New to instrument control: attempting control of E5062A with GPIB cable and C program

[DavidLoganProgrammer]

Hey everyone!

I'm lost as where to start controlling an instrument we have in the lab.

I'll give you my setup:

It is a VNA, agilent/keysight E5062A.

Controller is a desktop server running RHEL 5.

I have a GPIB Cable.

Program needs to be written into C so that it can be incorporated into the test program we are using.

I have the programmers manual but it doesn't tell me much on how to start. It does tell me how to set the instrument(E5062A) gpib address. 

I've also gathered that i will need some sort of I/O library, VISA or SCPI?

Thank you for taking the time to read this!

programmers manual link, take a look at chapter two

http://anlage.umd.edu/Microwave%20Measurements%20for%20Personal%20Web%20Site/E5062A_Programmers_Guid...

[Dennis_Knutson]

Do you also have a GPIB controller such as NI's USB-GPIB? Acable by itself its worthless. A better choice would probably have been the instrument with a USB or Ethernet connection, but no matter, the communication is the same.

With the NI controller, you first install the NI-488.2 driver and then NI-VISA. VISA is an api that abstracts the actual physical connection. Code for a GPIB connection will run unmodified of you change to USB or Ethernet. When you install the drivers you are also given the option to install example code that should help you get started.

An instrument driver for it is available at http://sine.ni.com/apps/utf8/niid_web_display.download_page?p_id_guid=FE17565E9D861AB5E0340003BA7CCD...

Read about what an instrument driver is and how to use one at http://www.ni.com/downloads/instrument-drivers/

Keysight might also have a driver. Check there as well.

P.S. SCPI is the instrument's programming language. It's built-in as the manual makes clear.