you click on them. This is ok once you get the hang of it, but I prefer visual cues to differentiate things I can change from those that I can't You can save plot configurations, but can't save any captured data other than by making screenshots

I'd also like to see versions of ASA covering other bands. AirMagnet has perhaps tipped its hand that 900MHz coverage is coming given the grayed-out selection in the Monitored Bands screen. So it's probably not a stretch to think that versions covering other popular bands are also in the works.

I'm glad to see AirMagnet get a wireless LAN RF analysis product into the market, which has been pretty much dominated by BVS' handheld BumbleBee and YellowJacket product lines. Of course there are always handheld general-use spectrum analyzers from companies like Willtek, Rohde & Schwarz, B&K and