[time-nuts] HP5342A GPIB programming

Chuck Harris cfharris at erols.com
Thu Jan 31 00:03:41 EST 2008


Don't go busting up your GPIB system just yet!  Write a simple program
to scan all of the addresses and see which if any the counter responds
to.  The DIP switches used for address selection become unreliable
with time, and a single switch making intermittent contact will make it
appear as if your bus is dead.

-Chuck Harris

Matt Ettus wrote:
> So, after a couple of hours messing with it, I finally got the counter
> to tell me a frequency over GPIB.  The magic incantations, in Python
> are:
> 
>         c.write('AUSR3LCT2ST2')
>         freq = c.read(20)
> 
> Once I got that working, I set it up to print out the frequency at 1
> second intervals.  That worked for 5 minutes, and now the GPIB
> interface is essentially dead.  The counter appears to hear and act on
> commands, but some acknowledge pin must have died because everything
> times out now.  I think the GPIB is dead.
> 
> So, given that, anybody have any suggestions on a replacement?  I just
> need something that counts to a few hundred MHz, has GPIB, is
> reliable, preferably small, and preferably doesn't have a loud fan?
> 
> Also, anyone interested in a 5342A which works fine other than the
> GPIB interface?
> 
> Matt
> 
> On Jan 30, 2008 6:05 PM, John Miles <jmiles at pop.net> wrote:
>> Hmm, no, according to the 5342A manual, it uses CR+LF termination, so the
>> normal query.exe utility should work.  It must be a triggering issue.
>>
>> Try the command
>>
>>         query 2 "AUSR4T2ST1" 500
>>
>> AU  = auto frequency mode select (as opposed to M=manual)
>> SR4 = 10 Hz resolution
>> T2  = fast sample (no delay)
>> ST1 = output only when addressed
>>
>> That's similar to Example 2 on page 3-25 of the manual, which doesn't rely
>> on the 'trg 702' statement in the first example.  Either T0 or T2 mode (page
>> 3-23) should work with query.exe; T1 may not.
>>
>> Also try it with ST1 versus ST2 in the last three characters of the command,
>> to see if that makes a difference.
>>
>> -- john, KE5FX
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com]On
>>> Behalf Of John Miles
>>> Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 5:38 PM
>>> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
>>> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] HP5342A GPIB programming
>>>
>>>
>>> Sounds like a handshaking issue.  It may not be related, but you
>>> might take
>>> a look at the 5345a.cpp example.  The 5345A is kind of nonstandard in that
>>> it terminates responses with CR (ASCII 13) rather than CR/LF
>>> and/or EOI.  I
>>> have to set the EOS character to 13 in 5345a.cpp to receive any data from
>>> it.
>>>
>>> -- john, KE5FX
>>>
>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com]On
>>>> Behalf Of Matt Ettus
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 5:25 PM
>>>> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
>>>> Subject: [time-nuts] HP5342A GPIB programming
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I have an HP5342A with GPIB, and am having trouble getting a reading
>>>> out of the GPIB interface.  It seems to work ok, and when I send it
>>>> commands with talk.exe from the KE5FX GPIB tools, it responds to the
>>>> command.  But any time I query it, it just sits there and times out,
>>>> although the front panel indicates something is happening.  In the
>>>> manual, it talks about sending an HP BASIC command to trigger a
>>>> measurement, but I don't know how to do that with the command line
>>>> tools.
>>>>
>>>> Any ideas?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Matt
>>>>
>>>
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