I coordinate field test equipment for a wireless services company. In the last five years, I've processed a couple hundred rush orders for RF gear — handheld spectrum analyzers, signal generators, cable and antenna testers. Most of those had less than 24 hours' notice, and almost all of them came with questions.
So this is the FAQ I end up typing over and over: What is the Anritsu 68369B actually for? When does the Anritsu MS2713E make sense? Can this gear help with cell phone signal problems? And when is a multimeter not enough? If you're in a hurry, jump to whichever question matches yours.
Yes. Anritsu Corporation is a Japanese manufacturer that has been around since 1895, according to the company history published on anritsu.com. That's not a typo: 1895. They've been building communications test gear for well over a century — spectrum analyzers, signal generators, network analyzers, PIM testers, and OTDRs.
Anritsu doesn't always get the same attention as some other test brands, which is kind of surprising given how much of their equipment is actually in the field. When you see their name on something, it's not a white-label mystery box. There's a real corporation behind it, with proper documentation and support.
The 68369B is a synthesized microwave signal generator from Anritsu's 683XX family. These are benchtop instruments designed to produce stable RF and microwave tones. As I remember, the 68369B covers about 10 MHz up into the 40 GHz range — but honestly, don't quote me on that exact top end. Check the datasheet for your specific unit.
Why would anyone still use one in 2025? Because a clean, known signal is the foundation of RF testing. It lets you point a tone at a receiver and know that if it comes out wrong, the problem is downstream, not the source. In practice, I see them used for receiver sensitivity checks, filter testing, and as a substitute local oscillator on the bench.
We keep one 68369B in our rental inventory, and it gets requested way more often than I expected. It has rescued more than one project after a newer generator suddenly died.
The MS2713E is a handheld spectrum analyzer. According to the product documentation on anritsu.com, it covers 9 kHz to 6 GHz. That range catches broadcast radio, every common cellular band, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a lot of unlicensed devices. And it does it in a box you can carry up a tower ladder.
Our techs grab it for three jobs. First, hunting interference: connect a directional antenna, put the analyzer in max hold, and walk until the signal gets louder. Second, verifying that a transmitter is actually on its assigned frequency. Third, checking whether a location really has signal instead of trusting the bars on a phone.
One boundary worth knowing: the MS2713E is a spectrum analyzer, not a network analyzer. It won't measure cable return loss or antenna VSWR directly. For that, you'd want a Site Master or similar. But if the question is what's radiating from that antenna, this is the tool.
Yes — that's basically its home turf. All common cell phone bands sit inside the 6 GHz span, so it can see LTE, 5G sub-6, and the older 2G/3G bands that are still around. Coverage engineers use it to verify what a tower is actually radiating, not just what the coverage map claims.
Example from last year: a customer kept losing calls in one office building, always in the afternoon. Phones showed reasonable signal, and the carrier suspected the phones. A tech set up the MS2713E on the affected downlink channel, switched on max hold, and caught an intermittent signal that turned out to be a failing repeater in the building next door. Once they knew what to hunt, it took hours instead of weeks.
That's why I push for a measurement before anyone starts swapping parts. It stops the guess-and-check cycle. Five minutes of looking beats five days of replacing things that aren't broken.
This is the question that catches people off guard. They find a 68369B in storage and assume that any signal generator can mimic a cellular signal. Not quite.
The 68369B produces continuous wave tones and analog modulation. It does not generate LTE or 5G waveforms. If your test needs a phone to actually register on a network, you need a modern vector signal generator with the right protocol options.
That doesn't make the 68369B useless. It's still excellent for testing RF components and receiver paths with clean, calibrated tones. It just can't speak the phone's digital language.
I get versions of this question from people who work on cars, and it makes sense. Modern vehicles live in both the electrical world and the radio world — key fobs at 315 or 433 MHz, TPMS sensors, Bluetooth, GPS, telematics. A multimeter is essential for battery, ground, and parasitic drain checks. But it won't show you what's happening at those radio frequencies.
I'm not an automotive electronics specialist, so I'm not going to tell you which specific meter deserves the label best multimeter for automotive. What I can tell you from the RF side is this: if a problem only shows up when a signal is involved, a voltage reading won't find it. You need a spectrum analyzer that covers the frequency you're chasing.
It's really both. A good multimeter tells you that the car's electrical system is healthy. An analyzer tells you whether the radio signals around that car are healthy.
This is where I have the strongest opinions, because I'm the one who gets the 4 p.m. call saying the gear has to be on site by morning. The temptation is to skip checks and just ship it. Don't. Ten minutes of checking is cheaper than a failed site visit.
Here's what we do on every Anritsu unit that leaves our dock:
The battery item is there because of a specific failure. In March 2024, I shipped an MS2713E overnight for an early-morning coverage check. I had charged it, but I hadn't verified that the battery would hold that charge. It left showing 100 percent and was down to 12 percent by 9 a.m. We paid a courier to bring a fresh battery to the site, and the customer still brings it up. I do not ship a handheld now unless it has sat unplugged for 15 minutes and stayed above 90 percent.
That's the prevention-over-cure lesson in one line: five minutes of verification saves five hours of correction.