Origins of the NanoVNA

https://groups.io/g/nanovna-users/topic/history/68003005?p=,,,20,0,0,0::recentpostdate%2Fsticky,,,20,2,0,68003005

edy555 is a Ham located in Japan and essentially took an existing idea from a couple of Texas Hams and developed sophisticated software and created a kit for the original NanoVNA and opensourced all of it. https://groups.io/g/nanovna-users/topic/51382131#6796
Look at the files section on the forum where I’ve placed his original (translated) design notes: https://groups.io/g/nanovna-users/files/Miscellaneous/NanoVNA%20design%20notes%20by%20edy555
Gen Hu (hugen), a Ham in China then took edy555’s design and improved on the software and hardware and began selling them as assembled devices on the TaoBao website.
Soon, a pile of copies/clones appeared of hugen’s design.Now, version 1 of the NanoVNA hardware which tops out at 1.5GHz is mature and edy555 & hugen are working with others to design NanoVNA V2 that will go up to 3GHz. In the meantime, another developer created the NanoVNA-F with a larger screen but tops out at 1.2GHz



I think the Texas hams Larry is referring to are Milt Cram (W8NUE) and Kees Talen (K5BCQ) who once offered the AQRP Vector Impedance Analyzer kit. The last time I looked that kit was no longer available.

Which had portions derived from a Project STM32-SDR which was developed by
Charlee Hill W5BAA, John Fisher K5JHF, Milt Cram W8NUE and Dave Miller
VE7PKE/VE7HR. The software was released as open source.
The STM32/SDR project has morphed to the IQ32 which is still in production.
Charlie and Milt over the years have created some wonderful things.