Boonton 4530 Peak Power Meter User Manual - Manual (Page 76)

4-2
Chapter 4 Boonton Electronics
Remote Operation 4530 Series RF Power Meter
code. Upon receiving this code, the instrument immediately transmits the string currently in its talk buffer. If the buffer
is empty, the response will be delayed until a string is available. Once a single string and its terminator has been sent,
the instrument will not send any further data until another DC2 has been received. Although this behavior is similar to
the GPIB when it is addressed to talk, the RS-232 transmitter is always “on the bus”, and actively transmitting a high or
low signal level; there is no way to “unaddress” it and force the transmitter to a high impedance state.
4.3 SCPI LANGUAGE SYNTAX.
The 4530 Series instruments follow the SCPI programming language conventions and also provide a non-SCPI protocol
extension for special situations. The default language is:
SYSTem:LANGuage SCPI
The SCPI Model of the 4530 Series provides a single or dual SENSe sub-system to handle sensor input and a matching
single or dual CALCulate sub-system to process the data obtained from the sensors into useful results. A TRIGger
sub-system provides for measurement and signal synchronization. The CALibration sub-system is used to calibrate
both CW and Peak Power sensors. For the dual channel Mode1 4532, channel dependent commands end with a 1 or 2
to indicate the desired channel. If the number is omitted, channel 1 is selected by default. For the single channel Model
4531, only channel 1 is valid. The number 1 can be specified or omitted as desired.
Commands may be transmitted together if separated by a semicolon “;” character. The 4530’s listen buffer can accept
over 1000 characters, so buffer overflow should not be a problem. It is a good idea, however, to limit strings of
commands to a manageable size for ease in troubleshooting communication difficulties. Also, programmers should be
aware that sending long strings of commands reduces the “sequential” nature of the command execution, and can
cause some of the more complex commands (such as mode changes), which take longer to complete, to “overlap” the
short commands. If some commands are mode or context dependent, it may be a good idea to use the
*WAI IEEE-488.2
command to force sequential execution.
Most commands have an optional short form that reduces the number of characters necessary over the bus. When
commands are printed in this document, the short form letters will be capitalized, with the remaining characters in lower
case. If a channel number designation and/or query ? symbol is needed, it is appended to either the long or short form
of the command. Commands which take numerical or literal arguments require an ASCII space between the command
and the argument.
Example:
CALCULATE1:STATE? queries the current value of channel 1’s measurement state
CALC1:STAT? is the short form equivalent
SENSE:AVERAGE 128 sets channel 1’s trace averaging to 128 (channel 1 is implied)
SENS:AVER 128 is the short form equivalent
SENS:CORR:OFF 0.42;TRIG:LEV 14.2 is two commands issued together as one string
In the discussion and tables below, the following notation will be used:
Command name long and short form: SYSTem
Optional command name in brackets: SYSTem:ERRor[:NEXT]?
Command with channel dependence: CALCulate[1|2]:REFerence:COLLect
Default channel 1: CALCulate:REFerence:COLLect
Explicit channel 1: CALCulate1:REFerence:COLLect
Select channel 2: CALCulate2:REFerence:COLLect
Short Form: CALC2:REF:COLL