Serial Communication resets Agilent E4432B or N5182A so any parameters set physically on the equipment vanishes as the instrument resets

[labradio26]

I’m using an Agilent E4432B RF Signal Generator (obsolete) and also a new Agilent N5182A MXG signal generator. I’m using the front panel of the instrument to set the freq modulation to dual arb mode. Next, I’m running the certified LabVIEW driver for Agilent available on ni.com/idnet to communicate with it using NI GPIB.

Now when I run the VI, it successfully sets the freq and amplitude. But it eliminates the dual arb mode. What I would like is that the freq modulation should be left intact after running this VI. Since this VI only calls the drivers for setting freq & amplitude, how is it influencing the freq modulation?

As a workaround, I called the RF enable only to turn ON/OFF RF output after setting everything on the Instrument physically.

VI attached with all dependencies. Please use Agilent PSG MXG Series Configure Frequency Power 3 RF switch only.vi from Examples folder. - Still it clears & resets the instrument so whatever set on instrument front face physically vanishes.

For my application, I would prefer setting the freq & amplitude programmatically as it is going to be generated through formulae based on many other inputs & outputs.

The device is connected to PC through NI GPIB.

I think this observation should be same for all Agilent signal generators.

So how to use the front face physical controls on instrument along with a VI?

[Dennis_Knutson]

You've posted to the wrong board. This belongs to Instrument Control. This board is for NI products.

In your VI, are you calling the Initialize function? That will typically either reset the instrument or set it to some other default state.