Number of decimals in CSV

I’m using the export functionality of Spike. Instead of exporting the dB-values in a CSV file, I want to write mV values. I choose to show mV instead of dBm in the Amplitude tab. However, when I open the CSV file that I generated, it is filled with only 0.00 values – I suppose because only two decimals are written to the file, and all values are smaller than 0.005 mV. Two decimals might be ok when writing dB-values, but for low mV values it clearly doesn’t work. Is it possible to set the number of decimals when exporting a CSV file in Spike?

Hi Jacob, this a limitation of the Spike software that will need to be resolved. Currently there is no way to specify the output format. I apologize for the inconvenience. You may need to export as dBm and perform the conversion manually. I will make a note to investigate this issue and see if there is a quick fix for this.

Regards,
A.J.

That’s clear, thank you for the fast response.

I also need to export dbm values to a csv file for further analysis in Matlab. My signals are quite small, so I need more than 2 decimal points of precision(ideally 4+).

Just wanted to follow up to see if you were able to find any quick fix solution to export data with higher precision. Thanks!

Amy,

It is unusual to require more than 2 digits after the decimal for dBm readings, especially for small signals, where noise is going to dominate the reading. What type of analysis are you doing that requires that much precision? I would worry that our analyzers would drift more than this each reading.

Thanks for the quick reply Justin. Can I have an email or phone number to contact to discuss theverything specific application offline?

Hi Amy,

Our phone number is 1-800-260-TEST. Justin’s extension is 3.
Justin’s email is justin at signalhound dot com.
We are usually available by phone between 9-4 PST.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,
Andrew Montgomery

[Author]

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