Boonton 4500B Peak Power Meter - Manual (Page 266)

Boonton 4500B RF Peak Power Analyzer
Remote Operation 5-66
5.5.14 SENSe Subsystem
The purpose of the SENSe command subsystem is to directly configure device specific settings used to make measurements,
generally parameters related to the RF power sensor and signal processing. The SENSe commands are used to configure the
power analyzer for acquiring data. SENSe enables you to change measurement parameters such as filtering or averaging,
sensor bandwidth, operating frequency and calfactors, and measurement gain or offset. The numeric suffix of the SENSe
program mnemonic in the SENSe commands refers to a hardware measurement ―channel‖, that is SENSe1 and SENSe2
represent the instrument‘s SENSOR 1 and SENSOR 2 signal paths, respectively, while SENSe3 and SENSe4 represent the
TRIGGER 1 and TRIGGER 2 signal paths respectively.. The SENSe commands generally DO NOT affect the data
processing and display portion of the measurement (see the CALCulate subsystem, below). Note that SENSe2 and SENSe4
commands will generate an error if used with a single channel Model 4500B.
SENSe:AVERage
Description: Set or return the number of traces averaged together to form the measurement result on the
selected channel. Can also be used to reduce display noise on both the visible trace, and on
marker and automatic pulse measurements. Trace averaging is a continuous process in which the
measurement points from each sweep are weighted (multiplied) by a appropriate factor, and
averaged into the existing trace data points. In this way, the most recent data will always have the
greatest effect on the trace shape, and older measurements will be decayed at a rate determined by
the averaging setting and trigger rate. Note that for timebase settings of 500 ns/div and faster, the
4500B acquires samples using a technique called equivalent time or interleaved sampling. In this
mode, not every pixel on the trace gets updated on each sweep, and the total number of sweeps
needed to satisfy the AVERage setting will be increased by the sample interleave ratio of that
particular timebase.
Syntax: SENSe[1|2|3|4]:AVERage <n>
Argument: <n> = Numeric value from 1 to 16,384 (1 = no trace averaging)
Valid Modes: Pulse
SENSe:BANDwidth
Description: Set or return the sensor video bandwidth for the selected sensor or the trigger channel bandwidth if
a trigger channel is selected. HIGH is the normal setting for most measurements. The actual
bandwidth is determined by the peak sensor model used. Use LOW bandwidth for additional
noise reduction when measuring CW or signals with very low modulation bandwidth. If LOW
bandwidth is used on signals with fast modulation, measurement errors will result because the
sensor cannot track the fast changing envelope of the signal.
Syntax: SENSe[1|2|3|4]:BANDwidth <asc>
Argument: <asc> = {LOW, HIGH}
Valid Modes: All