My experience with Rigol DSA815 licensing

Just purchased a new to me Rigol spectrum analyzer, and as is the way of the world, despite being a piece of hardware, certain features are locked behind paywalls. Rigol does include trial licenses for these features, and there is a hardware hack the can be done to short two pins internally so that the trial time is reset at every power on.

There also appeared to be keygens out there, but there was some feedback that they don't work on newer firmware versions. I was running v00.01.07, used the keygens, licensed the features I needed, and then upgraded to the latest version V00.01.19.00.05. All of my permanent licenses remained installed and active.

Hopefully this helps anyone who was considering buying one of these. The DSA815-TG, along with the Owon XSA815-TG (different products, derivative naming) seem to be the top two budget options if you want something that isn't a boat anchor to move around. The DSA is older, but I found a reasonable deal on a secondhand unit, and went for it.