Programming a Frequency Stability Measurement

January 16, 2009

This section provides an example of how to makeFrequency Stability measurements via GPIB.

The following program example assumes that a signal within the measurement range in connected to the RF IN/OUT connector (see Input Signal Requirements ).

The basic procedure to testFrequency Stability is as follows:

Set the expected frequency and power.
Define theFrequency Stability Setup parameters as desired for measurement timeout and multi-measurements.
Use the INITiate:FSTability command to start the measurement.
Use the FETCh? command to obtain the measurement results.

Programming Example

 
10  !Set the expected frequency and power.
20  OUTPUT 714;"SETup:FSTability:CONTinuous OFF" !Set the frequency stability
30                                           !measurement to single trigger mode.
40  OUTPUT 714;"SETup:FSTability:TIMeout 1 S" !Set a timeout value of 1 second
50                                       !in case the measurement cannot be made.
60  OUTPUT 714;"SETup:FSTability:COUNt 5" !Set multi-measurements to 5.           
70  OUTPUT 714;"INITiate:FSTability" !Start the measurement.
80  OUTPUT 714;"FETCh:FSTability?" !Query the returned integrity indicator and the
90         !Worst Case Frequency Error and average Frequency measurements.
100 ENTER 714;Integrity,Freq_error,Frequency  !Enter the returned values into variables.
110 IF Integrity=0 THEN  !See if the integrity value = 0 (valid measurement).
120 ELSE
130 PRINT "Measurement problem; check for signal level over/under range condition."
140 END IF
150 END

Returned Values

The measurements returned by this program are:

Integrity returns the measurement integrity indicator (see Integrity Indicator ); 0 means a successful measurement with no errors.
Freq_error returns the worst case frequency error in parts per million (PPM). Frequency returns the average frequency.

Programming a Frequency Stability Measurement

Programming Example

Returned Values

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