Hi Mike,

While not ideal, it is still possible to install the legacy software side by side with Spike to still access this feature when needed. I’ll link the older software version below.

https://signalhound.com/sigdownloads/SA44B/Setup2_18B.msi

Regards,
Andrew

Hi Mike,

The trigger input port on the SA44B is now solely used for the tracking generator synchronization. There is not external trigger support in zero-span for the SA devices, only for the BB60 and SM200 analyzers. I apologize for the confusion. Ideally we would grey that option out in zero-span mode for the SA devices. As per the product manual, there was triggering functionality in our legacy software, but it was extremely limited and had lots of stability issues.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

Regards,
Andrew

Hi testpoint,

Thanks for the feedback. We have discussed something like this a few times here at Signal Hound but at this point we don’t have any definite plans to work on this. Maybe in the future.

If you have any additional comments or questions, let me know.
Andrew

[Andrew]

(Edited as a follow up on this topic after conversations with the customer)

One of the weaknesses of the BB60C is the low Dynamic Range/SNR. It is the result of amplification in the RF section to reduce residual signals.

Depending on your settings we would expect a maximum ~48dB SNR in a given IF band. (measuring SNR at 40MS/s IQ) It may be less in some configurations (as you mentioned, band zero).

The SM200A would be our recommended receiver if you needed better performance in this regard.

Thank you for your patience Jonathan. It was nice talking to you. Let us know if you have follow up questions/comments.

Regards,
Andrew

• This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Andrew.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Andrew.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 11 months ago by Andrew.

Hi Hendorog,

Good catch! Definitely a bug, and I can get it out for the next release.

As always, thanks for the feedback, it is much appreciated.

Regards,
Andrew

Hello Kaushal,

Based on the image you provided, you will need to try to update the graphics drivers for your PC.

If you are able to provide the make/model of your PC or provide the model for the display adapter for your PC (Device Manager -> Display Adapters) I can help try to find the latest driver for it.

Regards,
Andrew

Hello Charles,

There is not currently a way to display this number. To clarify as well, MER(dB) == SNR(dB) ?

You can find an equation for the EVM(%) -> SNR(dB) conversion here.
https://www.keysight.com/main/editorial.jspx?ckey=847674&id=847674&nid=-11143.0.00&lc=eng&cc=UG

I can look into adding this for a future release of Spike. I look forward to your response.

Regards,
Andrew

Hello Jason and Miran,

It looks like Justin is correct. There is something additional I needed to do to get port numbers above 9 to work properly. I can now get Spike to connect to higher port number devices properly. You should see this in the next version of Spike (no timeframe yet). Apologies for the difficulties and thanks for the feedback so we could get this fixed.

Regards,
Andrew

[Andrew]

Hello Shira,

We don’t have any long term recording tools specifically for 1 frequency only. Our recording functionality is limited to either full sweeps or IQ data captures. This might be something we would be willing to add in a future release.

An easy possible solution to your problem would be to utilize SCPI commands to control the Spike software and record these frequency values to your CSV file. The latest version of Spike is compatible with a number of SCPI commands which you can use to sweep the BB60C and place markers. For your use case, you could write a small script to continually sweep the BB60C and place a marker at the frequency of interest, and read the marker amplitude after each sweep, storing it to your file.

You can find the SCPI programming examples and manual in our SDK, which are compatible with Spike version 3.2.0

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

Regards,
Andrew

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Andrew.

Hi Andy,

We custom make the locking y-cable. Reach out to lori@signalhound.com if you need another. If you purchased through a distributor, reach out to them and they will be able to help you get another.

Andrew

Hi Andy,

Yes, the timestamps still come from the system clock.

I will look into a GPS indicator for a future release. This is a good idea.

I’m glad you like the recent changes to the recording/GPS. Both the sweep decimation and GPS coord. tagging were highly requested features.

Thanks for the feedback.
Regards,
Andrew

Hi Andy,

I am attaching a folder with the example project we will be shipping for SHR parsing. The format is very similar to the BBR file except it changed the header format (still a single struct) to include all the new settings that were introduced with the SHR file format. Also, the sweeps are prefixed with a bit more information than just the timestamp. The general parsing process should be very familiar and similar.

In the future, this will be available in the standard API/SDK download, sorry I hadn’t got around to uploading it yet.

Regards,
Andrew

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[Andrew]

Eric,

(Edit: after looking at the equation you linked, it looks like it accounts for the spectral window and the discrepancy is probably just the spur reject setting, leaving the full reply)

A couple things that come to mind regarding your measurement discrepancy. The SA44B has spur reject processing enabled by default. Unless you either disable this in the settings file menu or lower your VBW substantially, this will contribute to a lot of your error. Additionally you will want to account for the window bandwidth. All spectrum analyzers will utilize a spectral window. In our software this is the RBW shape control. By default, we use the flat top window. The spectral windows will also contribute to the calculation. Below I linked another thread which goes into detail regarding this and also you will find a code snippet in one of my replies which has the channel power code calculation from Spike. You can compare your code to it.

The spectral window is also why you are seeing a different sweep size than you expect. When using a spectral window, larger FFT sizes are required to achieve the same RBW, thus the larger sweep size. If you are unfamiliar with these window functions, see the other link below.

If you have follow up questions, please let me know.

https://signalhound.com/support/forums/topic/noise-bandwidth-of-resolution-bandwidth-filter/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_function

Regards,
Andrew

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by Andrew.

Hello Miran,

I was able to reproduce the export issue. I will look into this and get a fix for the next release.

Currently there is no way to export the reference trace. The export button will export the current average trace.

Thanks for the bug report. It is always appreciated.

Regards,

Maksym,

The bandwidth parameter controls the FIR filter cutoff frequency on the IQ data stream. The lower limit for IQ bandwidths are below. Additionally, the final IQ bandwidth is reported back to you in the bbQueryStreamInfo function after you initiate an IQ data stream. Ideally, you should target a bandwidth between 20-80% of the sample rate, because with fixed lengths FIR filters, the filter rolloff duration will be constant. If you need a narrower bandwidth, I would suggest either lowering the sample rate, or running an additional larger filter on the IQ data after you acquire it.

case 1,2: return 50.0e3;
case 4: return 50.0e3;
case 8: return 50.0e3;
case 16: return 50.0e3;
case 32: return 50.0e3;
case 64: return 50.0e3;
case 128: return 50.0e3;
case 256: return 20.0e3;
case 512: return 10.0e3;
case 1024: return 5.0e3;
case 2048: return 2.0e3;
case 4096: return 1.0e3;
case 8192: return 0.1e3;

[Andrew]

Hello Mehran,

Thank you for the feedback. Can you clarify, is the monitoring section you are referring to the waterfall/spectrogram plot, or the interference hunting measurement mode? Can you provide any other sort of information regarding these features (pictures/manuals/etc). I want to ensure I understand the functionality you are looking for.

Regards,
Andrew

• This reply was modified 7 years, 1 month ago by Andrew.

It looks like the channelizer only saves 8 channels instead of the expected 9. (Look at the sweep size to verify). Might be a rounding issue. I can look into getting a fix for this next release. Otherwise it does look like it is properly calculating your channel powers. It is still usable but will contain 1 less channel. You might have to increase your span to include all the channels for now. Also, note, the start/stop/center frequencies displayed during playback are the settings at the time of capture. You will want to use the marker readout to confirm the channel frequency.

Thanks for the feedback Miran,
Andrew

This is a nice feature Miran. We will definitely consider this for future software updates. I think this would be very helpful. Thank you for providing your feedback and suggestions, it is very appreciated.

Regards,
Andrew

Hello Miran,

You are talking about a relative frequency limit line? This is a good idea, but unfortunately we don’t have any implementation of this yet. I appreciate the feedback.

Regards

Hello Volker,

Did you try making the limit more like a box rather than a Spike like I suggested in my earlier response? Since your spike is smaller than 1 RBW the limit test point is being interpolated between the high point and adjacent low points. Unless the frequency bin happens to fall exactly on your high limit line point, it will interpolate somewhere along the steep limit line. This latest version is now drawing what is being tested against so there is no confusion, (the last version improperly drew the limit line as entered rather than the actual interpolated test points)

Ultimately I think this spike in the limit line approach to check for a CW is not ideal with how we implements limit lines and it looks like you had a perfect setup back in 3.1.11 because I can’t even reproduce your original image using the original limit line you provided. I think going towards a box/square shape and being mindful of your RBW will solve this problem long term.

Regards,
Andrew

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