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Grazie Mille siete ok Claudio
The new software looks great! I’m excited for the new life this will give to my SA44B/TG44A.
Do you have a release date yet? Are we looking at a few weeks or a few months?
Keep up the good work!This is great to hear, as a HAM radio amateur i use the SA44B/TG44A combination
quite often with much satisfaction.
It’s always good the see that a manufacturer takes his product serious even after a while when it was released, making software takes time and cost money.I’m excited to test the new software, great job!
Grtzz Mark
Are there any plans to provide A DLL for Labview 64 bit?
Hi Lior,
We are planning on having both a 32 and 64 bit C DLL which will be compatible with Labview. Some time after release we might consider integrating it into Labview for our users.
Regards,
A.J.Hello everyone. I’ve owned an SA44b and the TG44 for a few years and although the hardware has excellent performance (the phase noise is about 20/30 dB better than many budget desktop SA’s), the software has given me ulcers. I won’t go into details, but the poor ergonomics and the instability of some modes is enough to drive a man to drink. So I’m extremely happy to learn of the new software which is currently under development, and the short demo on You Tube looks very impressive. At last we will be able to see what is happening on long, slow sweeps and be able to change or abort sweeps without all that waiting around! Fingers crossed for an early 2015 release.
Hey Andy. Thanks for the feedback. We’re working like crazy to make the software so great, that it’ll make up for the issues we’ve had in the past ;-).
Oh, and I’m not sure if you saw this or not, but Justin posted a quick bit of info about TG44A sweeps in the upcoming software in the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/148252868548830/. See the attached image…
That sounds great, Cory. One of the most troublesome modes was the ‘slow, high dynamic range’ sweeps, which I use a lot for sweeping narrow filters etc. Very crashy! Is this mode still to be a separate thing like the previous one or will it be fully integrated?
I got the impression that it was (previously) a last-minute bolt-on that didn’t like talking to the rest of the Hound.
Thanks.Andy,
We are moving to the “fast, high dynamic range” sweeps. This should work well for any filter with at least 10 kHz of bandwidth, group delay of less than 100 microseconds, and a starting frequency of > 10 kHz. It will give you about 90 dB of useable dynamic range. Do you have filters that fall outside these specs? If so, we are planning on including an enhanced TG CW utility that allows you to, for example, tune to a single frequency and adjust for maximum insertion loss. You should be able to measure well below 100 dB insertion loss this way, and manually step across your frequency of interest. Similarly, for filters with less than 10 kHz bandwidth, you can manually step across them in increments as small as 10 Hz.Justin – I often make and sweep filters with widths of a few hundred Hz to 10 KHz for comms purposes. These usually have CF’s in the range 455 KHz to 10 MHz. I also sweep single crystals (to measure their characteristics) which have very sharp and deep curves. If the new SW could handle these it would be great. Manual stepping would be acceptable, but an auto sweep would be nice.
Keep up the good work, it is much appreciated.I’ll look into what it would take to add sweeping for these devices. Would a 50-100 point sweep be sufficient? Would a minimum bandwidth of 150 Hz be OK? Would a minimum span of 1 kHz and maximum span of 100 kHz (or 200 kHz) work? Would a dynamic range of 80-90 dB be enough? With 80-90 dB of dynamic range (vs 100+ dB) I think I could display the updated points in real-time so you wouldn’t have to wait for the complete trace…
Justin – a 100 point sweep would be adequate and 150 Hz BW would be fine for most purposes. A minimum span of 1 KHz and 90dB dynamic range would also do nicely.
In other words, yes to everything. Would manual stepping at 10Hz increments still be available, as the more I think about it the more I like it?
Many thanks.Hi Andy — Yes, manual stepping of the TG will remain available. When you are not currently performing TG sweeps, you will be able to bring up a control panel to control the frequency and amplitude of the TG directly, including manually stepping the frequency a fixed amount (10Hz multiples).
Regards,
A.J.We are scheduling the release date of the SA/TG software rewrite for 10 Feb 2015, which is less than a month away. I would like to notify you of the great strides we are making regarding the functionality of the software. This rewrite integrates the SA/TG-series devices into the BB60C open source spectrum analyzer/GUI software platform which will now work with all Signal Hound products, past and present. The new software also allows the SA’s to function as real-time spectrum analyzers for sweeps of 250 kHz and less—that means every RF event will be captured when using spans that are ≤250 kHz. Another improvement is 8x faster sweeps at a 500 kHz span, and 2x faster sweeps at a 5 MHz span with a linear transition between the two stated spans. In addition, the SA graphics now include color persistence and a 2D waterfall display. The TG devices are also benefitting from the rewrite. Long standing stability issues are resolved, to include making the high dynamic range user friendly and efficient.
Developers will be able to change the open source spectrum analyzer/GUI code, which makes its function calls to a unified and compiled API. Modifying, adding, and deleting functions, layouts, and utilities in the SA and TG devices is now possible. A liberal software license allows developers to compile the modified spectrum analyzer code for redistribution. All the great spectrum analyzer/GUI code that has been written for the BB60C, and the lessons learned, is now leveraged in the SA and TG devices. Even though the SA-series devices are hardware limited when compared to the BB60C, they can now enjoy the flexibility and power of the BB60C software platform. Best of all, the new software is going be a free download. This has been made possible because of the continued support and loyalty of the Signal Hound user community.
Best regards,
Bruce Devine
Signal Hound Owner & CEOGreat news. It sounds as though a lot of thought and hard work has gone into this re-write, and judging by what I’ve seen and heard it will be impressive. At last the software will match the hardware capabilities!
Will the new s/w install as a new device ie not dependent on having the old s/w installed? So we will un-install the old 2.18b completely and start from scratch?
And no firmware update, that’s a relief. My friends call me Captain Brickitt, can’t think why….I have the the ‘older’ SA44B that needs a separate BIN (calibration) file in the program directory, will the new software work with my SA44B?
Grtzz Mark
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