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Hi John,
The BB60A will work with our tracking generators. The BB60A firmware must be updated as you noted. The firmware update is available on the BB60 download page.
Regards,
A.J.Hi John,
The unit in question was manufactured on Jan 20 2014. We manufactured BB60A’s from Feb 2013 to June 2014, at which time, it was replaced with the BB60C design. All BB60As are compatible with our latest software application, no need to use the legacy BB60A version 1.2.3 application. All of our analyzers use our main application called Spike, seen here, http://www.signalhound.com/Spike. We do offer calibration services, (call in for exact price). We also will repair BB60A devices for a flat fee.
Alternatively, BB60Cs are shipped with a two year warranty.
If you have any further questions, you may contact us by phone at 1-800-260-TEST.
Regards,
A.J.Hi Andrew,
Thank you for the heads up. I will try to look into this. If you find a simple way to reproduce the issue, or a snippet of code that easily reproduces the crash, this would be very helpful to us. It sounds like you managed to work around your issue though. Let us know if you find out anything further.
Regards,
A.J.Hi John,
The main reason one might buy a BB60A now is due to price. We do not sell the BB60A anymore and have not since the BB60C was released.
The BB60C hardware design is drastically different than the BB60A, as you noted. The BB60C uses a direct RF path for frequencies below 20MHz. The HDSDR application requires an input I/Q data stream to operate on. We have not developed the direct RF to I/Q code necessary for HDSDR. This only affects 20MHz and below. Our API is available to users and we do provide the code for our device to interface HDSDR, so if you have programming experience, it would be possible to fill in the missing pieces to get the direct RF into HDSDR. This would require C++ and signal processing experience.
Regards,
A.J.Hello Eranz,
Unfortunately if the firmware update process fails for any reason, the device becomes unusable. At that point, we will need to receive the unit and re-flash the internal memory. If you are in the US or Canada, you can send the unit to us and we will do this for you, for free. You can set up a repair by calling us at 1-800-260-TEST or emailing me at
aj at signalhound dot com.
If you are outside the US or Canada, you can do this through the distributor, they will send the unit to us.Either way, no charge other than shipping to us.
Failed firmware updates seem to be more common in older devices. If we receive a device and determine the failure is due to other reasons, and not just a failed firmware update, then we would discuss other repair options.
If you have other units which have failed for other reasons, we do offer a flat repair fee. Contact us for the latest information regarding pricing.
Regards,
A.J.Hi John,
Both the BB60A and BB60C function as a spectrum analyzers down to 9kHz, but software limitations prevent the BB60C from being currently used in HDSDR down to 9kHz. We no longer sell or manufacture the BB60A, but I do know they show up on Ebay occasionally. Specs for the BB60A are at the bottom of this document, https://signalhound.com/sigdownloads/BB60A/BB60A-User-Manual.pdf
The BB60C improved on almost all RF performance metrics compared to the BB60A. Might be worth comparing them to ensure it will fit your task, BB60C specs here
https://signalhound.com/sigdownloads/BB60C/BB60C-User-Manual.pdfRegards,
A.J.Hi John,
The BB60A is capable of being tuned down to 9kHz in the HDSDR application. If you have access to one, great. The SA44B is a good choice for low frequency audio decoding as well, and more affordable as well. If your only goal is low frequency audio, you might look into dedicated SDR hardware, but obviously, this is not possible if you still need a spectrum analyzer.
I would be more than happy to answer any questions you have on the SA44B.
Regards,
A.J.Hi John,
If you need a lot of configuration in decoding and playing audio, you might try using the HDSDR (software radio) application with our hardware. This is a free software application which is compatible with our analyzers. Check out the capabilities of the software here, http://www.hdsdr.de. We provide the necessary documentation and files for interfacing the software, which is found on our download pages. The SA44B will be capable of tuning and decoding audio across its full operating frequency range, 1Hz to 4.4GHz. The BB60C is limited to a lower frequency of around 20MHz.
If you have any further questions, please let me know.
Regards,
A.J.Hi Andrew,
I apologize that the documentation doesn’t cover this in more detail. Here are the minimum bandwidths that can be selected based on decimation.
For decimations
[1 -> 128] : 50kHz
[256] : 20kHz
[512] : 10kHz
[1024] : 5kHz
[2048] : 2kHz
[4096] : 1kHz
[8192] : 0.5kHzThese are absolute minimums and be aware that they are chosen as the practical limit based on the internal sample rate and FIR filter size used. I recommend specifying your own limits that are realistic to your application and using a combination of bandwidth and sample rate to achieve your necessary streaming requirements.
If you have any further questions, please let me know.
Regards,
A.J. December 20, 2015 at 9:31 pm in reply to: Background File Creation for Baselines & Difference Files? Hi Mike,
We don’t have any immediate plans to implement baseline logging or trace math functionality, but we are aware of the need for it, and believe we will address these points in the future. We appreciate you providing feedback. We keep track of all customer requests.
Currently with the functionality we offer today, depending on your needs, you could use additional trace slots in combination with the max hold functionality to create a baseline, and then disable the update of that trace, creating a sort of background trace. Changing settings will clear the trace though, so it will only work for one setup. Once you have a baseline max held signal, you could then export the trace, and any future traces to do some minor trace math in excel or other similar applications. I realize this is not be the exact functionality you are looking for, but might assist your measurements.
Regards,
A.J.Hi Mike,
I was able to address the issue jyaron brought up in version 3.0.15 of Spike. If you can provide any information or steps to help me reproduce the issue you are experiencing, it would be very helpful.
Regards,
A.J.Hi Cristian,
The spurs between 500-800 MHz are from internal clocking mechanisms.
There are no plans to ‘flatten’ the noise floor. This would require new hardware development.
As for your last questions, I didn’t verify the values, but assuming the numbers are correct, the answer is yes. This can be considered the analyzers noise contribution, also referred to as noise figure.
Regards,
A.J.Hi Cristian,
If I understand your question correctly, then yes, this is normal behavior. I will include two images of the setups of my working SA44B so you can compare.
I will sweep from 100k – 4.4Gz with 10k RBW at both reference level of 0 and again at -50.
Your results may not match exactly, but should be close.
Regards,
A.J.Hi Ivan,
Glad to hear this helps your use case. I’ve made a note of your issue. As for the LED, the device is continuously streaming I/Q even if you press ‘single’. When operating the device in an I/Q data acquisition mode, the device either continuously operates or is idle. It is simply the way the device was designed.
Regards,
A.J.Hi Cristian,
Right now we do not have any tools to convert the binary recording file to other formats. This is something we are looking into and may provide in the near future.
If it is useful for you, as you are examining the file in the Spike software, you can hit the export button on any trace to save the sweep as a CSV file. This only works for one sweep at a time, but will work on a live signal from the device as well as a recorded one.
Regards,
A.J.Hello Cristian,
Thank you for the information.
Currently the only recording the software offers, is a continuous sweep recording where the sweeps are continuously recorded to a single file, which is a binary file. That file can then be opened and viewed in the Spike software. In the preferences menu of the software, you can set a “Sweep Delay” which introduces a time delay between each sweep from the device. Using this delay and our recording feature, you could record a sweep every ‘n’ seconds. The file which is recorded is a binary file which only the Spike software knows how to read. You would not be able to open the file in Matlab. But the Spike software can view the file and allows you to scroll through all the sweeps that were recorded.
If you have any further questions, please let me know.
Regards,
A.J.Hello Ivan,
We just released a new version of the software which enables you to perform video triggering for digital demodulation. The version which adds this functionality is version 3.0.20 of the Spike software. I have specifically tested this with 2FSK. Let us know if this helps you with your application.
Regards,
A.J.Hello Cristian,
Currently the software does not have this kind of functionality. Out of curiosity, what type of time interval would you need and are you talking about each sweep being saved to a new CSV file? I would like to know more about your use case, so that if we ever decide to develop functionality like this, we can address your needs.
Regards,
A.J.Hi, Can I have you rephrase your question? Based on your topic title and message contents I am unable to determine exactly what you are asking.
Thank you,
A.J.