In this paper, a synthetic vector network analyzing measurement system is presented. The system is based on a hardware setup, including a signal generator and a vector signal analyzer, with the vector network analyzing functionality implemented in the software. The measurements of the proposed system demonstrated comparable performance in terms of accuracy and speed compared with a modern traditional vector network analyzer, but it is more flexible due to its inherent software implementation. The proposed system's ability to measure nonlinear phenomena is addressed and discussed, and some preliminary results are given. © 2011 IEEE.