Nolan,

The STREAM_IF flag has been deprecated and the DIRECT_RF flag has been superseded by our IQ streaming functionality. Both flags were from a time when we didn’t have IQ streaming functionality across the full operating frequency of the BB60C. Is IQ streaming adequate for your application? I do not believe we have any examples or documentation on the older two flags right now.

Regards,
Andrew

Hello Serpi,

The temperature read in Spike is the internal temperature of the device. The BB60C is not able to provide external temperature readings. When we calibrate the BB60C across temperature we use environmental chambers to control the external temperature.

Regards,
Andrew

For anyone who is seeing this same issue, the Ubuntu 18.04 BB60C .so file was corrupted. The .so file was re-uploaded in the SDK on 11-6-2018.

Marc,

I have sent you an email.

Ray,

Some other ideas,

1) Are you using a 32-bit OS? Our Linux APIs are compatible only for 64-bit OS’s.
2) Maybe try getting rid of all the soft links? Rename the main library to libbb_api.so and see if that resolves the issue.

Regards

[Andrew]

Hi Bittware,

I don’t have a timeframe for when SCPI support for zero-span would occur. I’m assuming triggering is an important aspect of your measurement? If so, then using the API directly to request IQ, trigger, and then FFT the IQ data to create the spectrum plot is the only alternative. Otherwise if you do not need triggering, then using SCPI with standard sweep mode seems like it would be adequate.

If you haven’t seen the APIs yet, you can find them on the SDK landing page.
https://signalhound.com/software/signal-hound-software-development-kit-sdk/

Regards,
Andrew

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Andrew.

Andrew4010,

Yes, APIs with version 4.0.0 and greater support all BB60C/A devices. We don’t maintain download links for older versions of the APIs. I don’t believe the interface has changed between 3.1.1 and the current version so it should be a drop in replacement.

Regards,
Andrew

Marc,

Can I ask what you mean by “could not get it to load USB drivers”? Did the driver installer fail to complete? Did you run it as administrator?

Check out the other troubleshooting tips on the Spike landing page in the FAQ under the question titled “The software reports device not found (for the SA44B)”

Particularly, if you have any anti-virus running (pre-installed on these PCs such as Norton/McAffe) either disable or uninstall if you don’t plan on using them. Also the “Load VCP” issue can cause the issue you are seeing.

https://signalhound.com/spike/

I look forward to your results.

Regards,
Andrew

Hi Dave,

Maybe other forums members will be able to help, I’m not familiar with parts outside what we provide. You also might have more luck on a dedicated radio forum.

Regards,
Andrew

Yes, I recommend the two things.

The limiter does not come with an additional attenuator, that would be separate.

I didn’t think to ask, what frequency are you operating at? Our limiter only goes down to 30MHz, so if you are lower frequency than that and you wanted a limiter, you would need to find a different part.

Right now you have 20dB of attenuation. I recommend 30dB of attenuation and an RF limiter.

The RF limiter will protect the front end of the SA, the 30dB of attenuation is necessary to bring your 40dBm signal down to 10dBm where the SA is no longer in compression and can accurately measure the input. Our RF performance specifications only hold to +10.

Regards,

Hi Dave,

Your conversions look good.

That said, I would not operate your 10W transmitter with the 20dB pad into the SA44B. +20dBm is a hard limit. I would add another 10-20dB of attenuation as well. I would try to stay below +10 dBm, the SA44B goes into 1dB compression at about 16dBm for some frequencies.

We also sell an RF limiter you might be interested in, the VLM-63-2W-S+. If you knock the input down to +10 and then add this +12dBm limiter to the front end, I think you would be safe from costly front end RF damage.

Regards,
Andrew

You’re welcome Miran, thanks for the suggestion.

Regards,
Andrew

Hi Clark,

I’m not familiar with any sort of conversion, but the common way to measure power of a modulated/non-CW signal is to use the channel power measurement. You can enable/configure that in the measurements control panel. When using the SA44B, for the most accurate channel power measurements, disable spur rejection in the File->Settings menu.

Let us know if you have additional questions.

Regards,
Andrew

Hello Sri,

Our device APIs are standard Windows DLLs. The interface is exposed through a set of C functions, which means you can call these functions from most programming languages like Python, C++, Matlab, etc. Each language will have its own development environment. If you were programming in C++, I would use Visual Studio, which you can download and use for free (for small business/non commercial projects). We do not have any guides for using VS or for setting up your development environment.

Regards,
Andrew

Steve,

The I/Q data is scaled to mW. To calculate the power of any given I/Q value in dBm, use the formula
dBm = 10*log10(I*I + Q*Q)

Let me know if you have follow up questions.
Regards,
Andrew

Hello bittware,

You will want to use the :CALC:MARK:MAX and :CALC:MARK:X?; Y? commands to move the marker to the peak and read the position.

You will find examples of usage in the SDK and descriptions of these commands in the SCPI manual which is also in the SDK.

https://signalhound.com/download/bbsa-application-programming-interface-for-windows-3264-bit/

Regards,
Andrew

Hello Guptaanand05,

The Spike software does not support the export of snp/touchstone files. You would need to export as CSV and convert then.

Let me know if you have additional questions.

Regards,
Andrew

Andrew,

I fixed this now, and it will be in the next release of Spike. Thanks for the heads up. Until then you might have to use the print screen feature or snipping tool utility in windows. Sorry about the inconvenience.

Regards,
Andrew

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the feedback and bug report. Don’t worry about reposting it in another forum.

Can you email me with more information about your setup. Initially I have been unable to reproduce the issue. Email me at “aj at signalhound dot com”. If you can send me a picture of the setup of the application at the time of the capture (including the settings control panel and the recording control panel), and any other information that would help me attempt to reproduce the issue. I think you are correct that it is an issue with Spike, it might be tied to a specific configuration.

Regards,
Andrew

[Author]

Posts