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TEST REPORT on the Internet
86
TELE-satellite International — The World‘s Largest Digital TV Trade Magazine
— 12-01/2012
— www.TELE-satellite.com
Download this report in
English
www.TELE-satellite.com/TELE-satellite-1201/
eng
/horizon.pdf
Combo Signal Analyzer
This new signal analyzer
is bigger than the other Ho-
rizon meters we have tested
in TELE-satellite. No won-
der, the HD-STM can meas-
ure not only satellite DVB-
S/S2 signals but also DVB-T
and even the old analog TV
and FM radio signals. The
green case color gives this
meter a somewhat military
look, but fortunately its
case is made of ABS plastic,
not metal, and a fully ma-
chined Aluminum front pan-
el. Its weight is also quite
“civilian”. Definitely, you will
not strain your neck when
working with the HD-STM
at 2kg.
The meter sports 10 but-
tons: except for the naviga-
tion arrows and an OK but-
ton in the middle of them,
there is an ON/OFF button
and four “soft” buttons lo-
cated near the LCD. Their
function depends on the
current menu and is always
displayed on the screen.
The last element on the
front panel is the signal in-
put connector. Along with
the meter itself, Horizon
provided us with a short
piece of coaxial cable with
F connectors on both ends,
then an F-to-IEC adapter
and finally 2 pieces of 10
dB signal attenuators for
the 5-1000 MHz range. The
latter ones come in very
handy when measuring the
output of a terrestrial an-
tenna amplifier.
The Horizon HD-STM is
also equipped with a car
lighter type DC charger, a
mains cord with the proper
plug for your region and an
USB cable. As with every
other Horizon meter, you
do not need any external
power supply unit but con-
nect the mains cord di-
rectly to the meter. This is
very practical as it saves
the hassle with a separate
power supply unit, all these
items can be stored in the
padded case supplied.
When you look at the HD-
STM from the right side you
will notice: a slot for a SD
card, the USB port and a
DC power supply input to be
used with the car charger.
The SD card is to be used
to log the measurements
results.
Horizon provides the User
Manual in an electronic form
– a file in PDF format on
the included CD-ROM. We
browsed through it and no-
ticed that it is very detailed
and written in a simple style
illustrated with a huge num-
ber of screen-shots. How-
ever, for the purpose of this
test, we decided not to study
it in detail but start using HD-
STM right away. In this way,
we wanted to check if the
user interface was intuitive
and self explanatory. Right
after the welcome screen,
you have three menu items:
SAT – to measure a satellite
signal, TERR – to measure a
terrestrial signal and SETUP
– to configure the basic set-
tings of the meter. Pressing