[time-nuts] Question about KE5FX Tools -> PhaseNoise Tool

Peter Krengel krengeldatec at gmx.de
Sun Oct 16 16:20:46 UTC 2011


>
> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:17:06 -0700
> From: "John Miles" <jmiles at pop.net>
> To: "'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'"
> <time-nuts at febo.com>
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Prologix GPiB LAN & 7470 printing problem
> Message-ID: <000501cc8ad8$28033690$7809a3b0$@pop.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
>> Hi group,
>> just got a Prologix LAN interface and tried to get some
>> printouts from my Anritsu MS6804A but it didnt works.
>> Phase Noise & Spectrum Surveillance prgs works fine
>> but 7470.exe allways tells me "communication error 0x02"
>> when I request a plot.
>> Communication to the Anritsu works cause it beeps
>> like I would press the "copy" (print) key on the device but there
>> didnt came any data to the 7470 emulator.
>> The Anritsu offers the following devices for printing
>> in its setup:
>>
>> HP2225
>> UA455A
>> MC8104A
>> ESC/P
>>
>> I tried all but none of them works.
>> Any idea?
>
> I'm not familiar with any of those, actually.   In general if the 7470.htm
> help file doesn't mention that you can request plots from a specific
> instrument model, then host-requested plots will not work with that
> instrument.  You'll need to use "Acquire->Wait for device-initiated plot"
> and hit the PLOT button on the instrument's front panel... and that, in
> turn, will require you to configure the instrument for HPGL output to an 
> HP
> 7470A/7475A or similar plotter.
>
> A quick Google suggests that the units you mention are either printers or
> non-HPGL plotters.  7470.exe will either do nothing or possibly crash
> outright if you try to send anything but HPGL traffic to it, so your best
> bet may be to try the evaluation version from http://www.printcapture.com
> and see if their Epson support works with the ESC/P output option.  (It
> should work with the Prologix USB adapter but I'm not sure about the LAN
> adapter.)
>
> -- john, KE5FX



Hi John,

thank you for your suggestions. Im in between fixing of the problem together
with Prologix support.

I have a question about your PhaseNoise tool handling:

As I tried a test using my Anritsu spec I got strange results.

The following happened:
I didnt connect any signal source to get the noise of the instrument only
and set the carrier to 425MHz. As signal strenght I put in  -140dBm
and connected a 50Ohm dummy resistor to the instruments input.
Offset-range was set to 30-1000Hz.

As expected I got a horizontal line at -127dBm from 10-100Hz.
Unexpectedly level changed from 100-200Hz as a falling curve down to -132dBm 
and went on horizontaly further at this level to 1kHz.

During the measurement I observed the instrument and saw that it switched 
from
RBW 10Hz to 100Hz so that I guess thats the reason for the descending level
between 100 and 200Hz f-offset. So the observed effect seems to be a 
property
of the Anritsu instrument.

Similar happened between 1-10kHz and so on.

My question: How can I adjust that offset to get a smooth measuring result?

Thank you for your answer

Regards
Peter, DG4EK 




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