Spike Software Suggestions, ver 3.0.22

Received my BB60C and VSG25A today, spent the last 12 hours familiarizing myself with both products and Spike. Realized that that also needed a tracking generator so I ordered one today.

A few software suggestions on Spike;

I enter a frequency in the Sweep Settings menu and it all looks good, then I jump over to [Modulation Analysis] and sometimes the frequency I entered in Sweep Settings appears, other times it is defaulted or some previous value. Even when it appears right it requires that I re-type the values in to the [Modulation Analysis] menu. A few times I was flipping back and forth, scratching my head as to why I could not see the signal in [Modulation Analysis].

This happens with other settings as well.

If I may make the suggestion, when it is the same value then please copy the values in to the other menus.

Also, can you include the up/down arrows for fine tuning frequency on the modulation analysis screen? What was happening is the VSG is a little drifty in frequency and while looking at QAM16 constellations or I/Q the frequency error was great enough that the constellation would not render or it would spin around. Maybe that is not a problem with the TG (tracking) models but it is with the VSG as it does not have a disciplined oscillator input or a way of synching.

(now that i think of that, maybe you can do a 1 pps pulse down the USB cable? or would processing lag in the computer make that problematic as a way to synching the VSG?, Just an idea).)

For the pattern trigger during modulation analysis; allow for the inclusion of binary bits in addition to HEX characters.

Under markers maybe you can include a “null search” in addition to the “peak search”.

Tisha Hayes