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Michael,
We recommend this USB card to our customers. We know it works with our products.
It’s important to know that the number of USB host controllers can affect performance. Each host controller is a 5Gbps link that is shared between 1 or more ports. Most PCs have 1 controller for all available ports. The card I linked above has 2 controllers, where the 2 ports on the left are shared between 1 controller and the two ports on the right the other.
In general if you are running our devices at full data rates (I/Q streaming), you can run 1 or 2 simultaneously on one controller without data loss. It depends on the USB hardware. That means you will need 2-4 controllers for your setup. If you aren’t running them all simultaneously, then this won’t affect you as much.
You might also find a 4 physical core CPU to be insufficient if running 4 simultaneously. I personally haven’t done this before, but I know some customers how have (with high core count Xeon processors).
If you find a configuration that works, let us know, we would love to be able to share with other customers.
Andrew
Hi Miran,
We don’t have any plans to add this currently, but I will certainly add this to our feature request log. I believe this to be an easy addition. I appreciate your feedback and request.
Andrew
Hi lsullivan,
The filter used for I/Q streaming and downsampling is a FIR filter.
The VBW filter used in sweeps is an IIR filter.Regards
DSelvam,
Power consumption is ~6W over USB 3.0.
We have not tested Win10 IOT. Can you install traditional x86 applications and drivers on Win10 IOT?
If you decided to try it, the platform must be an Intel x86/x64 architecture, with minimum processing requirements of a dual core i5/i7 processor. We do not support ARM architectures.
Andrew
Hi DSelvam,
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Can you please follow the instructions in the link below and let us know if it resolves your problem?
https://signalhound.com/sigdownloads/Other/TG%20VCP%20Instructions.pdf
Andrew
We use the FFT provided through the Intel IPPs libraries.
July 28, 2021 at 7:54 am in reply to: [Spike feature request]: new marker checkbox (in Scalar Network Analysis-mode) Thank you for the feature request qswitch. I can definitely see how that would be helpful.
Andrew
Version 3.0.5 was released in 2015, and unfortunately we don’t maintain releases from that far back. Additionally, if you have newer BB60C hardware, version 3.0.5 may not support it. The API interface has not changed much since then. If you have the header file from the old project built against 3.0.5, compare it to the newer version found in the SDK.
Regards
DDR,
Using the digital demodulation measurements, you should be able to measure the modulation quality of a 2FSK signal like GSM assuming it’s within the bandwidth of the receiver, which is only 250kHz for the SA44B. Once in digital demodulation mode, select 2FSK for the modulation type, Gaussian for the filter, and select the GSM symbol rate. You can also video trigger the captures on timeslots if necessary.
Let me know if you have follow up questions.
AndrewRegards
July 21, 2021 at 7:49 am in reply to: BB60C connecting with IsoLOG 3D DF antenna aaronia- Drone detection application You will likely be able to make an RF connection to the antenna but none of our software supports it. You will need to use the provided software or API that is available on the product page to control the antenna.
Please note, we have not evaluated this antenna and cannot provide guidance in building a direction finding system using it.
Unfortunately this is not possible at this time.
It is something that we have considered, but don’t have any timeline for right now.
Andrew
Hi Michael,
Unfortunately there is not a way to do this. We have discussed approaches to this, but due to the design of the instrument there is not a straightforward way to accomplish this.
Andrew
Michael,
There is not a direct one-to-one analogue to zero-span in the API. Zero-span is implemented in Spike with the I/Q streaming capabilities in the API. The I/Q data is then converted to all the plots (AM/FM/spectrum/waterfall/etc). There are examples of capturing I/Q data in the SDK. Conversion routines from I/Q to AM or spectrum are available online or made easy in environments like MATLAB.
Let us know if you have follow up questions.
Andrew
Michael,
In general, single ended USB 3.0 cables off of Amazon or other supplier will work with the VSG60A and BB60C. You would usually only run into problems using a single ended cable on ultra low power laptops like the Surface Pro. You are free to try those, or if you want one of our double ended y-cables you can reach our to our sales department at sales at signalhound dot com. I believe we can sell and ship you new cables.
Regards
Jorge,
We don’t use Go here, but a quick search reveals tools like this that might be able to help.
https://golang.org/cmd/cgo/We don’t have any examples using Go in our SDK but it looks like it should be possible.
Regards
Michael,
This is usually indicative of general USB data loss or USB transfer issues. If you keep seeing this, email me at aj at signalhound dot com and we can try to troubleshoot this.
Regards
This is an area we will be improving soon. The next version of the VSG60 software will improve the usability of the external within the main application.
Right now though, there are 2 ways to take advantage of the external trigger.
1) Use the API. The API manual documents the trigger functionality and we provide an example of using the trigger in C++. This information can be found in the SDK download.
2) In the main application, certain modes, such as pulse, ramp sweep, all digital modulations, and ARB output will output an external trigger. When any of these modes are configured with “Single” triggering enabled, each press of the trigger button will output the RF waveform synchronized with an external trigger event.In the next release of the VSG60 software, the external trigger will also work when those output modes are configured in “Continuous” trigger mode, outputting a trigger on every loop of the configured RF waveform.
If you have follow up questions, let us know.
Andrew
CKWong,
I am able to reproduce this issue. The issue appears to affect the step sweep mode with certain configurations. I will need to fix this and issue a new release of the software.
I apologize for the inconvenience. I do not have a workaround at this time.
I will respond on this forum topic when I have released the new version.
Regards,
AndrewSerpi,
25C above external is a big delta. Is the unit in a drawer or positioned in a tight spot? A small amount of air flow could drastically change the internal temperature.
We calibrate the BB60C in an environmental chamber which has high air flow via several fans. The internal temperature is typically ~10C above external in the chamber. Meaning, the highest internal temperature we are calibrating at is ~75C.
Given your current setup, you could operate to 50C external and still be within calibration. The device will continue to operate above that, although potentially outside the specified performance.
Regards,
AndrewHello,
Is the crash specific to one certain VSG60 configuration? Can you operate the VSG60 in any transmit output? For example, does a simple CW output work? If the crash is associated with just the step sweep, it might simply be a bug with that specific configuration that we can investigate and fix. Let me know the full settings used when a crash occurs.
That being said, you might need to run the VSG60 on a separate PC to run them both simultaneously. Most PCs will have difficulty running two of our high speed USB 3.0 devices simultaneously due to the shared USB 3.0 bus. If you continue to see disconnections on the BB60C, you will need to either, use a different PC for each device, or you could try installing a USB 3.0 adapter card and plugging one of the devices into that card. The card will add another USB 3.0 bus, so putting one on the adapter card’s bus, and one on the PC’s bus can resolve this.
Here are two adapter cards customers have used in the past with success.
I look forward to your response.
Andrew