Products > Test Equipment
Agilent E4406A Vector Signal Analyser
G0HZU:
In the case of version 12 of the 89600 SW you just download it and run it and select the option of a 14 day trial and it will self start the trial immediately even if you are offline. You don't need to get authorisation or a key from Agilent to self start the trial.
If you connect an instrument via LAN or GPIB to the PC it should auto detect the scope/analyser and if it's a supported instrument then you are good to go :)
Agilent dropped the E4406A support after version 10 but you can run a registry fix that means it supports the E4406A up to V12.
There is no licence required to be inside the E4406A analyser. The SW is licensed inside the PC and it should work with any hardware that is supported. I think the one licence covers all hardware because the trial doesn't know I was going to try connecting an E4406A analyser. If I had a different model analyser or scope here then it will detect it and run with it if it is in the list of supported instruments.
I can't comment on what scopes the 89600A SW supports but I can imagine it would be a very powerful tool with the right scope :)
bingo600:
--- Quote from: G0HZU on April 08, 2015, 11:16:39 pm ---While I had the covers off I had a closer look at the block diagram and the various coax cables between the modules. There is the ability to feed a signal directly into the digital IF at baseband if a cable is disconnected.
The appeal here is that the system phase noise should be very low. Much lower than any of my mid range lab grade sig gens can achieve so they are useless as a test signal here. So I quickly tried a homemade 7.5MHz free running LC oscillator with a loaded Q of about 30. This should be capable of <<-150dBc/Hz at 10kHz offset.
I tried this (via an anti alias LPF) in the E4406A and the E4406A limited out at -136dBc/Hz at maybe 3-10kHz offsets. Not bad! The idea would be to use an external LO and mixer to make a fairly decent phase noise measuring capability if a coax relay was fitted here. Note: My E4406A has the 14bit IF module which will help here.
The external LO could be something like an AD9912 or AD9914 DDS that can deliver very low phase noise. This is still way off what something like a E5052A SSA can achieve in terms of phase noise floor but it's a big step up from a decent lab grade analyser in this respect.
I also had to play inside the advanced FFT menus to get the last few dB of performance when so low down in signal level.
The plot below is on 15dB/div not 10dB in order to get it on the screen. The Err logo on the screen is because the analyser is not happy that I broke the signal path to allow this signal to be fed into it. So it failed to complete its regular self test signal routine.
--- End quote ---
G0HZU
Could you elaborate some more on this setup ?
I have a E4406 and this is quite interesting.
Have you seen
http://www.ke5fx.com/gpib/readme.htm
http://www.ke5fx.com/gpib/pn.htm
I seem to remember that John mentioned -140dB wo. modifications in one of his posts.
/Bingo
G0HZU:
--- Quote ---G0HZU Could you elaborate some more on this setup ?
I have a E4406 and this is quite interesting.
--- End quote ---
All I am doing is injecting a signal at the final IF (7.5MHz) direct into the digital IF. This has a 14bit ADC clocked at 30MHz.
My E4406A has the same analogue and digital IF modules (and CPU module) as the £££ Agilent PSA. But the phase noise performance is limited by the quailty of the local oscillators ahead of this final digital IF.
So by bypassing the front end converters I can get very low phase noise performance.
Obviously, I need to provide my own LO and mixer because I don't just want to look at 7.5MHz... So I can use a high performance DDS as an external LO with an external mixer and feed in direct at the 7.5MHz digital IF via a screened coaxial relay switch.
Look at my earlier plot. The phase noise 3kHz from the carrier is about -136dBc/Hz. This is about 24dB better than my legendary HP8568B at a similar offset. (or maybe 55dB better than a Rigol DSA815 at this offset!)
The standard E4406A can achieve -140dBc/Hz performance but only at offsets of several hundred kHz.
edavid:
It's worth mentioning that some E4406As have the B7C baseband I/Q input option, so they don't have to be modified for this (or they are pre-modified).
G0HZU:
That's a good point... :)
The B7C IQ baseband option is a highly desirable (but rare and expensive) option that requires a complete new card/module inside the analyser.
The B7C IQ baseband option is much more powerful than the simple fudge I am doing above because it presumably has dedicated ADCs in the addon card for each of the front panel I and Q baseband inputs. These two BNC inputs are usually seen as being blanked off in the top left corner of the front panel of a regular E4406A. I would really like to have this option but it is very rare and an E4406A with this option usually commands a much higher price :)
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