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Hi Jom,
The SA124B and BB60D serve different use cases. The SA124B is a narrow band analyzer (250kHz bandwidth) ideal for making measurements on narrowband signals, such as CW, AM, FM. Using the SA124B to measure wideband modulated signals such as the radar or comms signals that might exist at X-band frequencies would be ill-suited/impossible. The BB60 is much better for measuring wideband signals. If you need BB60 like performance to X-band frequencies then you need to look into the SP145 or SM200, which are much closer to the BB60 in capability.
Both the SA124 and BB60D are capable of making phase noise measurements. The BB60 will make those measurements several times faster. The phase noise measurement performance floor is limited by the analyzer itself. If you have specific measurement requirements for phase noise, I can verify you will be able to accomplish them with either device. The phase noise license is tied to a single S/N device, and we have both annual and perpetual license options.
Let me know if you have follow up questions or comments.
Hi Kaiser,
The triggers that are returned as part of the I/Q streaming data are only modified by signals on the trigger input port, not the GPIO. I think if you move the signal to the trigger port, you will get the results you expect.
I look forward to your results.
Hi Joe,
Looks like an incomplete branch. Looks like it was copied from the branch above and not finished.
It should probably look more like this,
if(state.header.decimationDetector == SHRDecimationDetectorAvg) { printf("Averaged trace(s) for %.2f seconds per output trace\n", state.header.decimationTimeMs / 1000.0); } else { printf("Max held trace(s) for %.2f seconds per output trace\n", state.header.decimationTimeMs / 1000.0); }This is untested, but I think is closer to what was intended. If you are able to try that, let me know if it prints what you expect.
The VSG200 can be powered over the single USB-C connection to the PC. As long as the port on the PC can support 10W (typical), the VSG200 will not need external power. I see the laptop you listed has a thunderbolt port, which will be sufficient for this.
Cyprien,
Is it always after a long session? Or can it happen at any time (e.g. 2 minutes after starting the measurements)?
Additional question, do you notice any sort of increase in memory usage by the application after making LTE measurements over long periods. Trying to rule out a memory leak as well.
Thanks for your help in trying to narrow it down.
Cyprien,
Does the assert give you any other information? Sometimes a line number? I might be able to use that to track down why it’s happening.
No immediate plans for NR support.
There is not currently a way to specify an exact length of time to record. You could record until a specific file size is reached. You could work backwards and estimate how big the file size is while recording in your desired configuration, and set the “Max file size” parameter to that.
Ed,
This warning indicates failure to boot. We likely will need you to send this unit in for inspection and repair. Send an email to support@signalhound.com with the serial number, and I will help you get an RMA started.
Look forward to your response.
Thank you for the feature request!
This warning indicates that either the adjustment data is corrupted on the internal flash, or there is USB data loss when transferring that data to the PC (which occurs during the open process). You can keep using the instrument, but either scenario would result in potentially incorrect measurements.
To start troubleshooting, let me have you send us some information to support@signalhound.com,
– Is this problem new? or has it always been occuring?
– What is the make/model/OS of the PC?
– Are you using a USB hub?
– Do you have a different USB cable you can try?
– What is the S/N of the instrument?We look forward to your response.
If using Spike there is unfortunately not a way to trigger off the internal PPS.
If using the API, then this would be possible by using the I/Q timestamps. When I/Q streaming via the API with GPS lock, the timestamps would give you indication of when the PPS trigger occurred and you take action at the appropriate time.
Thank you for your input Pedro!
Pedro,
Multiple VSG60/200s cannot be used in a phase coherent manner. While multiple units could be used simultaneously, their alignment would at best be 10’s of milliseconds.
Let us know if you have follow up questions.
Hi Jonathan,
Spike can only control one channel of the PCR4200 at a time. You can change which channel is controlled using the Utilities -> Diagnostics selection. Each channel will behave identically. Support for the PCR4200 in Spike is primarily to assist with troubleshooting in network configuration and to make single channel spectrum analysis measurements using the receiver.
The full power of the PCR4200 is exposed through the API. There you can access the multi channel streaming, phase coherent measurements, and simultaneous sweep + stream.
The API files can be downloaded from our SDK here here,
https://signalhound.com/software/signal-hound-software-development-kit-sdk/API documentation can be viewed here,
https://signalhound.com/sigdownloads/SDK/online_docs/pcr_api/index.htmlIf you would like to discuss your use case in more detail, please email me directly at aj@signalhound.com.
Regards
To clarify, Spike is only supported on x64 Linux operating systems, not ARM Linux.
We do have minimal ARM Mac support for the SP145 in the form of compiled APIs. If you were writing your own software you could take advantage of them to use the instrument on Mac. You can find those libraries in our SDK. Porting Spike is a much larger project, and no effort has been made on this port yet. It has been requested a few times over the years, there is some interest. I can’t provide any timelines or estimates on this project.
Hi Matteo,
I made some suggestions via email, were you able to test those yet? In both of my suggestions, the attenuator would not be part of the cal, but would be inserted afterwards and compensated using one of the techniques below.
The problem with having the attenuator in during the cal is that you will drive the signal into the noise and the unit will not be able to make a good cal.
Here is the main contents from that email.
Port extensions would likely work, there is both controls for setting a typical path loss curve and a fixed DC offset (for narrow spans or coarse measurements). In this scenario the attenuator would be inserted post calibration.
Deembedding would be a more accurate approach. Do the cal without the attenuator. Then insert and measure the full 2 port s-params of just the attenuator. Save the measurement as an S2p file, and use that file for deembedding.
In the final picture with the through measurement, the status bar indicates that only the factory calibration is loaded. That would tell me that your 2 port cal is not currently applied. Are you finishing all steps of the calibration, including saving the calibration file prior to making this measurement? Once your calibration is finished and applied, you should see your through measurement normalized.
Please contact us at support@signalhound.com with a detailed description of your issue and we can assist you.
An additional comment about DVB. DVB includes some additional PHY features such a pilot tones that our software is not equipped to deal with (in our digital demodulation mode). A straight 32-APSK signal would be fine to demodulate as long as the instantaneous bandwidth of our receiver is greater than the signal. The BB60 has an instantaneous bandwidth of 27MHz.