Hi,
Please let me correct you: professional meters cost 1.500-10.000 Euro!
If you want to go cheaper you can try to buy a second hand unit.
However, the correct device for you depends on what you want to do with it!
If you want to "just" install some satellite dishes on a fixed mount, this is one thing. Good affordable professional meters can be bought from PRIME DIGITAL. Like this one:
PRIME DIGITAL SAT & TV INSTRUMENTS
If you want to carry out professional installation services for providers on CATV/Fibre/SAT networks, then you might need something quite more expensive. If you want to see what a top of the line device looks like:
RANGERNeo 4: High class field strength meter and spectrum analyzer with 4K decoder | PROMAX Electronica
The common brands:
- Rover Instruments
- Prime Digital (Low Cost line of Rover Instruments - still great products)
- Promax
- KWS Electronics
- Sefram (Spaun uses/used Sefram as OEM)
- Kathrein (now using Rover Instruments as OEM)
- TELEVES (OEM is Sertel, which belongs to the same group)
- Rohde & Schwarz (uses Sertel as OEM on some products, other products are inhouse: best there is at really expensive prices, even second hand)
- Unaohm (not sure if they are still around)
- FTE (not sure if they still offer field meters)
- Deviser (have incredibly powerful field meter, the S7000 and S7200, but not very known outside China)
- Emitor (they stopped producing field meters)
I own devices from most of these brands, if you have specific questions, let me know.
Characteristics you need to consider on a PROFESSIONAL meter:
- Spectrum Analyzer: resolution and refresh rate
- Blind scan: can you just move the marker to a transponder on the spectrum and the device will automatically find out the modulation settings?
- Can it decode and render: MPEG2, MPEG4, .h265
- What modulators does it support: DVB-S, DVB-S2, DVB-C, DVB-C2, DVB-T, DVB-T2
- Do you need Constellation diagram?
- Do you need Echo measurements?
- Do you need modem capabilities (for IPTV and/or Internet)?
- Do you need other advanced measurements?
Personally, whenever I need to point a dish or setup a DiSEqC-1.2 Motor, I use my trusted Emitor Satlook Digital NIT or Satlook Digital Color. They have a great spectrum analyser built-in and support DiSEqC-1.0 and 1.2.
Can be bought cheaply second hand on eBay and the Satlook Digital NIT comes with a 12V Acid Lead battery, which can be replaced for 15 Euro.
Let me know if you have further questions.
Regards,
Vitor