[Andrew]

Hi Torbin,

Zero-span mode has only partial support for SCPI. There is only commands for configuring the capture and then requesting the I/Q data. To achieve the functionality of a frequency marker, you would need to pull the I/Q data, FM demodulate it, then index your FM array accordingly.

This may be expanded in a future update, I cannot provide a timeline on when this would be available.

Let me know if you have follow up questions.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by Andrew.

Roman,

The API is setup to only return UBX messages when GPS is locked and outputting NMEA sentences. This is a result of how we package and return this data. For this reason, yes, you would need to see GPS lock before expecting messages.

Is there an event that consistently leads to lost GPS lock? Is it after sending a message? Does your GPS antenna have access to clear sky? I can’t say that I have seen a scenario or heard from a customer that a reboot of the device was required to attain GPS lock. Is it possible one of the messages is configuring the device in an undesirable state?

We only have experience sending the NAV5 message for changing the platform model. That code example is in our SDK (you probably already found it). I have not used the cold boot command. If it forces the GPS to do a cold boot, this will take many minutes or longer to get GPS lock again, I’m assuming you are waiting an appropriate amount of time?

Thank you for the feature request Victor. I will update this thread if we add something to address this.

Andrew

Did you enable the use of the GPSDO? You have to go to the Settings -> Reference menu and tell the instrument to use the reference.

Also, is your DUT being disciplined by the GPSDO?

We calibrate our devices to a GPSDO. If you just put our instrument on it, there might be minimal change (basically whatever drift there has been since we adjusted it in our facility). Once our instrument and the DUT is using the GPSDO, then I expect nominally ~0Hz offset.

CMarkovic,

Thank you for the question.

Unfortunately, there is no feature in Spike to export markers to a CSV.

The only solutions I can imagine for this,

– If you were able to use the peak table for your marker needs, you can copy and paste all markers in the peak table as a CSV.
– It would be possible to write a small SCPI script that you could run at any point and read all active marker values and save them to a file. This would require some programming which I realize not everyone is comfortable with.

Thanks for the follow up.

You are correct that when you are in sweep playback mode, only the swept analysis is available. Unfortunately the other modes I mentioned only work with I/Q and not sweep data, so they are not compatible. Other than the sweep mode recording, I am aware of any other recording or logging features in Spike that would be useful for your specific task (long term logging/recording). I apologize for the inconvenience.

I’m assuming you are using the sweep mode + markers to perform these frequency measurements? This will have limitations, notably the frequency resolution will be limited to your RBW. If you wanted 1Hz resolution on your measurement you would need ~1Hz RBW. At higher RBWs, the freq bins will land on discrete steps that might give you the illusion that one device is more “accurate” than another, in this case it sounds like the BB60D has a frequency bin that lands exactly on 10MHz, and the CW energy happens to be closer to that bin than the adjacent.

We have other methods for measuring the frequency of a CW signal that are preferable. You can use either the frequency difference meter utility, or the analog demod analysis mode, which will provide you a high accuracy frequency measurements of a CW input with faster update rates than a low RBW sweep.

For logging, sweep mode + low RBW might be ideal. There is a sweep recorder which can log sweeps over long periods. Depending on how much time resolution you need, you can add artificial delays in the in the sweep recording toolbar so that you have adequate time and frequency resolution over your 12 hour period without a prohibitively large recording file.

The SDK will allow you to retrieve sweeps and I/Q data. All post processing such as frequency estimation must be performed by your application, but this gives you the most flexibility in how you log your measurements.

Keep in mind, the OCXO you are measuring will have a frequency error. In addition, as you mention, without a known reference, you don’t know what offset either of your SA’s have. A common approach to this is to use an external 10MHz reference, commonly a GPS disciplined one, which has a known frequency accuracy and is generally quite good, and provide this as a reference into the SA’s 10MHz input port. When an external 10MHz reference is connected to the SA’s, you can instruct the device to use it in the “Settings -> Reference” menu.

For any future customers that find this issue,

There is an issue when loading presets between different version of Spike while running Windows 7. To resolve this, we recommend updating to Windows 10 or 11, and if you still have an issue related to this, reach out to support@signalhound.com.

Thanks

Volker,

Can you send this to my email at aj@signalhound.com? The forums blocked the file upload.

Thanks

Matan,

Using SCPI, you can retrieve the demodulated bit string. This would return a string of ‘0’s and ‘1’s from the Spike software measurement. This is using the :FETCh:DDEMod? command. You can learn about our SCPI commands and see SCPI examples by downloading our SDK here, https://signalhound.com/software/signal-hound-software-development-kit-sdk/

Hello rlisboa,

There is no current timeline on availability for this. You can follow updates here, https://signalhound.com/support/forums/topic/bb60c-api-for-arm/

I will be sure to update the linked thread when we do have something to share.

Currently the only ARM support we have is for the SP145 API, compiled on the NVidia Jetson (Orin AGX) platform.

Regards

Hello Sagar,

We have received your support emails asking similar questions and have responded via email.

Regards

Hi Cyprien,

Unfortunately our software does not have this capability right now, but this is a highly requested feature and is likely something we will be implementing in the future. We appreciate your suggestion and feedback.

Thanks!

For a 20 foot range, I would recommend a USB 3.0 “active” cable. A passive cable should not exceed 6ft. We have not personally tested these, but they have all come from customers who have had success with them, and I have recommended them to many other customers (who have not reported issues).

– FIRENEX-ULS-05
– SIIG USB 3.0 active cable 20 meters
– Cable Matters 10m active cables
– Corning 20m USB to optical cables.

For other customers who might see this post, these active cables should work for any of our USB 3.0 devices. For much longer distances, the Icron USB-Fiber extender is a popular choice with our customers.

Thank you for the bug report Miran. I believe this should be an easy fix.

There is still only Windows support for the VSG25, with no current plans to support other operating systems or CPU architectures.

Andrew

I’m not aware of any workarounds, but maybe someone else will chime in.

We have no plans to support the SA44B on Linux operating systems at this time.

Thanks

Thanks for the feedback Andrew! Glad to hear.

Hi Jeremy,

I responded to your email asking the same question. For others who might be reading, the SA44B is not supported on Linux, only Windows. For Linux support look to our BB60, SP145, or SM200/435 spectrum analyzers.

We have made one small step in this direction yesterday with the release of the SP145 API for the Nvidia Jetson AGX Orin platform. This is a highly requested pairing. It supports sweeps and I/Q streaming with some minor limitations. Hopefully some of you here or future visitors looking for ARM platform support can benefit from these efforts.

If you have any follow up questions or issues with the API, please reach out to me at aj@signalhound.com.

All of these files are now located in our SDK.

Thanks

[Author]

Posts