HP 8753D - Automating S12 measurements

Nov 30, 2018 5 Replies

Help!!



What is the easiest, simplest, and most direct way of automating a series of S12 measurements on an HP-8753D using the GPIB bus?



I need to do several hundred (maybe 1000+) gain sweeps. Each measurement will consist of setting the stimulus, (start, stop, etc..), setting a few markers, and then saving the result (which can be image or tabular format).



The VNA can be calibrated prior to automation, along with other instrument settings that won't change as the measurements are made. For that matter, I may not even have to change the stimulus that often.



I was hoping this could be via a script file, or something I could cobble-up quickly in VB.



"Cheap and dirty" is OK. I could live with just emulating the front panel buttons if it came to that. Thanks!!


fredag den 30. november 2018 kl. 02.08.35 UTC+1 skrev mpm:

I haven't tried that one, but it was pretty easy to get other HP stuff to work with with scpi commands over rs232 or lan

This looks like it might be useful: About 1/3 of the way down the page is the "VNA" section which includes the HP 8753 VNA.

Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

More... See VNAUtil

Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

I control my HP8753D using a Prologix GPIB-Ethernet dongle. While it's easy enough to take full control of the instrument, I usually set things up manually and then use a little C-program that just reads out the data as complex pairs. I build scripts around that, if needed.

It's a bit of a nuisance that the HP8753D doesn't return the frequency values with the measured data points, but they aren't hard to reconstruct afterwards.

Jeroen Belleman

I control mine using programs I write using Visual Studio Express 2017 & NI488 & VISA. It's very simple. Results go right into Excel. I've used VB, C++ and C#.

I could get some code to you if you want.

I've also used Labview, but it's not free, Visual studio is.

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