Getting data from a Agilent Network analyzer through a USB/GPIB board

[BenAtBall]

Hi,
I am trying to retrieve a data set (S-parameters) from a Agilent HP8753 network analyzer, through a NI USB/GPIB board. The data is a frequency sweep of S-parameters, and it looks like the only way I can do it is to 'call ibrd(dev,String)' twice for EVERY single frequency point,because the data is real, imaginary pairs. Is there a subroutine or board-level function that allows me to read in a block of data from my VNA, or do I really have to read in every number one at a time as a string, convert to long or single, and then store in an array?
PLEASE HELP!!!!!
Thanks,
'Ben at Ball'

[theW]

Hi Ben,

This is largely dependent upon your Agilent Network Analyzer, I think. If the data is being sent out on the GPIB one point at a time with an "END" character or "End-or-Identify" assertion, then you will have to do a read for each point. IBRD can take a maximum number of bytes to read, but no matter what this number is, it will stop when it receives an indication that this is the "end of data" from the instrument, and it sounds like that's what's happening.

You might look in the programmer's reference for the NA and see if you can send the Agilent box a command to spit out all the data at once rather than a point at a time, but there is no board-level function to do this.

For more general information on why a read will terminate, see the following top
ics in the 488.2 Help:

"IBEOT", "Terminating Data Transfers", "IBEOS", "IBRD"

These will mainly be addressing termination from the other side (meaning, the NI GPIB board sending out termination indicators) but will be helpful in understanding what's probably going on.

Scott B.
National Instruments
Applications Engineering

[587313]

can i get the code to extract data from network analyser through gpib bus please help!!!

[Dennis_Knutson]

If you are using LabVIEW or CVI, you just have to download the driver from the Instrument Driver Network. LabVIEW also has the ability to download a driver from the Tools menu

[rohde and schwarz]

hi all i am using zvb20 to find out s-parameters,i am working last 2 weeks .my span of analyzer is from 10MHz to 20GHz.but i am getting values upto 6.7GHz.how can i get rest of values. i also have plug and play drivers installed bt dnt knw how to use them so its my humble request to plz help me out. sajid

[Dennis_Knutson]

Why did you hijack a thread about a completely different instrument?

To learn how to use an instrument driver, see the links on the Instrument Driver Network.