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Hello Nealmartini,
Is your start frequency is below 16MHz by chance? There is a limitation on RBW of 6.5kHz if the start frequency of the sweep is below 16MHz.
Regards,
A.J.Hi Mike,
You can find the user manual online here
https://signalhound.com/sigdownloads/Spike/Spike-User-Manual.pdf
or in the installation directory at
C:/Program Files/Signal Hound/Spike/ManualsRegards,
A.J.Hello Nealmartini,
Can you tell me the device information listed in the lower right hand corner of the Spike application? The information I need is the model number, serial number and firmware version. There are two potential model numbers, the SA44 (no ‘B’) and SA44B.
Regards,
A.J.Hello Nicolas,
Yes, larger pattern memory is one of the top priorities if/when we create a new signal generator.
Regards,
A.J.Hello Nicolas,
You are correct, the maximum packet length would be 1ms for the parameters you listed. This is a limitation of the 2k sample pattern memory. There is no way circumvent this or work around this to create a larger contiguous pattern.
It is also not possible to externally trigger the pattern. The VSG25A cycles through the buffer continuously. If you are creating your own custom file, you have the ability to specify a period up to 64k samples. With the period parameter, you can tell the device how long to wait before cycling over the pattern memory again.
Regards,
A.J.Hello John,
At the moment there is not a way to undock the Sweep/Measurement dialogs. This is a good suggestion though. I will look into whether this could be possible in the future.
Regards,
A.J.Hello Thomas,
The TG44 can be used as a standalone generator. There is an application called TGStandalone in the Spike application installation directory which allows you to set the frequency and amplitude of the generator.
Regards,
A.J.Hello Adrian,
dBm/Hz = dBm – 10*log10(RBW)
The document you linked then shows you how to convert dBm/Hz to nV/Hz.
Our device input is 50 Ohm, which is used in the document.Thank you for the LABVIEW example! We will take a look at it.
Regards
Hello Guoan,
You can use the BB_DIRECT_RF flag in this manner,
bbInitiate(handle, BB_STREAMING, BB_DIRECT_RF);In this mode you will receive 80MS/s 16-bit direct RF samples. In the frequency domain, you will measure frequencies from 0Hz to 40MHz, but there is a low pass filter that is roughly around 27MHz. The LO conversion stages are bypassed in this mode, resulting in exceptional RF performance. The samples are full scale.
Regards,
A.J. August 4, 2015 at 8:41 am in reply to: What is the bbFetchRaw data buffer format while using the BB_STREAM_IF flag? Hello Guoan,
If you use the BB_STREAM_IF flag, the data format is 80MS/s 16bit IF samples. This is the raw data format used internally in the API to create the I/Q data. The samples are full scale and un-calibrated. The center frequency you select should be a multiple of 400kHz. In the frequency domain the IF passband will be centered between 0 Hz and the Nyquist frequency (0.5*fs). The timebase error is not accounted for so frequency will not be exact. Decimation and bandwidth do not apply, it is always 27MHz bandwidth and 80MS/s for the BB60C.
The only benefit to this is that in this mode, the CPU load is very low, since almost no processing is performed on the data, it is simply handed off straight from the device.
Regards,
A.J.Hello Adrian,
No, the API will not change RBW or VBW (when using non-native RBWs) but the API expects that the user will set reasonable values and can fail if the values create an undesirable sweep. The sweep configuration you listed will result in a 90+ million point sweep, which will likely cause the system to run out of memory attempting to allocate the memory for that size of sweep. For multi-GHz spans, considers RBWs like 30kHz or 100kHz. A good estimate for the size of the sweep to be returned is 3 * (span / rbw) for non-native RBWs. If you use the Native RBW settings, there are fixed RBW values that your selection will be clamped to.
If you need an earlier API version, email me at aj@signalhound.com and tell me which device and version you are looking for.
Regards,
A.J.Hello Paul,
Currently there are no files available for download to run in the software, but we have a number of videos online showing the software operation I can link.
In-depth review of BB60C and software. The device is different but the software is the same for the BB60C and the SA44B. A majority of the software features are shown in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3txkDU-qy9kShowing off Network Analysis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxUZx-9DMYgSpectrum analysis and zero-span
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-cg5v_KgNsFeatures/Marketing video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOFTYcGWOpwOur recording files are limited to standard spectrum analysis, so these videos will show much more of the software than is available playing back a file.
Regards,
A.J.Hello jyaron,
For the CPU type you mentioned, you can expect CPU usage between 5-20% depending on which type of operation you are performing. The real-time spectrum analysis mode is going to have the highest CPU usage, followed by zero-span and modulation analysis operations, followed by standard spectrum analysis. For standard spectrum analysis we have an option to introduce a delay between screen updates which slows down the update rate and lowers CPU usage.
Regards,
A.J.Hello sxb7510,
This behavior is due to the graphics card not meeting the recommended minimum. For the Spike software we specify a graphics card with OpenGL 2.0 support at minimum. If you look up your GPU model you might be able to find information about it, and maybe updated drivers. Otherwise Spike will be unable to run on this PC. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Regards,
A.J. July 30, 2015 at 8:39 am in reply to: Can the data retrieval API's be called repeatedly after single bbInitiate ? Hello Patrick,
Good questions. To start, no, the bbInitiate function does not need to be called for each data acquisition. If you use the initiate function to configure a particular sweep, you may continue to acquire sweeps until you call the bbInitiate function again. bbInitiate must be called to change configuration though. If you are sweeping, the bbInitiate function is nearly instantaneous (no hardware involvement is required). Most of the work done is pre-allocating memory and processing classes. So even if you need to rapidly change sweep parameters this will appear instantaneous. If you are streaming I/Q data, the initiate function takes about 17ms using BB60C firmware version 6, and ~750ms using firmware version 5 or less. The long delay for firmware version 5 is due to inefficiencies in shutting down the data stream to the PC. We have very recently corrected this and released it as a firmware update (ver 6). New units will ship with this, and old units can upgrade. You must be using the latest API to get the low I/Q switch speeds. (API version 3.0.6)
Our spectrum analyzer software uses the same exact API we provide users.
Regarding GNURadio, currently we do not have support for it, nor do we plans for building the necessary interface. We would love to, but we have limited programming resources.
Regards,
A.J.I can’t speak for the RSA306, but the BB60C has sweep support (step, acquire, step, etc) at the firmware level. Sweep speed on the BB60C is truly hardware limited.
Regards,
A.J.Hello Cyounkins,
I apologize, this appears to be a limitation that was arbitrarily set. If you email me I can send you a version of the software which has this limitation removed. Email me at aj@signalhound.com.
Make sure the latest version is installed (3.0.11) and I will send you a new file for the fix. Let me know if you install the 32-bit or 64-bit version.
Regards,
A.J.Hey Jyaron,
There is no immediate plans to include this type of functionality, but in the near future we will be addressing a number of EMI/EMC type measurements and peak tables is one we will likely be adding. This looks to be a very similar type functionality.
Regards,
A.J.Hello Mark,
Email justin@teplus.com and explain that you want the TG124A API for Windows. He will send you a small C API for it. We do not provide the source code, only the C interface.
Regards,
A.J.Hi Mark,
I do not believe we have a way to control the TG124A on Linux. Our TG control app is on Windows only. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Regards,
A.J.
