I was asked whether the nanoVNA can display VSWR in terms of 400Ω or some other arbitrary impedance.
Some antenna analysers and VNAs support display of results in terms of some specified impedance other than 50Ω, sometimes only a limited fixed set.
The direct answer to the question is “probably no, not directly on the ‘original’ nanoVNA today”, there are many firmware forks and many PC clients for nanovna, and now many significantly hardware versions appearing. Things may change.
However, if you can save a set of impedance measurements, they can be converted to VSWR relative to some other impedance reference.
An example
At Implementation of G5RV inverted V using high strength aluminium MIG wire – impedance measurements a set of impedance measurements made with a Rigexpert AA600 is presented.
A similar set of measurements could be made with a standalone nanoVNA and saved, but given that it is such a clumsy device and its USB socket has become so unreliable, I will not repeat the measurement but use the data used for the article above.
So we have a table of frequency and (R,X) measured looking into a ‘real’ 450Ω feed line, so we will calculate wrt 450Ω but we could use any reference.
Above is a plot or (R,X) looking into the feed line. Continue reading nanoVNA – VSWR in terms of 400Ω