Obtaining Smith Chart Data from Agilent PNA.....Please help!

[Chazzzmd]

Greetings,

The interface I have for the N5230A is pretty good. It works well for VSWR, LOG & MIN Magnitude. But when I went to use the Smitch Chart feature all the data is not carried over into my saved (.prn) file. Before I continue I manually saved the same smith chart data and found the .prn file saved contained Frequency, resistance, and reactance values (this is good the PNA is ruled out). But when saving through my labview interface I just received a (seemingly) frequency & value column. I couldn't tell what the values were because they didn't match the resistence or reactance values on the PNA. Additionally the frequencies didn't add up, and now there was 802 points instead of the requested 401points.

I then probed the data being spit out of the "Read Data. vi" for the agilent, and it was indeed spitting out 1 column of data that didn't match up to either values being displayed on my PNA. Is there an additional Agilent VI that should be implemented? I really don't think it's how I"m saving the data because I probed the line before it even got to that part. I've attached the Manual measurement I took (which is pretty much what I need), and the LabVIEW measurement that I am currently capturing.

Thanks in advance for any help that anybody can supply me with.

P.S. working with V8.5

-Chazzzmd

[Rimasaurus]

Hi Chazzzmd,

I recommend trying the AGPNA Config and Read Data Application Example.vi, which is installed with the Agilent agpna instrument driver, and try probing the Read Data.vi in the example VI.  The example VI will show you if there are any configuration VIs missing.  Good luck!

Regards,

Rima

[Chazzzmd]

Rima,

Thanks for the info. I was able to get the data off of the PNA (I did check out the config and read data.vi, but don't really need it).

My issue is that the Agilent is returning real & imaginary numbers. Which is weird because when I manually save a .prn (trace file, same as my script is setup for) it saves 3 columns, frequency, resistance, and reactance. Ultimately I would be ok with the real & imaginary numbers if there was a simple way to calculate the r & x. I know the Real can represent the "r" and the Imaginary the "x", just don't know how to get there.

Any ideas?

Thanks again for your help.

-Chazzzmd

[Rimasaurus]

Hi Chazzzmd,

If the data from the Agilent PNA is in the format of a complex number, then you can use the Complex functions to split the number into real and imaginary parts.  The Complex functions are located in the Functions palette, under Mathematics » Numeric » Complex.  The Complex to Re/Im function will break down a complex number into real and imaginary components.

Regards,

Rima

[Chazzzmd]

Rima,

Thanks again for the info. I've been keeping my eye on the complex features in mathmatics, and will probably be trying that today. Since the PNA is spitting out r & i, I'm going to try the r & i to complex vi to see if that works.

Thanks again, and cute name.

-Chazzzmd