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.

[Andrew]

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.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by Andrew.

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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.

Hi Ivan,

Yes, we agree that the micro-usb 3.0 connectors are very fragile and they have given us much grief. We have recently introduced a locking cable for newer BB60s which has a similar effect as your solution. The locking connector unfortunately cannot be fashioned onto older boards as it required a slight board redesign to make room for the new end plate. We are examining the larger USB type B connector for future designs.

Regards,
A.J.

Thanks for the feedback Henrodog. I will keep this in mind as we progress. This new panel will continued to be worked on for future releases. We anticipate adding a quick hide ability and we will be adding more functionality to the panel.

Regards,
A.J.

Hi Randy,

Will you give us a call at 1-800-260-TEST Ext. 3. We will likely want to have you send the unit in for a small repair. The USB 3.0 connector on the device is likely the issue here and we can do a number of things to get this behavior resolved. If you want to try a new cable first we can do that, but we have seen this behavior before and it typically is a loose connector. Give us a call and we can discuss things further.

Regards,
A.J.

Hi Randy,

As of right now, we do not offer these types of logarithmic-ally spaced sweeps. We have received this request in the past, and are aware of the need for it. We might develop this functionality for a future update. I apologize for the inconvenience.

If there is anything else we can help you with, let us know.

Regards,
A.J.

There is no way to re-flash to version 4 in the field. If there is an issue with your unit you can contact us and we discuss possible solutions. If you had an issue with the firmware update, we can help you with that too. Call 1-800-260-TEST if you are in the U.S., or send us an email.

Regards,
A.J.

Hi hcglitte,

The measurements control panel is disabled because we have not implemented the trace/marker/offset measurements in the harmonics viewer. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Regards,
A.J.

Hi hcglitte,

Yes this is possible and something we have talked about implementing, we have just not set aside the time to do it yet.

Regards,
A.J.

Hi HC,

You may already know this from our manuals, but the gain and attenuation are optimized based on the reference level. When gain and attenuation are set to automatic, we expect the user to set the reference level just above the expected input signal if the user needs the best dynamic range and sensitivity. For all of our devices, the range in which are devices are optimized is typically between +10 to -50 dBm reference level. This also changes based on frequency and temperature of the device.

Showing the gain and attenuation chosen is a good idea, but can be tricky as when the gain/atten settings are automatic we also optimize gain atten by frequency band as the device sweeps, so in some configurations there is not a signal gain/atten value used.

Regards,
A.J.

Hi hcglitte,

The correct value is what is chosen in the combo box. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. The value shown on the graticule is incorrect.

Regards,
A.J.

Hi Ivan,

Thanks for the heads up on these. The Zero Span center frequency resets to 1 GHz each time you start the program. If you click the zero-span button on the control panel, it will use the current center frequency as the new center frequency for zero-span. Also, if you use the file menu to get to zero-span, it will use the last center frequency that was set in zero-span. Hope this helps.

Regards,
A.J.

Hi Ivan,

There is a new release today. You will see in the release notes, the release yesterday adds the feature that the software will not re-cal when temperature drifts when making scalar measurements. Please note, that accuracy will drift several dB as the device is warming up.

Regards

[Author]

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