Hello blackmore90,

The Vtune report is probably not reporting symbols properly, as the bbGetTimebaseCorrection function appears in there erroneously, although I would expect both the log function and the fft functions to appear at the top of the list.

The API should be idle between bbFetchTrace function calls yes? The bbFetchTrace function will perform the full acquisition and processing necessary to get you the sweep requested. Very little processing takes place on the receiver. The receiver sends ADC IF samples to the PC for further processing, which includes potentially hundreds/thousands of FFTs, logarithmic, and arithmetic functions on the data. The processing is also spread out on several threads to finish the processing as quickly as possible. If you are continually requesting sweeps the API will be continually processing these sweeps as quickly as your computer will allow.

If you think you are seeing behavior outside of this, we can investigate further. I don’t see anything suspect in your code snippet.

Let me know if you have further questions.

Regards,
Andrew

Volker,

The VSG and SA could be controlled at the software level to step/sweep, but would be very slow. The sync port on the TG is what allows fast step time at the firmware level. This was not part of the VSG design.

Regards,
Andrew

Hello gmdusa,

Email me at aj@signalhound.com with the serial number and model number of your device. If you have an older device (with no internal flash) then it is trying to pull the cal file from our server, but sounds like it is hanging up on the network request for some reason. I can send it to you directly. Once it’s on your system, that message should go away.

Regards,
Andrew

Hello Bruce,

On the PC where you are seeing the issue, how long is the device running in the software before you see this error message? Does it happen immediately/after a few seconds/a couple times of day?

Are you using the same USB cable for all your tests? If not, it might be worth trying a USB cable you know works on another PC.

You can try changing the PC power management options. Go to “Power Options” in the control panel and change your power management settings to “High Performance”. On Windows 10 this might require a few extra clicks to show the “High Performance” option.

At any point did the device work on this PC? Or did it start having issues after a Windows update?

Regards,

Hello Dragan,

I just emailed you the link for the API download which includes the manual. I will link it here as well.

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

A link to just the manual. https://signalhound.com/sigdownloads/SA44B/SA-API-Manual.pdf

Regards,
Andrew

Hello Gerhard,

1) We have two graphical ways to control the TG, either through the Spike software and through the application TGStandalone.exe found in the Spike installation directory at C:/Program Files/SignalHound/Spike/. Both ways only allow you to set the amplitude and frequency manually.

2) The output level on the TG is between -10 and -30.

Outside of the scalar mode, the TG is a simple CW generator. Yes, the scalar mode is primarily built around return loss and insertion loss measurements, filters and antennas being two of the larger use cases.

If you want to talk in more depth about your measurement requirements offline, you can email us at support at signalhound dot com.

Regards,
Andrew

Ron,

Please call us at 1-800-260-TEST Ext.3 or email us at justin at signalhound dot com.

Regards,
Andrew

Hi Ron,

Let’s try from the beginning. There is no need to reinstall Spike. Just grab the latest USB driver from this link.

https://signalhound.com/sigdownloads/Spike/CDM%20v2.12.00%20WHQL%20Certified.exe

When you install it, you will want to run it “As Administrator”, you can do that by right-clicking the installer and selecting “Run as Administrator”.

Ensure the Signal Hound device is not connected when you install the driver. The first time you plug it in after successfully installing the driver, it might take a few seconds for Windows to recognize the device.

If you get the solid green LED but Spike still doesn’t recognize the device, look at the FAQ on this page http://www.signalhound.com/Spike at the question “The Spike software reports “Device Not Found” (SA44/SA124/TG44/TG124 only)”.

I look forward to your response.

Regards,
Andrew

Hi Gary,

You can stop the spectrogram by single stepping the measurements, by pressing the “Single” button in the toolbar. This will stop both the sweep and spectrogram. There is no way currently to stop just the spectrogram.

Also, keep an eye out in the next 2 weeks for version 3.1.8 where we will have revisited the spectrogram display, giving you the ability to scroll through past history (up to several thousand traces) and view the amplitude/frequency/time of any event in the spectrogram.

Let me know if you have additional questions.

Regards,
Andrew

Hello Abaker,

The USB drivers we link in the FAQ are specifically for the various Intel CPUs that support USB 3.0. If you are using an external card, then those drivers won’t be applicable. We recommend a class of Intel CPUs (4th generation or later i5/i7’s) because they implement USB 3.0 support in hardware that has proven to work at the sustained throughput we need (Typically referred to as native USB 3.0 support). We have a poor track record with external cards and third party USB 3.0 vendors such as Renesas and ASMedia.

Since the card has worked for you in the past, it might be that you need to find the latest drivers for the card. Or it might be the card isn’t going to work in combination with this PC. The Xeon processor you linked was made before the Native USB 3.0 push from Intel and widespread USB 3.0 adoption on PC hardware.

Regardless, both the CPU and the external card are outside the minimum recommended PC requirements, and I suspect this is why you are seeing the “Device Not Found” error message.

Let me know if you have additional questions.

Regards,
Andrew

Hello Causilgey,

Just to clarify, you have to go into the properties menu to find the advanced tab after right clicking on the Converter A/B items?

Please contact us via email for additional troubleshooting. Please email me at aj at signalhound dot com. Additionally please CC justin at signalhound dot com. We will help you determine the source of your issue.

The X240 is capable of running the SA44 and BB60.

Regards,
Andrew

Hi gga33,

Thanks for contacting us. I can help you with your questions.

a. In our software switching between sweeps and QP detector is manually done with the Start/Stop buttons in the control panel under the “Meter Settings” tab. Additionally in the Peak Table control panel along the bottom of the screen, you can select a peak and move the settings to the QP detector by pressing “Selected Spur to Meter”. In the meter settings you can control the dwell time parameter.

b. The only way to change the measurement points in the sweep is to change the RBW. You currently cannot directly set the number of points in the sweep.

c. You will need to use the “Scalar Network Analysis” measurement mode in Spike for return loss measurements. There is a step-by-step setup guide in the manual (you can bring the manual up in the help menu). You can also watch the Justin setup up the software for SNA measurements in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxUZx-9DMYg

Let me know if you have follow up questions.

Regards,
Andrew

Hi Causilgey,

I just verified that on Windows 10 Pro the Load VCP checkbox is still present for the Serial Converter A/B USB entries. If you do not see them or the advanced tab, I would wonder if you have installed the USB drivers on the Win10 machine? You can find the installer on the Spike download page or in the installation directory on your PC.

Take a look at the FAQ on the Spike download page, https://signalhound.com/spike/ See the question titled, “The Spike software reports “Device Not Found” (SA44/SA124/TG44/TG124 only)”. Follow the troubleshooting steps there.

If you are still unable to get the device working, contact me directly at aj at signalhound dot com.

Regards,
Andrew

Hi Ron,

I would consider a small windows PC or laptop for best use. There are several restrictions on the RPi2 platform due to driver and throughput issues we have over USB 2. The PC restrictions are very low for the SA44B if you are going to use the API (most PCs will have no problem)

Regards,
Andrew

We have not tried the latest FTDI ARM drivers, nor have we tried the XU4 platform.

Regards

Hello blackmore90,

What happens if you call the bbGetIQ function a few more times, (call it in a loop for a few seconds) I believe it requires at least 1 PPS signal from the GPS before it can start accurately time stamping data.

(And I’m assuming you have checked the return values of the functions to verify they haven’t thrown any errors)

Regards,
Andrew

Hello Raash,

Thank you for the feedback. At the moment, we will continue to ensure the old software version is available for access to the smith chart. The older software can be installed side by side with Spike. We do not have immediate plans to include this in Spike. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Regards,
Andrew

Sounds good David.

Additionally, in case you weren’t aware, we have C DLL programming interface for our devices, if you wanted to retrieve IQ data directly from the receiver programmatically, you can do that. The API files are found on the devices respective downloads page, you will find an IQ streaming example in the downloads folder.

Regards,
Andrew

Hi Charles,

If simply re-saving the file fixed the issue, I’m going to guess that the line endings is what is resolved it. Our software probably saves newlines with ‘\n’ and excel will replace them with ‘\r\n’. After looking at the files, the resaved version also removed the spaces between the values on each line, maybe that?

Glad you found a solution,

Regards,
Andrew

Hello mpatino,

I hope I understand your question correctly.

The SA44B requires a solid USB connection. Any latencies or time outs will cause the software to stop working. This is because the software is requesting large amounts of data from the receiver and any gap or loss in the data will result in invalid measurements. If there is too much latency the device will also likely not even be able to initialize.

Regards,
Andrew

[Author]

Posts