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TimePod 5330A Operation and Service

1. Edit trace properties Caption CERA Additional Notes HP 5065A aa I Y Y Y C Y Y C r r f f DLIT Frequency Hz W Use Input Frequency Instrument TimePod 53304 Frequency Stability Noise and Jitter Frequency Spectrum Rescale Phase 10 Graph Top 50 0 Graph Top 20 0 dBm Bin Density 2 93N sas Graph Bottom 190 0 dBc Hz Graph Bottom 180 0 dBm Bin Threshold Graph Left 1 Hz Graph Left 10083 Hz Trace History 1 Graph Right 3 Hz Graph Right 10083 Hz PN Gain 0 0 dB 7 r Cancel Noise Graph Properties Unlike the stability deviation views phase noise and AM noise plots are not automatically expanded over the course of the measurement Instead you can use these fields to specify the extents of these plots directly You can also zoom into noise plots by dragging a selection box with the mouse Tip To extend a zoomed plot beyond its current boundary in a given direction simply drag the selection region slightly beyond the edge of the graticule in that direction As seen above the Edit gt Trace properties e dialog lets you change various properties associated with the selected plot that determine how its measurement data is presented These properties were assigned their initial values in the acquisition dialog before the measurement began Like the various instrument specific dialogs on the Acquire menu the trace properties dialog may vary from the image shown above The dialog has
2. 68 Close selected DIOL DEN ass e Ro 68 CloseallMisible plots Home sen ee ua 69 Delete selected plot s TIM file Ctrl Del 4 ea an 69 QUIELGOr ES ida 69 E e eee eee 71 TAC DIO 00 deen 0 ae 71 Flatten selected or zoomed phase data Ctrl f r 73 Remove selected or zoomed phase data F4 r 74 Subtract global linear phase trend frequency offset Ctrl o 75 Subtract global linear frequency trend drift line Ctrl l 75 Subtract quadratic linear frequency trend drift curve Ctrl q 75 Undo last flatten or subtract operation Ctrl Z 75 A 71 Phase trequencytraces begin at zero 2d 77 Show linear phase frequency residual Feces eseh iS 77 Show linear phase frequency trend Ctrl t aa 79 Phase frequency Y axis unlocked in zoom mode 80 Averaging window for phase frequency traces 33 80 Increase averaging Window Ctrl inn cias 80 Decrease averacing window CUNE nra aan 80 Draw xDEV traces with spline interpolation i r 82 SHOWXDEV error bars Cua AAA A 82 Clip xDEV traces by noise bandw
3. Text for one two or three buttons can be specified as the b1_text b2_text and or b3_text argument s to ScriptGetString The returned value will equal the numeric index of the button selected by the user beginning with O for the b1_text button All text fields accept up to 1024 bytes Note that the user_text argument is an Object containing a String property called value not a String in itself The value property is used both as the default text used to initialize the edit control and for reception of the returned text This is necessary because Strings are always passed by copy in JavaScript while Objects are passed by reference and may be modified by the called function See OCXO_2hr_stability_test js for amore complete usage example ScriptHostFilename Returns a String containing the TimeLab executable filename and version information ScriptLastStatusMessage Returns a String containing the most recent status message displayed by TimeLab This function may be useful for logging and report generation 127 ScriptMessageBox String heading String message String b1_text String b2_text String b3_txt Presents a modal dialog box to the user that accepts button presses An example appears below if ScriptMessageBox Manufacturing Test Connect input signals and click OK to continue OK I Cancel 0 ScriptEnd return When executed the result is a dialog box of the form
4. 140 0 li Le all 150 0 i m E LN 160 0 IH 2 ga 170 0 10 Hz 100 Hz 1 kHz 10 kHz 100 kHz 10 Hz 100 Hz 1 kHz 10 kHz 100 kHz GPS clock 10 000MHz 13dBm TimePod 5330A GPS clock 10 000MHz 13dBm TimePod 5330A This command toggles between normal and high contrast rendering The latter option may be desirable when saving screenshots for publications or Web pages whose color fidelity may not be sufficient to reveal details in the plot such as minor graticule lines 89 Numeric table Ctrl n The numeric table appears to the right of the graph area in each measurement view unless toggled off with this command The format of the table is different for each measurement type In the Allan deviation and other statistical views a chart displays the sigma tau values at assorted tau intervals In the Measurement Frequency difference f view both drift trend statistics and a high precision frequency count chart are displayed while only the former is available in the Measurement Phase difference p view Finally a table of detected spurs is displayed in the phase noise and AM noise views Show cursor time Ss Show cursor time Hh Mm Ss Show cursor time datestamp Do not show cursor values These options determine the content of the mouseover cursor readout display in the Measurement Phase difference p and Measurement Frequency difference f views When the mouse cursor is within the graph area in
5. 9411 150 0 a 8459 3 125 3 LL 1 lu EEEE 9229 2 123 0 160 0 170 0 1 kHz 100 kHz Typical phase noise measurement with accompanying spur table The default Spur Threshold value of 6 dB specified in the Noise and Jitter tab of the TimePod acquisition dialog ensures that artifacts of lower amplitude relative to neighboring areas of the trace are not classified as spurs To illustrate the difference between coherent spur amplitudes and their apparent levels on the 1 Hz normalized noise trace Trace gt Suppress spurs in noise traces Ctrl s is disabled and Trace gt Mark spurs in noise traces Ctrl m is turned on Show or hide known spurs Several commands in TimeLab determine how spurs are handled in phase noise and AM noise graphs Trace gt Mark spurs in noise traces Ctrl m draws shaded or dashed lines depending on the Trace gt Toggle trace thickness for current measurement T setting for each detected spur on the AM or phase noise graphs These lines reflect the amplitude of each spur as reported in the spur table which will not be the same as the level of any corresponding bumps or spikes in the noise trace itself Because phase noise and AM noise traces undergo normalization to 1 Hz bandwidth the Y axis labels don t reflect the true amplitude of any coherent 55 trace features They must be recognized as spurs and their amplitudes indicated separately Trace Suppress spurs in noise traces Ctr
6. W II la E A ii TTR 0 1Hz 1Hz 10 Hz 100 Hz 1 kHz 10 kHz 100 kHz Trace inputFreq Input Amplitude Ref Amplitude dBcHzat 10 kHZ Acquired Instrument 25 MHz residual 3 hours 25680045 355 Hz 9 dBm 9 dBm 170 8 2280682 pts TimePod 5330A 5 MHz residual 12 hours 5000000 Hz 12 3 dBm 12 3 dBm 172 2 9119124 pts TimePod 5330A As expected residual phase noise performance is improved when a strong 5 MHz signal is measured for 12 hours compared to a weaker 25 MHz signal measured for 3 hours The difference in AM noise isn t as pronounced in this case 113 114 Appendix JavaScript API Function Reference TimeLab includes an embedded JavaScript engine that can run automated test scripts using the TimePod 53304 Script based access to other instruments such as time interval counters is not currently supported The API functions listed below are useful in a variety of applications ranging from the standard TimePod performance verification procedures to user developed test scripts Usage examples for nearly all of these API functions can be found in the scripts included with TimeLab such as the standard validation diagnostic scripts 5330A_performance_test js and 5330A_ADC_test js and the simple example program OCXO_2hr_stability_test js For more information on creating editing and running test scripts refer to the Scripts menu description on page 99 AcqChannel Number channel Returns the position in the le
7. 8 19 2612 Initializing host JMCORE64 address 192 168 1 117 9192 Loaded driver Miles Design TimePod gt Preparing acquisition Looking for input signal Pretuning Setting attenuators Measuring amplitude Measuring frequency Calibrating measurement Zeroing baseband IF limit 8 85 Hz current 4 16 Hz 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 Acquisition in progress Input frequency 16666666 Hz Input amplitude 11 9 dBm Reference frequency 16666666 Hz Reference amplitude Sample rate ENBW ADC clock 8 4 dBm 1 8 Hz GO GO GO GO GO GO QO CO CO CO CO CO ano Hl H H H H H IH 8 5 Hz 78 856607 MHz 8 19 2612 8 26 61 PM Manual shutdown requested 8 19 2612 8 26 81 PM Acquisition complete 571468384 bytes 37758761 usec 15 133157 bytes sec 236455 samples sec C deu t ime lab gt Here the frequency readings in green were displayed by turning Scroll Lock on to view the data in real time as it was acquired After only 24 seconds the results have converged to within about 3 parts in 10 of the expected value of 9999999 962747097 MHz Real world results will vary but in any similar test you can expect a trend towards increased accuracy as the frequency measurement interval grows towards its requested maximum See the input and ref option descriptions below for importa
8. The answer is that these plots are not simply linear depictions of frequency drift over time In TimeLab that s the purpose of the Measurement gt Frequency Difference f view Nor are they depictions of a single Allan deviation measurement that describes the clock s stability from one interval of a given duration to the next Instead ADEV and similar statistical graphs usually portray an entire collection of deviation measurements each based on a list of phase or frequency data points spaced at an interval unique to that measurement Imagine that you own a watch that exhibits a certain accuracy in parts per million from one minute to the next To arrive at this figure you ve checked your watch against a better clock several times waiting one minute between each trial and then calculated the Allan deviation of the resulting list of phase errors You might have used conventional standard deviation but in this case you ve heard correctly that STDEV has major drawbacks for timekeeping work 31 You re fairly certain you ll get a different result if you calculate the Allan deviation for a set of readings taken one week apart and still another result for a series of readings taken annually So you record at least a few data points at these intervals as well Now you d like to draw a graph that shows off your watch s performance perhaps for bragging rights at the neighborhood pub What sort of plot would be needed to portray everything y
9. To protect your rights we need to make restrictions that forbid distributors to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender these rights These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the library or if you modify it For example if you distribute copies of the library whether gratis or for a fee you must give the recipients all the rights that we gave you You must make sure that they too receive or can get the source code If you link other code with the library you must provide complete object files to the recipients so that they can relink them with the library after making changes to the library and recompiling it And you must show them these terms so they know their rights We protect your rights with a two step method 1 we copyright the library and 2 we offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy distribute and or modify the library To protect each distributor we want to make it very clear that there is no warranty for the free library Also if the library is modified by someone else and passed on the recipients should know that what they have is not the original version so that the original author s reputation will not be affected by problems that might be introduced by others Finally software patents pose a constant threat to the existence of any free program We wish to make sure that a company cannot effectively restrict the users of a free program
10. To return the current flag value call TraceOverlayAMPM with no argument TracePhaseFreqAutoY Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Phase frequency Y axis unlocked in zoom mode y Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TracePhaseFregAutoY with no argument 131 TracePhaseFregqResid Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Show linear phase frequency residual r Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TracePhaseFreqResid with no argument TracePhaseFreqTrend Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Show linear phase frequency trend Ctrl t Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TracePhaseFregTrend with no argument TracePhaseFreqZero Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Phase frequency traces begin at zero z Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TracePhaseFregZero with no argument TraceShowCorrGain Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Show correlation gain for selected noise trace Ctrl g Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TraceShowCorrGain with no argume
11. 15005 17105 15005 238 203 3H34 S636 743 9716 11036 17834 14698 1 603 6 mas Sample interval Elapsed Instrument Trace o I Sampieintervei Eiapsed insirament 1 101160111 5000 0 000 12n0mos_ TenePod53308 ve oan sonn Soom anote imomose TimeLab is designed to take advantage of a PC mouse with three buttons and a scroll wheel All of the graph types are zoomable and you can always return to the unmagnified view by right clicking anywhere on the plot Unlike the xDEV and noise measurement displays though the phase and frequency difference measurement views support additional navigation options You can expand and contract the zoomed area with the mouse wheel or surf through the data by dragging with the middle button Unlocking the Y axis with Trace gt Phase frequency Y axis unlocked in zoom mode y keeps TimeLab from constantly adjusting the Y axis to accommodate the graph s vertical range With the Y axis unlocked you can expand and scroll the graph in both directions with the mouse rather than being limited to side to side navigation 49 In this case though unlocking the Y axis and drawing a box requires a lot of user interaction Worse you ll end up with an unfriendly Y axis scale whose random looking values make the graph difficult to interpret Once again Trace gt Phase frequency traces begin at zero z offers a better alternative with a single keystrok
12. Display gt Overlay all loaded plots o and Display gt Toggle visibility of selected plot v Like many other commands the b o and v commands operate on the so called selected plot If you ve followed along with the suggested command demonstrations above then you should have two or more plots loaded and you can experiment with these concepts e First select any desired Measurement view and press the b key to enter Browse mode Observe that only one of your plots is now visible e Furthermore notice that two things happen when you press the up down arrow keys Display gt Select next plot in chart Display gt Select previous plot in chart A small black triangular cursor at the leftmost edge of the legend table moves up and down and the plot that it points to is also the one that becomes visible In Display gt Browse mode entries in the legend table corresponding to all of the unselected plot s are grayed out and those plots aren t shown in the graph e You can put things back to normal by pressing o to return to Display gt Overlay mode The idea of a selected plot still exists but it no longer determines which plots are visible in the legend table and graph areas e In Display gt Overlay mode all of the loaded plots are visible all of the time unless individually hidden with the Display gt Toggle visibility of selected plot v feature To avoid confusion the v key doesn t do anything in Display gt Browse mode
13. From TimeLab s perspective one reason to use Acquire gt Acquire from TCP IP streaming server with STREAM EXE instead of the legacy TSC acquisition driver Acquire gt Symmetricom 5115A 5120 A 5125A Frequency stability is that any warning or error messages from the TimePod driver will be forwarded to the TimeLab 139 client s by STREAM EXE for display in their status lines In format TSC mode only the numeric phase data is transmitted for compatibility reasons See the input and ref descriptions below for important additional notes window lt samples gt When the format F option is used to acquire a stream of absolute frequency measurements each frequency reading is normally derived by subtracting the previous phase difference reading from each incoming one and dividing the result by the reciprocal of the sampling interval The resulting frequency difference is applied to the input frequency that was provided explicitly with the input option or estimated when the measurement began yielding an absolute frequency in hertz This value in turn is logged to the specified file sent to network clients via TCP IP and or written to the local console window for diagnostic purposes if the Scroll Lock light is on It s possible to achieve much more accurate frequency readings if the frequency difference value is computed over longer periods of time The default window 1 value causes frequency readings to be derived from adjacent pa
14. GPS clock OCXO 0 000486 s 514 1 Hz OCXO 0 004 s 52 7 Hz OCXO 0 047 s 5 2 Hz OCXO 0 473s 0 5 Hz TimePod 5330A TimePod 5330A TimePod 5330A TimePod 5330A GPS clock GPS clock GPS clock portion of an xDEV trace at taus shorter than to appear on an ADEV plot the antialiasing filters response is easy to mistake for a real effect TimeLab supports two different ways to avoid displaying invalid data near to First Trace gt Clip xDEV traces by noise bandwidth Ctrl b is enabled by default This option was turned off to demonstrate the issue above With noise bandwidth clipping enabled as seen in the figure at left TimeLab does not render any 1 2 ENBW seconds 6 The Allan Variance Challenges and Opportunities Samuel R Stein Symmetricom Inc Boulder Colorado USA White paper available at www symmetricom com 7 To refers to the very first tau at the left end of an xDEV trace which typically corresponds to the period of the phase or frequency samples being analyzed Additionally beginning with version 1 1 of TimeLab the TimePod 5330A driver can decimate the phase difference data it acquires Readings are collected by sampling the internal phase difference data stream at a rate determined by the Output Decimation field in the acquisition dialog This feature is primarily for convenience It can be used to reduce the size of phase records generated by very long acquisitions for example or when hig
15. amp if in 7 160 1 l 1 100 Hz 1 1 10 kHz 100 kHz room mar 748m 10 Time od 330 room mar 748m ts Time ou 330 This command applies some light exponential smoothing to traces in the phase noise and AM noise measurement views Detected spurs are always removed from smoothed traces If enabled smoothing is turned off automatically when the Trace gt Suppress spurs in noise traces Ctrl s command is used to toggle spur attenuation To obtain a smoother trace with cross correlating analyzers such as the TimePod 5330A and Symmetricom 512x models it s often better to let the measurement run longer As the trace converges on the true noise level its variance will diminish resulting in a more accurate measurement with less visible grass Show raw PN channel trace s Ctrl r This command is intended for diagnostic purposes only It displays the raw phase noise spectrum from the ADCs in both measurement channels of the 5330A 85 Show AM noise in PN view F8 Phase Noise f in dBc Hz AM Noise M f in 7 PM Spur Offset Hz dBc 60 4 127 3 120 3 120 0 424 4 137 0 794 0 139 0 845 9 138 7 14801 4 128 3 29121 7 129 0 54798 1 115 2 72698 4 123 4 AM Spur Offset Hz dBc 60 4 126 9 120 3 114 4 241 6 130 3 01Hz 1Hz 10Hz 100Hz 1kHz 10kHz 7 Input Amplitude Instrument Notes Input Freg 50618 undisc 5065A 10 000MHz 13dBm TimePod 5330A When enabled thi
16. and you can save view compare export or print them at any time Accuracy and stability are inherited from a user supplied external reference which can run at any frequency within the supported range with no calibration required by the instrument itself 10 Specifications Input frequency and level Reference frequency and level Input reference VSWR 0 5 25 MHz Input reference port isolation 10 MHz Maximum allowed DC at any RF input Allan deviation 5 MHz 25 MHz t 1s Allan deviation 5 MHz 25 MHz t 10005 Phase stability 5 MHz Residual phase noise floor 5 MHz 1 Hz Residual phase noise floor 25 MHz 1 Hz Residual phase noise floor 5 MHz 10 kHz Residual phase noise floor 25 MHz 10 kHz Residual AM noise floor 5 MHz 10 kHz Spurious responses 5 MHz 1 Hz 100 kHz Physical dimensions Power requirements Ambient temperature 0 5 MHz 30 MHz 5 dBm 20 dBm 50 ohm TNC F 0 5 MHz 30 MHz 5 dBm 20 dBm 50 ohm TNC F 1 5 1 or better 130 dB or better 5V 1E 13 minimum 5E 14 typical 50 Hz ENBW 5E 15 minimum 1E 15 typical Less than 10 ps hour after 2 hour warmup Typically below 3 ps hour 140 dBc Hz minimum lt 145 dBc Hz typical 130 dBc Hz minimum lt 135 dBc Hz typical 170 dBc Hz minimum lt 175 dBc Hz typical 165 dBc Hz minimum lt 170 dBc Hz typical 160 dBc Hz minimum lt 165 dBc Hz typical Less than 100 dBc phase noise or 90 dBc AM noise Typically below
17. but in Display gt Overlay mode it does just what it sounds like it toggles the visibility of the selected plot in both the graph area and the legend table This panoply of options may seem confusing at first but it s nothing compared to the jumble of line segments and shaded areas that can appear on the graph when all nine available slots in the legend table are populated with visible plots e Regardless of the choice of Display gt Browse or Display gt Overlay mode or the visibility status of any given plot the selected plot concept is still useful for indicating which plot should contribute to the frequency count chart in the Measurement gt Frequency 23 Difference f view the sigma tau charts in the various xDEV measurement views and the spur tables in the noise measurement views The selected plot is also the only one that s saved exported modified edited or moved up and down in the legend table when the corresponding commands are issued The last point above is an important one many users new to TimeLab are surprised to discover that a single TIM file doesn t represent an entire screen full of plots Each plot must be saved loaded and otherwise processed individually None of the commands on the File or Edit menus in TimeLab operate on more than one plot at a time except for File gt Close all plots Home and the various image based operations like File gt Print image Ctrl p File gt Copy image to clipboard C
18. in Windows and enter cmd as the name of the program to run Once the DOS box appears drag its lower edge to expand the window to a more comfortable size Then enter the commands cd program files miles design timelab stream As seen below the option causes STREAM EXE to display a brief list of the command line options available in the current release Black on white text indicates typed commands Administrator C Windows system32 cmd exe Microsoft Windows Version 6 1 7681 Copyright lt c 28699 Microsoft Corporation All rights reserved RISA ca program filessmilesz design timelab G Program Files Miles Design T LOAN Stream Desktop Desktops ULDATA Ci Users johnm AppData Local Miles Design UCDATA CiaProgrambata Miles Design Ci Users johnm AppData Local Miles Des ign T ime Lab Ci Programbata Miles Design T ime Lab Ci Program Files Miles Design T ine Lab G Program Files Miles Design TimeLab Cinllsers johnm Documents Streaming data server UB 95 of Aug 19 2612 Miles Design LLC Press ESC to terminate SCROLL LOCK to view traffic John miles io Usage server TLL_driver_filename optional arguments J Optional arguments serial sernum gt File lt filename gt Default port lt portnum gt Default ms9101 lt 6 57 gt 1 Default 3 013 F Default window lt samples gt Default rate lt 1 16 106 16681
19. phase TI or timestamp data that s being written by another process TimeLab will open the file in read only mode process all existing data in the file if requested and then continue to fetch data until the acquisition terminates Only one reading per line is processed but any numeric field within the line can be specified for processing HP 53131A 53132A 53181A HP 53220A 53230A HP 5335A HP 5370A B HP 5371A 5372A Philips Fluke PM6680 Picotest Array U6200A series Stanford Research SR620 Wavecrest DTS 2050 2070 series These instruments are high performance counters and timing analyzers whose acquisition capabilities are very similar from TimeLab s perspective Frequency and phase difference TI readings are supported by each Depending on the instrument s I O capabilities available connectivity options may include the following e National Instruments NI488 2 compatible GPIB adapters e Serial COM ports connected directly to the instrument e Serial COM ports associated with Prologix GPIB USB adapters e P addresses supported with Prologix GPIB ETHERNET adapters e Direct connections to TCP IP based instruments at the specified address HP counters with serial interfaces connected via null modem cables should use Acquire gt Acquire from counter in Talk Only mode instead 104 Symmetricom 5115A 5120 5125A Frequency stability Symmetricom 5115A 5120A 5125A Phase noise These digital phase noise analyzers provi
20. to seconds or frequency readings to Hz DUT rather than input frequency True if phase noise values should be increased by 20 log10 DUT freq input freq User specified tag field from segment table used for noise acquisition Input Referenc Input channel s Number of stability measuremen Termination condition for meas urement tion fi frequency in Hz provided by user frequency in Hz provided by user Minimum amplitude relative to local average at which a line will be recognized as a spur for stability measurement t channels le was creat Time and date when the acquisi Trace caption text Incoming data consists of absolute tin as specified at acquisition Number of historical xDEV traces displ nestamps in ted seconds layed time or edited with Edit gt Trace Properties Phase data rate from TSC 512X compatible timing analyzer True if phase data has already been unwrapped by the instrument driver USB firmware version Incoming data consists of monotonic phase differences that do not contain phase wraps True if driver s data rate matches the incoming data rate from the instrument True if warnings during data acquisition should terminate th measurement Wraparound period in seconds for incoming timestamps 94 Measurement Menu The Measurement menu selection determines how TimeLab displays the data in any plots that have been acquired
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22. write to the author to ask for permission For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation write to the Free Software Foundation we sometimes make exceptions for this Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally 162 NO WARRANTY 15 BECAUSE THE LIBRARY IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE LIBRARY TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE LIBRARY AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE LIBRARY IS WITH YOU SHOULD THE LIBRARY PROVE DEFECTIVE YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING REPAIR OR CORRECTION 16 IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND OR REDISTRIBUTE THE LIBRARY AS PERMITTED ABOVE BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES INCLUDING ANY GENERAL SPECIAL INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE LIBRARY INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE LIBRARY TO OPER
23. 2 501 85 1006 9 i s 1908 3808 570 7608 9508 11008 13308 15208 17108 19008 On 1908 3808 5108 7608 0508 11408 13308 15208 17108 585 Trace inpunfreg Sample interval Elapsed instrument Trace input Freg E aso soon anus TimePoa 53300 re 1801160111 soome 0004 12090 53300 Essentially Subtract global linear frequency trend drift line Ctrl l removes the quadratic trend from the phase record which has the effect of removing the inear trend from the frequency difference plot But there s still an arbitrary offset in the frequency difference view that s forcing the Y axis scale to 1E 9 and the artifacts we d like to examine are much smaller than this Navigating zoomed graphs One strategy is to unlock the Y axis with Trace gt Phase frequency Y axis unlocked in zoom mode y and then use the left mouse button to drag a box around the trace When the button is released in the view at left the result is the zoomed view at right Fraqusnay Difference Frequency Difference freer aging vendo Por pixel Aver aging window Per pixel Bight click To bol LODE 9 i 8 13E 10 BLO0E 10 7 79 10 BODE 10 7 45E 10 4 00E6 10 7 10E 10 2006 10 1 6 76E 10 nome i 6 420 10 D0E 10 i 6 07E 10 4808 18 5736 10 EO0F 10 A E SR SERED 2 SRE REN BE mama 5 045 10 1 00E 9 4 70E 10 Ds 100 Is Sits THs 59895 1140 10
24. 2 50E 12 Os 25 ds Gs Bs 10s 125 14 16s 18s 20s Os 25 de 6s Bs 10s 125 ids 16s 18s 20s Input Freq Sample Interval Acquired Instrument InputFreq Sample Interval Acquired Instrument 10 000001 MHZ 0 004 8 4268 pte TimePod 53304 10 000001 MHz 0 0045 4268 pte TimePod 53304 Warning Averaging introduces time lag which may cause unexpected results with some commands and display options It s recommend that averaging be disabled before selecting regions of the phase record for any operations or when evaluating absolute phase differences or frequency differences At long averaging times a substantial baseline offset can exist between the beginning and end of the trace since there s less historical data to contribute to the average near the beginning of the record The trace may appear to fall off a cliff where noisy initial data gives way to a relatively featureless trace as the averaging process takes effect This effect is just beginning to appear in the 0 6s averaged plot above As a reminder that averaging is in effect nonzero averaging times will be displayed in red above phase and frequency difference graphs You can quickly disable averaging with the keyboard sequence g O lt Enter gt Averaging also determines how phase records are decimated for display in the phase and frequency difference views When rendering a trace whose phase record length in samples exceeds the graph width in pixels the samples that f
25. Legend Menu The Legend menu determines which attributes are displayed for each visible plot in the legend table beneath the main graph Some properties are flagged for display in the legend table by default while others will not be displayed until you select them in the Legend menu Each TimeLab acquisition driver can contribute its own entries to the Legend menu based on the property values in the plots that it generates When a plot is acquired or loaded from a TIM file TimeLab checks for the presence of any displayable properties that it hasn t yet encountered Any unfamiliar properties are logged in TIMELAB INI and added to the Legend menu As a result the content of the Legend menu will vary often greatly from one TimeLab installation to the next Note that after you select a property for display in the legend table its value will be blank for all plots that don t include that particular property As with other data stored in TIMELAB INI reinstalling TimeLab does not erase the list of known Legend menu entries These entries can be cleared only by manually editing or deleting TIMELAB INI or by using File gt Reset all parameters options and settings at next startup Refer to the latter command for more information about TIMELAB INI The list of currently defined TIM file properties appears below Many of these options are private to a specific hardware driver and are not eligible for display on the legend table They ar
26. Manufacturing Test Connect input signals and click OK to continue Cancel Text for one two or three buttons can be specified as the b1_text b2_text and or b3_text argument s to ScriptMessageBox The returned value will equal the numeric index of the button selected by the user beginning with O for the b1_text button ScriptMinsToHMS Number minutes Returns a String representing the minutes argument as hours minutes and seconds Example The following statement Print ScriptMinsToHMS 10 5 will display 10m 30s 128 ScriptNumVal String format_string Number value Returns a String consisting of the specified format_string with an embedded numeric value In operation ScriptNumVal passes its format_string and floating point value arguments to the standard C sprintf function returning the resulting formatted string Example The following statement Print ScriptNumVal Pi 21f 3 1415926535 will display Pi 3 14 Additional usage examples appear in both 5330A_performance_test js and 5330A_ADC_test js Refer to the sprintf documentation in the C runtime library reference for a detailed discussion of the format and precision specifiers supported for floating point values ScriptPlaySound String filename Plays the specified sound file Sound files for use with this function are typically stored in the wav format If filename contains a backslash character TimeLab assumes it consis
27. Mo pan pasn 10N 1T sl 31 484 IXJ NG Z 394 INI PPN 375 HOzpu9 UO PPN 0 ppn fuo 21119 95 AD012 PPNM E Z 300W bl 657400980 NWBSE PPN AWSZT PPN 6 7 HBOspu9 UD PPN HLIO ToB 99 91 1MS 109 NI 34 7309 a TEN EEES gt TS E TEMES Y N EEE A 150 PrTT 00117 7 10 teitur Boul 89311101121 210011 NOLIdIUISIO AW 1093 Ud 86 plain 159 cureb xT Ayttrqnedwo gt gBZZILT 404 nol pan p sn 10N 49d EA N J34 IXJ NG Z 494 INI PPN B 2 5 HO pu9 ONY Podautl 0 HO ppn fuo 119 E Z 32304 wnajseds 55049 VOLES IT ubtseg 511 NWBSE PPN AWSZT PPN 6 7 6 UD PPN 06 vun zI0W von 88 Tae CONO 5 1 2 z Id B 9 XA oa yS 1MS p LOW 58 ae zen Tee E 5 8 dir Bs 9TZZILA ren 63252888 2 AR BE ONU 0 gono Z20 90 Bd ao 92 AT 984 AT 94 OGT EB N13N0_Z30 31300 ZIG AT ING Kong 25015618 220 3391X3_Z306 A n 1 F 8888588998 o l 6STLOOYAYH I 1T 91 81 NI 38 2909 1 EEIEIEE ELEELE NE E a 151 R s i C EEE E enro soul 7 L rr E EEN ELI REI SIIN
28. Per pixel 2 50E 6s 2 00E 6s 1 50E 6s 1 00E 6s 5 00E 7s 0 00E 0s 5 00E 7s 1 00E 6s 1 50E 6s 2 00E 6s 2 50E 6s Os 180s 540s 900s 1260s 1620s Input Freq Acquired Instrument E1938A 4985 startup behavior 10MHz 1800pts HP5370A B The trend line is not displayed in magnified views or when Trace gt Show linear phase frequency residual r is enabled 79 Phase frequency Y axis unlocked in zoom mode y By default the Y axis in phase and frequency difference measurement graphs is automatically scaled to accommodate the largest absolute value in all visible traces The peak magnitude is rounded up to the next decade half decade or quarter decade then mirrored to place zero at center scale This approach allows the 10 division Y axis to be labeled in nice multiples of 1 2 or 5 When zooming in with the mouse to magnify a portion of the visible trace s it s sometimes helpful to toggle the Y autoscaling algorithm off by selecting Phase frequency Y axis unlocked in zoom mode y This will have no effect on an unzoomed display but when dragging with the left mouse button to magnify a desired area of the graph you ll be able to move in the both X and Y directions instead of only being able to drag a pair of vertical cursors When you release the button the resulting zoomed view will conform to the specified extents in both directions With the Y axis unlocked the Display 2 zoom in and Disp
29. as the reference itself How does this work The 5330A s internal estimate of the input frequency may not be very accurate but it doesn t need to be The slope of the phase differences measured by the 5330A is always equal to the frequency offset between the input and reference signals at baseband regardless of how accurately or inaccurately their original RF frequencies were known when the measurement began To the extent that the reference s actual frequency matches the rounded estimate used by TimeLab the frequency of the RF signal at the INPUT jack can be recovered simply by adding this offset Once this is done the frequency difference graph points can also be scaled to conform to the Input Freq value that s displayed in the legend table Input Freq is also rounded to the nearest 1 kHz by TimeLab if not specified explicitly There s one small catch although the input frequency will be reported accurately in the frequency count chart as long as the rounded REF IN frequency is correct the overall slope of the Measurement gt Phase difference p trace may be inaccurate unless you specify both the input and reference frequencies in the acquisition dialog In particular two port phase stability measurements often require very high phase slope precision as do measurements in which the 5330A s own residual phase drift is tested You should enter the common test source frequency into both the Input Freq and Reference Freq fields when
30. as well as those of the TimePod 5330A itself By default script files are stored in the ALLUSERSPROFILE Documents TimeLab Scripts folder This folder s location will vary from one Windows version to the next For example in a typical Windows 7 installation on drive C it can be found at C ProgramData Documents TimeLab Scripts while under Windows XP SP2 the script directory is located at C Documents and Settings All Users Documents TimeLab Scripts For a detailed listing of script API functions refer to the JavaScript API Function Reference section on page 115 13 http code google com p v8 99 Run script To launch a test script select Scripts gt Run script and choose the desired script s JavaScript file js in the file dialog that appears TimeLab will load the script into memory and execute its global scope to initialize any variables declared outside of functions or event handlers Control then passes to the script s mandatory EventRunScript function Once launched the script will continue to run until one of the following conditions is true A script exception or other fatal error occurs The ScriptEnd API function is called by the script prior to returning from an event handler The script returns from an event handler function such as EventRunScript or EventAcqDone with no plots associated with it either because the user closed the plot s manually or because the event handler did not la
31. bin If this is an issue try setting the Bin Threshold to a large fraction of the total phase record size The idea is to force TimeLab to render the xDEV trace as if much less data were available 40 Allan Deviation w In the example at left two copies of the same 3600 sample TIM file have been loaded The blue trace was sen rendered with the default Bin Threshold of 4 while the shorter magenta trace was rendered with Bin Threshold set to 2000 Enabling Ee ee Trace gt Show xDEV error bars Ctrl e AAA tie E Sow E reveals the blue trace s low confidence at its longest tau 1E 12 10s Generally as long as Trace gt Clip xDEV traces by confidence Ctrl v is enabled it will not be necessary to alter the Bin Threshold value to display xDEV trace data of good statistical quality The default bin threshold and clipping options will suffice for almost all measurements 41 42 Working with phase and frequency difference traces Phase and frequency stability data acquired by TimeLab is represented internally as an array of phase difference samples This is true regardless of whether the data came from a frequency counter a time interval counter or a direct digital timing analyzer Frequency readings are converted to phase difference samples on the basis of their deviation from the first frequency reading acquired In addition to the statistical measurements such as Allan deviation that TimeLab pro
32. by obtaining a restrictive license from a patent holder Therefore we insist that any patent license obtained for a version of the library must be consistent with the full freedom of use specified in this license Most GNU software including some libraries is covered by the ordinary GNU General Public License This license the GNU Lesser General Public License applies to certain designated libraries and is quite different from the ordinary General Public License We use this license for certain libraries in order to permit linking those libraries into non free programs When a program is linked with a library whether statically or using a shared library the combination of the two is legally speaking a combined work a derivative of the original library The ordinary General Public License therefore permits such linking only if the entire combination fits its criteria of freedom The Lesser General Public License permits more lax criteria for linking other code with the library We call this license the Lesser General Public License because it does Less to protect the user s freedom than the ordinary General Public License It also provides other free software developers Less of an advantage over competing non free programs These disadvantages are the reason we use the ordinary General Public License for many libraries However the Lesser license provides advantages in certain special circumstances For example on rare occasions there may b
33. dBm Reference frequency 9999999 083314985 Hz Reference amplitude 8 4 dBm Sample rate 1 8 Hz ENBW ADC clock 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 MU UM IU I 8 5 Hz 8 19 2612 78 858668 MHz 8 19 2612 9 17 36 PM Manual shutdown requested 8 19 2612 9 17 36 PM Acquisition complete 248965728 bytes 16453318 usec 15 127995 bytes sec 236374 samples sec C xdeuxt ime lab gt 143 ref lt Hz gt input lt Hz gt When acquiring data directly from a TimePod TimeLab rounds its reference and input frequency estimates according to the process described on pages 43 45 Phase frequency measurements with the TimePod The TimeLab acquisition dialog also allows you to enter explicit input and reference frequencies if desired As explained in that section of the manual the reference rounding process provides the best achievable frequency count chart accuracy when highly accurate references are in use while the ability to enter explicit input and reference frequencies allows you to make accurate residual phase measurements However it s important to understand that no input or reference frequency rounding is performed by STREAM EXE The accuracy of the input and reference frequencies that are displayed at the console window when STREAM EXE is launched depends solely on the accuracy of the TimePod s free running internal clock Consequently if you
34. either stop collecting data if an acquisition is in progress or start a new acquisition if data is not currently being acquired 105 Abort and retrigger selected acquisition Ctrl a Keep and retrigger selected acquisition Ctrl k Like Acquire gt Stop repeat acquisition Space these commands are normally accessed via their respective keyboard shortcuts Often used when you accidentally disturb the equipment or remember an omitted step in the measurement procedure Ctrl a will restart the selected plot s measurement immediately with no further interaction Ctrl k behaves similarly but it will not discard the acquired data before relaunching the acquisition These commands operate as follows If no plots are loaded either command will bring back the most recently used acquisition dialog as if the Space bar shortcut were used Otherwise if the selected plot is associated with an acquisition in progress that acquisition will be terminated Any other acquisitions in progress will not be affected If the Abort Ctrl a command was issued the selected plot will be closed and its data discarded A new acquisition will be started in its place using the driver associated with the now deleted plot The new plot will retain the same position in the legend table If the Keep Ctrl k command was issued the selected plot will not be closed A new acquisition will be launched with its instrument driver The resulting plot
35. instance if an oscillator near 10 MHz is measured against a drift free source at exactly 10 MHz the Tl readings from the counter will increase or decrease from one trigger interval to the next When the START to STOP interval exceeds 100 nanoseconds or falls below 0 nanoseconds the TI readings will necessarily wrap back around to the opposite rail This phenomenon gives rise to the sawtooth shaped phase trace familiar to users of vector network analyzers As seen in the measurement example above the phase wrapping effect is visible in the Phase difference Original w measurement view in TimeLab Conversely TimeLab s Measurement gt Phase difference Unwrapped p view displays the TI samples in the form of phase data that s been unwrapped The sawtooth 43 discontinuities are removed by adding or subtracting the input signal s period whenever the sample to sample time difference exceeds half of that period It s seldom necessary to refer to the original phase difference graph except when troubleshooting configuration problems with live TI counter measurements In most cases you should select the Measurement Phase difference Unwrapped p view when you wish to inspect the principal phase record for your acquisition Additionally all of the flattening detrending and data removal commands on the Edit menu work by replacing the original phase data with modified data based on the unwrapped record After executing any of these c
36. is not Run last executed script C Users Public Documents TimeLab Scripts 53304_performance_test js Shift Space currently supported Numerous API functions are De u ie Stop all running scripts F12 provided to support a variety of applications ranging from the standard TimePod performance verification procedures included with TimeLab to user developed test scripts The Scripts menu helps you edit run and otherwise manage your collection of test scripts Creating a new test script The easiest way to create a new test script is to set up your a E measurement in the TimePod acquisition dialog just as you Save measurement script normally would Then rather than selecting Start Measurement Update firmware click the Save measurement script button on the Utility tab The Windows file dialog that appears will prompt you to save the current set of measurement parameters to a JavaScript js file When executed later with Scripts gt Run script the script will launch a measurement with the same acquisition parameters and options As an alternative you can use Scripts gt Edit script to create modified copies of the scripts that are included with TimeLab such as 5330A_performance_test js 5330A_ADC_test js and OCXO_2hr_stability_test js These programs are more elaborate than the elementary scripts created by Save measurement script They exercise virtually all of the capabilities of the TimeLab script API
37. launched by the script Alternatively selection may be omitted In this case the function closes the plot associated with the first channel of the most recent measurement executed by the script In both cases calling FileClosePlot on a plot associated with a given measurement will stop any acquisition s in progress that were initiated by that measurement The script s EventAcqDone handler if any will be called for any acquisitions that were terminated by FileClosePlot FileExecute String path_to_file String params FileExecute attempts to execute or otherwise open the specified file using the open verb with the Win32 ShellExecute API function If ShellExecute returns successfully FileExecute returns true otherwise if an error occurred it returns false path_to_file should be a fully qualified pathname Optionally a string consisting of one or more parameters may be passed to ShellExecute via the params argument As an example FileExecute is used by 5330A_performance_test js to view the generated HTML report page on the system s Web browser FileNumLoadedPlots Returns the number of currently loaded plots from 0 to 9 FileNumUnsavedPlots Returns the number of currently loaded plots from 0 to 9 that have not been saved since being acquired or modified 121 FileSave String path String subdir String filename Based on the case insensitive suffix of filename FileSave saves either
38. making such measurements ii Since the phase difference slope reflects any offset in frequency between the downconverted input and reference signals both frequencies must be accurately specified to the TimePod acquisition driver when making phase drift measurements at high precision Even the slightest inaccuracy in estimation of the reference or input frequency during measurement initialization will add a nonzero bias to the baseband phase difference slope 47 Examining traces in detail In the example below a crystal oscillator was measured over a 12 hour period The Measurement Phase difference p and Measurement gt Frequency difference f views appear side by side for comparison Phase Difference ency Difference Averaging window Per parl e aging w Per pixel LA r 150 655 l E OOE TS 8 08 2006 78 LOEB um A A OA es Od CS O ARO 1 5DF 68 2500 69 DE 1908 Hie 5 08 To 9508 11408 13308 1520s 17108 8 Un 1008 32808 S s 7608 0508 1148 13308 1508 1108 585 Tree Siena saws Tome EA ere Not much detail is visible in either trace Some sporadic frequency jumps are present but they re not easily examined since their height is such a small fraction of the plot s overall magnitude Subtract global linear phase trend frequency offset Ctrl o command expands the phase difference trace somewhat by removing its linear trend but it only moves the frequency difference trace d
39. noise P and Measurement gt AM Noise A views this command creates an ASCII text file containing offset dBc values corresponding to entries in the spur table for the selected plot One value pair is written per line each value is rendered with 16 digits of precision to the right of the decimal point See Spurs on page 59 for more about spur detection and measurement 67 By default the exported offset dBc pairs will be saved with the suffix CSV for ease of reading into Excel and other spreadsheets Print image After displaying a standard dialog box for printer selection and configuration this command prints the current contents of the TimeLab window The printed image will not contain any visible status or error messages notifications prompts or mouse cursor query values The black triangle cursor associated with the currently selected plot will also be omitted Scale file dialogs by window size When this option is enabled common file dialogs in Windows XP will be centered in the TimeLab window and resized proportionally In later Windows versions the option has no effect Default disabled Warn before exiting with unsaved plots If enabled this option causes TimeLab to prompt for confirmation before exiting if any plots have been acquired or edited but not saved Default enabled Reset all parameters options and settings at next startup This option causes a dialog box to appear when you exit from TimeLab confi
40. of another work not based on the Library with the Library or with a work based on the Library on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License 3 You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library To do this you must alter all the notices that refer to this License so that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License version 2 instead of to this License If a newer version than version 2 of the ordinary GNU General Public License has appeared then you can specify that version instead if you wish Do not make any other change in these notices Once this change is made in a given copy it is irreversible for that copy so the ordinary GNU General Public License applies to all subsequent copies and derivative works made from that copy This option is useful when you wish to copy part of the code of the Library into a program that is not a library 4 You may copy and distribute the Library or a portion or derivative of it under Section 2 in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you accompany it with the complete corresponding machine readable source code which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange 160 If distribution of object code is made by offering access to copy
41. offset Ctrl o has the drawback of altering the selected plot s phase data record and removing potentially useful information namely the phase trendline Fortunately there s also a non destructive global option that has the same visual effect Trace gt Show linear phase frequency residual r Frequency Difference Linear residual Averaging window Per pixel 1 00E 11 8 00E 12 6 00E 12 4 00E 12 2 00E 12 0 00E 0 2 00E 12 4 00E 12 6 00E 12 8 00E 12 1 00E 11 Os 2s 4s 6s 8s 10s 11s 13s 15s 17s 19s __ Input Freq Sampleinterval Acquired Instrument 10MHz 0 004s 3930 pts TimePod 5330A These two commands Show linear phase frequency residual r and Phase frequency traces begin at zero z are among the most commonly used options on the Trace menu If you spend much time working with phase and frequency difference traces their r and z keyboard shortcuts will quickly become familiar z can increase visible 78 detail while preserving the graph s original shape while r is better at revealing short term noise and other effects that become harder to spot as the graph expands to accommodate a larger overall trend Some additional usage examples can be found on page 48 Show linear phase frequency trend Ctrl t When enabled this option causes TimeLab to display a dashed line on unzoomed phase and frequency difference traces to indicate the data s linear trend Phase Difference Averaging window
42. on the graph As the script console overlay tends to obscure the data being plotted the F11 key provides a convenient way to hide or show the overlay for the currently selected plot Stop all running scripts F12 Stops any scripts that are currently running as well as any measurements associated with those script s 101 102 Acquire Menu TimeLab s principal mission is to serve as the user interface for the TimePod 5330A Programmable Cross Spectrum Analyzer from Miles Design but support for many other instruments is also provided The Acquire menu includes a list of all instruments recognized by TimeLab followed by a small number of commands that manage acquisition operations When selected each entry on the Acquire menu that corresponds to a given instrument will bring up an acquisition dialog Acquisition dialogs are used to configure the instrument and initiate data collection Every acquisition in TimeLab runs in its own thread so you can load or acquire other plots while data collection is in progress Acquired data can be saved at any time even during the measurement likewise all options on the Trace and Display menus apply equally to existing plots and those that are currently being acquired While acquisition dialogs are straightforward to work with their layout and functionality varies greatly from one instrument to the next Each dialog displays extensive help text that s refreshed as the mouse pointer enters each f
43. or loaded One measurement type may be selected at a time As discussed on page 27 TimeLab plots and their associated TIM files use independent data records for different measurement classes Some instruments like the TimePod 5330A can acquire data for all measurements supported by TimeLab but most are limited to specific measurement types For instance acquisitions made with a frequency counter or TIC may be viewed with the Allan deviation a Modified Allan deviation m Hadamard deviation h Time deviation t Phase difference p or Frequency difference f selections on the menu but not Phase noise P or AM noise A Regardless of the instrument used all supported measurement records are acquired and processed simultaneously by TimeLab After launching a 53304 acquisition with all of the Available Measurements options selected in the acquisition dialog for example you can switch between all of the entries in the Measurements menu to view your data as it arrives Plots that don t include the necessary data for the selected measurement type will not be rendered When the TimeLab window is empty despite the presence of one or more loaded or acquired plots a brief explanatory message will be displayed in the color associated with each plot to indicate why nothing is being drawn See Making Measurements on page 29 for a detailed discussion of the measurement types supported by TimeLab 95 96 Masks Menu The Masks me
44. plots These graphs are created by calculating phase and or amplitude differences for all four baseband streams 00 10 01 11 02 12 and 03 13 at the full 236 ks sec data rate The resulting data is then processed by FFT and cross spectrum averaging routines Because it would be impractical to retain the original high bandwidth complex baseband data or any phase or amplitude information derived from it only the averaged FFT output bins are written to the TIM file when saving the phase noise or AM noise portion of a measurement 28 Making measurements Allan Deviation 1 11 Three views of the same MENE TimePod 5330A measurement 0 045 1 26E 12 a A 4 0 08s 8 43E 13 in which a GPS disciplined 0 1s 7 63E 13 025 6 42E 13 oscillator was used as a 0 4s 5 58E 13 0 8s 5 37E 13 reference to measure a 1E 12 1 5 26E 13 1 f 2s 4 85E 13 high quality HP 10811 OCXO 4s 5 69E 13 8s 7 24E 13 10s 7 73E 13 Le 20s 1 11E 12 The Allan Deviation plot can 40s 2 02E 12 80s 3 78E 12 reveal frequency stability at timescales from milliseconds to 1 days while the Phase Noise plot 0 0015 0 015 100s can show you the signal s USB Trace Imputfreg Input Amplitude Sample Interval ENBW Elapsed instrument HP 10811 60109 10 000MHz 13dBm 10 000MHz 0 004 52 7 HZ 3m0s TimePod 5330A spectral signature at offsets from 0 01 Hz to 100 kHz Here the GPS clock dominates the noise Phase N
45. reason not limited to patent issues conditions are imposed on you whether by court order agreement or otherwise that contradict the conditions of this License they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations then as a consequence you may not distribute the Library at all For example if a patent license would not permit royalty free redistribution of the Library by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Library If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system which is implemented by public license practices Many people have made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application of that system it is up to the author donor to decide if he or she is willing to distribute software throug
46. returns a string containing the saved file s fully qualified pathname Any errors that occur will not be reported to the script They will result in a JavaScript exception which will terminate the script with an appropriate error message As an example 5330A_performance_test js uses FileSaveText to save its HTML report LegendSelect String field_name Boolean status Controls and or reports the visibility of a given parameter field_name in the legend table beneath the graph This function s arguments may consist of a single Boolean value in which case it will select or deselect all legend fields in a manner similar to the Legend gt All or Legend None menu commands a single String value which will simply return the visibility state of the specified field_name without changing it or both String and Boolean parameters which will show status true or hide status false the specified field_name in the table and return its previous state 122 MaskResultMargin Returns a Number value representing the margin by which the measurement associated with the script is passing if positive or failing if negative the mask test selected by MaskSelect The returned value is based on the most recently rendered frame so it is dependent on both the current measurement view and the currently selected mask Refer to the Masks menu description on page 97 for more information about TimeLab s mask test functionality Important K
47. s EventTimer handler at regular intervals Of msec milliseconds Because TimeLab s scripting system relies on cooperative multitasking most non trivial scripts should carry out the majority of their processing work in their EventTimer handler while their measurement s are in progress For detailed examples of timer usage refer to 5330A_performance_test js and 5330A_ADC _test js Prior to termination a script that uses timer service should call TimeSetTimer 0 to discontinue further callbacks TraceAvgWindow Number seconds Sets and or retrieves the duration in seconds from 0 01 to 10000 0 of the averaging window used for phase and frequency difference plots An argument of 0 seconds disables averaging entirely The function returns the previous window duration It may be called with no argument to return the current value without altering it See the Trace gt Averaging window for phase frequency traces g command for important information on trace averaging TraceMarkSpurs Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the spur visibility flag controlled by Trace gt Mark spurs in noise traces Ctrl m Refer to this command for more information To return the current spur visibility flag value call TraceMarkSpurs with no argument TraceOverlayAMPM Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Show AM noise in PN view F8 Refer to this command for more information
48. status message written to the Windows console after startup typically the user s Documents directory The default logfile name used when no logfile parameter is provided is server log port lt portnum gt Specifies the TCP IP port on which STREAM EXE will broadcast incoming phase difference or frequency readings By default STREAM EXE transmits data on port 9192 To allow remote clients to access STREAM EXE you may need to configure your firewall or NAT gateway to open this port Instructions for doing so can be obtained from the equipment manufacturer When using software written to capture phase data from the Symmetricom TSC 5115A 5120A 5125A and compatible instruments you should specify port 1298 as well as format TSC on the STREAM EXE command line With TimeLab s Acquire gt Acquire from TCP IP streaming server option only the default phase difference data format format P is supported You can specify any desired port number as long as you also enter it in the acquisition dialog as shown below Example stream timepod tll port 1234 rate 100 This command will broadcast phase difference data on port 1234 at a rate of 100 readings per second You can receive the data on any machine on your LAN that can access the server including the server PC itself In TimeLab the Acquire gt Acquire from TCP IP streaming server option could be used as follows 138 Acquire phase data from TCP IP streaming server 1 Caption HP 50
49. the same measurement is made by other instruments For example spurs due to AC power coupling or ground loops discussed below appear very different when acquired at high sample rates and rendered with 20 or more ADEV bins per decade Line related spurs may not have been resolvable before but that doesn t mean they weren t present Measurement bandwidth and to One artifact that does originate in the 5330A s driver software is shown in the plot at right Four successive ADEV acquisitions are shown each conducted at a different noise equivalent measurement bandwidth ENBW setting Near the beginning of each trace some droop is present that doesn t accurately reflect the behavior of the DUT What causes this artifact Stein has shown that the optimum ENBW for a given ADEV To Allan Deviation 1E 10 1E 11 1E 12 0 0015 Trace Notes Sample Interval ENBW GPS clock OCXO 0 000486 s 514 1 Hz GPS clock OCXO 52 7 Hz GPS clock OCXO 5 2 Hz GPS clock OCXO 0 5 Hz TimePod 5330A TimePod 5330A TimePod 5330A TimePod 5330A 0 473 s is simply the 1 2 to Hz Nyquist rate This bandwidth is unachievable with a non ideal antialiasing filter so the 5330A driver internally acquires oversampled phase data that corresponds to an artificially short ty interval relative to the selected ENBW If allowed Allan Deviation 1E 13 0 0001s 0 001s Trace Notes Sample Interval ENBW
50. these cases the device s true ADEV is close to an imaginary line drawn through all of the lowest points in the trace Getting rid of AC line spurs can be a challenge Shielding at 50 60 Hz is usually impractical if the interference is magnetically coupled into the measurement there is 36 probably no cure besides identifying the offending source s and moving sensitive equipment and cables away Ground loops are a more likely offender since all ports on the 5330A have ground pins or shields that are bonded to the instrument s metal enclosure If you can identify the offending loop you may be able to break its RF path with a coaxial balun You can also attack the source of the loop by bonding all equipment to a common ground that s connected to the building s power distribution network in only one place To do this ensure that all devices participating in the measurement DUT reference TimePod computer and everything connected to them are all part of the same AC circuit preferably a power strip that allows all equipment to be plugged into a single outlet Using battery power can help but batteries shouldn t be your first resort Less drastic solutions can usually be found that will let you use the available AC power Try switching to MDEV for instance If you are measuring stable sources with sufficient warmup time you can eliminate line spurs by select the 5 Hz or 0 5 Hz Measurement BW option in the acquisition d
51. these views the readout at upper left displays the time and Y axis value corresponding to its position You can choose to display the number of seconds relative to the beginning of the phase record Ss the same elapsed time value in Hh Mm Ss format or the absolute time datestamp when the data at the mouse cursor location was logged Note that Display gt Do not show cursor values turns off the cursor readout in all views To re enable the cursor readout in the xDEV and noise displays select any of the other three options The mouse cursor readout is not rendered when saving image files or capturing images with File gt Copy image to clipboard Ctrl c 90 Browse plots one at a time b Overlay all loaded plots o Toggle visibility of selected plot v Since TimeLab allows up to nine plots to be loaded and displayed at once these three commands are needed to maintain a legible display They are often used together in rapid succession so they will be described together and referenced in abbreviated form Simply stated in b rowse mode only the selected plot is rendered In o verlay mode all loaded plots that haven t had their v isibility toggled off are rendered with the graph scale adjusted as necessary to accommodate them It s common to switch between b rowse and o verlay mode when inspecting and comparing several plots as the display can become rather crowded At the same time the v isibility command is often needed when you w
52. to the sample rate may appear to droop in such cases since the data has been band limited at a cutoff frequency below its Nyquist rate A discussion of this effect appears on page 35 Clip xDEV traces by confidence Ctrl v This display option is used to avoid rendering Allan deviation and other xDEV traces beyond the point where insufficient data is available for good statistical confidence It is enabled by default Specifically when this option is enabled the only xDEV bins that are drawn are those whose phase data sample count N is gt 2x their t multiple M Show correlation gain for selected noise trace Ctrl g Intended primarily as a diagnostic aid this option is supported when viewing phase noise or AM noise plots from instruments such as the TimePod 5330A that support real time cross correlation When enabled the FFT segments in the selected phase noise or AM noise plot will be color coded for identification A table will appear as an overlay in the graph area that displays the number of cross spectrum averages performed so far in each color coded segment along with the theoretical improvement in ADC noise expressed in dB The estimated improvement in each segment s effective noise floor is calculated as 10 log o sqrt N dB where N is the segment s number of averages Trace smoothing is not performed on the selected noise plot when this option is enabled Show FFT segment filter slopes Ctrl i This o
53. types or simply wait for the measurement to run long enough to reduce the trace variance grass Understanding instrument spurs While TimeLab can sometimes overlook true spurs and report nonexistent ones a third type of measurement error may need to be considered as well the presence of spurs which originate within the instrument itself The spur free dynamic range SFDR of the ADCs used in the 5330A is approximately 100 dB which determines the corresponding specification limit of the instrument as a whole In principle your noise plots may contain fictitious spurs as high as 100 dBc but the 5330A s typical performance is much better than this Any spurs with amplitudes above 120 dBc that remain visible as the measurement converges are almost certainly real in the sense that they originate from the DUT from the reference or from environmental RFI Regardless of the equipment used spur free observations of AM noise and phase noise become challenging below 150 dBc There are simply too many potential sources of coherent artifacts to rule out in most cases Still spurs that originate within the 5330A can sometimes be identified manually An informal technique that may help determine whether a given spur or spur cluster originates within the 5330A hardware itself is illustrated in the side by side plots on the next page 57 RA UI PW W 200 0 100 Hz 1 kHz 10 kHz 100 kHz At left the phase noise of a very hig
54. will appear in the next available slot in the legend table When applied to an acquisition in progress both commands work immediately without prompting for confirmation They re assigned to control keys to make them harder to press accidentally 106 Enable deferred acquisition Ctrl d Trigger deferred acquisition s Enter Deferred acquisition mode is toggled with the Enable deferred acquisition Ctrl d command In this mode TimeLab will allow acquisitions to be launched as usual However each new measurement s incoming data will be discarded until all pending measurements are triggered with the Trigger deferred acquisition s Enter command or another Enable deferred acquisition Ctrl d command is issued to return to immediate acquisition mode Data will then be collected normally for the duration of the measurement s Deferred acquisition mode can be useful when you wish to launch multiple concurrent acquisitions perhaps using different types of instruments with varying latency or setup time requirements while synchronizing the beginning of data collection as closely as possible across all measurements Enable deferred acquisition with Ctrl d start the desired measurements then press Enter to trigger data collection in all acquisitions at once Note that TimeLab doesn t specify the trigger latency associated with a group of deferred measurements Triggered measurements will normally start collecting valid data withi
55. wish to make phase stability measurements without an artificial frequency offset or if you wish to obtain accurate frequency counts in TimeLab s Measurement Frequency difference f view or when using STREAM EXE s format F mode you should use the ref and input options to specify the nominal reference and input frequencies explicitly See the preceding demonstration of the window option for an example 144 autoupdate The autoupdate function is useful in scenarios where STREAM EXE may need to be recompiled upgraded or otherwise replaced over a network without manual intervention at the server console When autoupdate is present on the command line STREAM EXE will periodically check for the presence of a file called STREAM EX1 in the same directory as the executable If STREAM EX1 is ever found STREAM EXE will terminate with exit 2 reporting the message Server terminated due to release of new version This feature depends on the use of a batch file or script to launch STREAM EXE Upon detecting exit code 2 when STREAM EXE terminates the batch file or script should overwrite STREAM EXE with a copy of STREAM EX1 delete STREAM EX1 and then relaunch the new STREAM EXE process with the same set of command line parameters When any other exit code is returned by STREAM EXE the batch file or script can exit normally or take other actions Two examples of autoupdate batch files are included in the TimeLab directory SERVE BAT
56. with any reference whose frequency lies within its specified range 0 5 30 MHz regardless of the input frequency from the device under test DUT Frequency readings and phase noise levels are always referred to the frequency at the INPUT jack For example if your 10 MHz DUT s phase noise when measured with a 5 MHz reference is 160 dBc Hz at 10 kHz and its Allan deviation is 3E 12 at t 10s you will still measure 160 dBc Hz and ADEV 3E 12 if you switch to a 10 MHz reference or one at any other frequency The only complication is the need to handicap the reference s phase noise and FM PM spur amplitudes by 20 log10 Four Frer AB when the DUT and reference frequencies differ This is the same consideration that applies at all other times when a signal undergoes broadband frequency multiplication or division The effective phase noise and spur performance of the reference source would be 6 dB worse in the example above where a 5 MHz reference is used to characterize a 10 MHz device Likewise the reference s long term stability characteristics e g Allan deviation would be degraded by a factor of 2 Ideally the phase noise of your reference after any applicable 20 log10 Four Frer correction should be at least 8 10 dB lower than the expected performance of the DUT at the offsets of interest The reference s phase noise will not affect the measurement to any great extent as long as this margin is maintained This being said it s s
57. 0 0000E 000s 1 0000E 012s 2 0000E 012s 3 0000E 012s 4 0000E 012s 5 0000E 012s 0s 4400s 88005 13200s 176005 220005 264005 308005 35200s 396005 55 Trace _InputFreq Input Amplitude Ref Amplitude ENBW Acquired Instrument 25 MHz residual 3 hours 2568004 1 671 Hz 9 dBm 10 dBm 52 7 Hz 2167272 pts TimePod 5330A 5 MHz residual 12 hours 5000000 Hz 12 3 dBm 12 3 dBm 52 7 Hz 9119124 pts TimePod 5330A Despite visible HVAC cycling overall phase stability is within 1 ps over the entire 12 hour 5 MHz run The 25 MHz residual trace on the other hand was taken with inadequate warmup time It begins with about 30 minutes of noticeable phase drift about three picoseconds until the TimePod s internal components reach thermal equilibrium Slow drift in the opposite direction is then observed 112 Phase Noise L f in dBc Hz 110 0 PM Spur Offset Hz dBc N 4570 0 145 2 120 0 13690 0 139 2 14800 0 136 8 16570 0 152 6 22810 0 146 3 130 0 A 27390 0 144 9 29580 0 139 7 0 1 Hz 1 Hz 10 Hz 100 Hz 1 kHz 10 kHz 100 kHz Ll Trace Imputfreq Input Amplitude RefAmplitude dBc Hz at 10 kHZ RMS Jitter _ Acquired Instrument 25 MHz residual 3 hours 25680045 355 Hz 9 dBm 9 dBm 175 8 6 6E 015 s 2280682 pts TimePod 5330A 5 MHz residual 12 hours 5000000 Hz 12 3 dBm 12 3 dBm 180 5 1 4E 014 s 9119124 pts TimePod 5330A AM Noise M f in dBc Hz AM Spur Offset Hz dBc
58. 120 dBc 280 mm x 120 mm x 75 mm 1 kg 11 x 5 x 3 2 pounds 90 264 VAC 47 63 Hz lt 25W 3 pole AC inlet IEC320 C14 15C to 35C operating 20C to 50C storage 60F to 95F operating OF to 125F storage Note Due to the use of cross correlation to cancel instrument noise the phase noise and AM noise floors depend strongly on the measurement time and available signal levels Residual specifications assume that measurements are made after a two hour warmup period in a temperature stable environment with 15 dBm at both INPUT and REF IN jacks and Trace gt Smooth noise traces enabled Under these conditions 5 10 MHz signals are typically measurable to better than 170 dBc Hz at offsets gt 10 kHz after less than 10 minutes Quieter signals lower amplitude signals signals near the frequency coverage limits and measurements of very low close in noise may require more time to converge 11 12 Getting started What s in the box Please check the contents of your package carefully upon arrival Each TimePod 5330A unit should be accompanied by the following items e 1 USB 2 0 cable A Male B Male e 1 Power supply e 2 TNC M BNC F coax adapters e 2 1 25 4 mm SMA M SMA M coax jumpers preinstalled Additionally each 5330A delivered to North American customers includes a standard IEC320 NEMA 5 15P power cord for 120V service For operation in other countries the 5330A s power supply accepts 50 60 Hz AC
59. 2s 90s 85 144s 180s Trace Imputfreg Input Amplitude Sample interval ENBW Elapsed instrument HP 10811 60109 10 000MHz 13dBm 10 000MHz 0 004s 52 7Hz 3m0s TimePod 5330A 29 30 What s all this ADEV stuff anyhow With apologies to the late Bob Pease and his editors at Electronic Design here are a few tips to help you understand what Allan deviation ADEV graphs really tell you and how to get the most out of the statistical deviation measurements made by TimeLab Allan deviation is defined as the two sample deviation of fractional frequency differences at a given time interval While technically correct such definitions may be unenlightening to new users Often the first question asked is something like Why did my plot stop at 1000 seconds It took an hour to run Allan Deviation 1E 10 Tau Sigma Tau 0 1s 4 74E 11 0 2s 3 22E 11 0 4s 2 01E 11 1E 11 0 85 1 29E 11 1s 1 13E 11 2s 7 63E 12 4s 5 27E 12 8s 3 70E 12 10s 3 31E 12 1E 12 20s 2 31E 12 40s 1 59E 12 80s 1 11E 12 100s 9 96E 13 200s 7 62E 13 400s 5 79E 13 1E 13 800s 3 95E 13 1000s 3 58E 13 1E 14 0 0015 0 01s 0 1s 1s 10s 100s 1000s 10000s 100000s 00095 LPRO 101 Rb HP 5065A Rb E SEZ U TimePod 5330A SRS PRS10 Rb HP 10811 60109 in 5061A 133E 11 TimePod 5330A HP 5061A Cs Active maser 9 82E 13 TSC 5110A Wenzel Timekeeper Oscilloquartz BVA 8607 008 N Re TSC 5120A Oscilloquartz BVA 8607 008 HP 5065A Rb 1 1 25E 12 TSC 5110A
60. 30A s case the floor estimate is simply a heavily smoothed rendition of the imaginary portion of the cross spectrum average shown by the Show imaginary part of cross spectrum Ctrl F3 command For more information about the imaginary cross spectrum and the Ctrl F3 command in particular see Understanding instrument spurs on page 57 Use caution when relying on the noise floor estimate While reasonably accurate it may appear artificially high in the vicinity of instrument spurs Conversely thermal effects can raise the real measurement floor slightly above the shaded floor estimate As with ADEV measurements the best way to obtain proof of performance for analyzers in this class is to run residual tests at similar frequencies and signal levels J Particularly when viewing multiple traces in Display 3 Overlay o mode it may be preferable to leave the floor display turned off in order to reduce display clutter Note that when Show imaginary part of cross spectrum Ctrl F3 is active the File gt Export AM PM noise trace command will export the imaginary cross spectrum trace data rather than the normal AM noise or phase noise trace 84 Mark spurs in noise traces Ctrl m Suppress spurs in noise traces Ctrl s For a detailed discussion of these commands and other aspects of spur detection and rendering in phase noise and AM noise plots see page 55 Smooth noise traces Ctrl w Phase Noise amp if in 7 Phase Noise
61. 5C after several hours operation e Do not disturb the measurement setup mechanically move cables around or otherwise interact with the environment unnecessarily during acquisition After the measurement ends you can use TimeLab s phase record editing features to get rid 24 of known glitches but nothing can be done to restore a corrupted noise plot Any glitches that affect the phase noise or AM noise plots will require a restart Every measurement in TimeLab runs in its own background thread so you can load save and manipulate plots or even launch additional acquisitions with other instruments while an acquisition is running This is subject to available memory and CPU resources of course A typical TimePod 5330A acquisition takes about 16 MB sec of USB bandwidth and about one core s worth of CPU horsepower When equipped with multiple USB host controllers the fastest available PCs can acquire data from up to four TimePods concurrently Most PCs will be limited to two concurrent acquisitions at most The acquisition dialogs in TimeLab all have large mouseover help windows The help text serves as hardware specific documentation for the various analyzers and counters supported by TimeLab Read it carefully before changing any fields from their default values Attempting to run Frequency Stability measurements with large phase records and high data rates may result in Couldn t allocate phase record or similar message
62. 614 vs Trimble Thunderbolt Additional Notes Input Frequency 10E6 Hz Sample Rate 0 Hz Output Decimation 1 Scale Factor 1 0 Bin Density Bin Threshold Trace History LTE Trace Duration Hours y Run Until Manually terminated or acquisition complete 7 IP Address localhost 1234 Instrument Remote TCP IP server Start Measurement Cancel Restore Defaults Instrument Address Enter the IP address of the instrument followed by an optional port number e g ke5fx dyndns org 1298 If no port number is specified the default port is 9192 msglvl lt 0 5 gt Specifies the verbosity of informational warning and error messages that STREAM EXE will display on the server console msglvl 0 will display all available status messages and notices including internal driver diagnostic messages while msglvI 5 will display only fatal error messages The default message level is 3 Messages displayed at the server console are also written to the logfile See the logfile option for more information format lt P F TSC gt Specifies the type of measurement data that will be broadcast via TCP IP or logged to the specified file STREAM EXE writes phase difference data by default format P but you can also record absolute frequency readings with format F or TSC 51xx style phase values with format TSC The latter option emits phase difference data that has been inverted and scaled by the input frequency
63. ATE WITH ANY OTHER SOFTWARE EVEN IFSUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS Software License V8 JavaScript Engine http code google com p v8 Copyright 2006 2012 the V8 project authors All rights reserved Redistribution and use in source and binary forms with or without modification are permitted provided that the following conditions are met Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice this list of conditions and the following disclaimer Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and or other materials provided with the distribution Neither the name of Google Inc nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS AS IS AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT INDIRECT INCIDENTAL SPECIAL EXEMPLARY OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES LOSS OF USE DATA OR PROFITS OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION HOWEVER CAU
64. B interface API and Cypress FX2LP microcontroller source code is also supplied in XEM3005 zip These resources are provided under the terms of the TimeLab software license page 157 to support the development of custom measurement applications with the TimePod hardware As stated in the license no warranties are provided with regard to the use of this information in your own projects To disassemble the 53304 first remove the nuts and washers from the TNC jack and SMA jacks on the INPUT panel then remove the eight screws along the INPUT panel s perimeter After the INPUT panel has been removed the instrument s top or bottom cover will slide off after removing two additional screws near the corresponding edge of the REF IN panel Do not unscrew the fasteners that attach the POWER or USB jacks to the REF IN panel unless replacing one of these components Reassemble the 5330A in the opposite order of disassembly Prior to installing the INPUT panel with its eight mounting screws carefully position the inner washers and nuts on the four SMA jack barrels so that they will contact the inner surface of the INPUT panel under light tension after the mounting screws are tightened You can either align the washers visually or temporarily install the INPUT panel without the top cover in order to tighten the SMA nuts against the panel s inner surface Torque applied to all SMA nuts both inner and outer should be the minimum necessary to secure the fasteners Th
65. BoundToPlot It is required only in scripts that support multichannel plots such as 5330A_performance_test js and 5330A_ADC test js 125 ScriptEnd Marks the script for cleanup by the TimeLab runtime JavaScript engine Scripts which are associated with loaded plots must be terminated with a call to ScriptEnd when finished Otherwise they will continue to run and consume resources until one of the following conditions is true A script exception or other fatal error occurs The Scripts gt Stop all running scripts F12 command is issued by the user The user exits from TimeLab ScriptFilename Boolean full_path If full_path is true ScriptFilename returns a String containing the fully qualified path to the script s JavaScript js source file Otherwise it returns only the filename itself 126 ScriptGetString String heading String message Object user_text String b1_text String b2_text String b3_txt Presents a modal dialog box to the user that accepts freeform text entry An example appears below var trace_caption value Some default text could go here if ScriptGetString OCXO Stability Test Enter trace caption above then click OK to continue trace_caption OK Cancel 0 seriptEnd return When executed the result is a dialog box of the form OCXO Stability Test Enter trace caption above then click OK to continue OK Cancel
66. Default timestamp s MJD 1 Default sep ticharacter gt l ref lt Hz gt 1 input lt Hz gt 1 noexit notcpl novarnings C Program Files Miles Design TimeLab gt 136 Using STREAM EXE Because STREAM EXE performs only phase frequency stability measurements its command line options are relatively limited Only one parameter is mandatory you must specify the hardware driver s filename as the first parameter on the command line Currently only the TimePod driver is supported so all STREAM EXE command lines must begin as follows stream timepod tll Additional options described below may be specified as needed serial lt sernum gt When more than one TimePod is connected to the server PC you may need to use the serial option to associate a given STREAM EXE instance with a specific instrument Each instance of STREAM EXE supports only one acquisition at a time but you can launch as many instances as desired Example stream timepod tll serial 55908 304876 The command above will launch an instance of STREAM EXE for use with the TimePod whose serial number is 55908 304876 All other parameters will assume their default values configuring the server to provide phase difference data on TCP IP port 9192 ata rate of 10 readings per second file lt filename gt Specifies the name of a file to which the phase difference or frequency readings will be written If the specified file alr
67. How does TimeLab measure 1 45 Phase frequency measurements with the 45 Measurement intallIZ Osiris 46 Exa mine 16116 uuu ala iii ee 48 Navigating zoomed BrapBSu u u L een 49 Hints for phase frequency stability measurements 7 51 Phase nobe AM NOISE and liter esase ale als 53 Integrated noise and jitter MEASULEMENL ccccccssecccsecccesecccescccaeececeuececeececeeeeeeeessusceseneseseneeenees 54 THE SUI DIE taria aia iio 55 SHOW or NIGE KNOWN US eee Re ee edd ie S a 2 es 55 Spur Measurement 0110115 u u uuu ny uuu Su uu Su SEE suami skua ici 56 S IE Icy 9 181 ako I I Su u o 57 Understanaine Instrument SHUTS smile 57 FUMES TOR NOISE measurement as 59 T mebab lt onmandreferente sen ee 61 EINE TIE ULE 4 73342444 82444 63 Load IV AS LE SDS SE E Maen LAY bel 63 Save IEE On MMM Saa 4 u Ai 63 Copy image to clipboard Ctrl C rc od 64 IMPOrt PNP Phase nos data Ni ls 64 Import ASCII phase or frequency data 64 Export ASCil Dhase data kyu u l As 65 ExportASCll frequency data Alta ias 65 EXport Dinary phase Hals nee 66 Export phase data to Stables2 Ci arena 66 EXDOFLXDEV TICO uy u y AAN 67 FXDOFL AM PMIHOBE Matet 67 ExpOr AM PM A EAGER 67 PIL In IP uu xu uy un m unus ta 68 Scale THE Gialogs DY WINndoW SIZE ek 68 Warmbetore exttine witn unsaved DIOBS se ei 68 Reset all parameters options and settings at next startup
68. IF TGA PCX or BMP format By default TIM files will be saved To save an image file simply add one of the suffixes above when you enter the filename Keep in mind that image files do not preserve your original measurement data and cannot be reloaded into TimeLab Generally the PNG format is best for saving images from TimeLab for email attachment or inclusion in other documents GIF and PCX files will discard some color information while TGA and BMP files are unnecessarily large When saving an image all visible status and error messages notifications prompts and mouse cursor query values are removed The black triangle cursor associated with the currently selected plot will also be omitted from saved images 63 Copy image to clipboard Ctrl c This command offers a handy shortcut for cutting pasting TimeLab screen images into other programs via the operating system s clipboard avoiding the need to save an image file When copying the screen image to the clipboard all visible status and error messages notifications prompts and mouse cursor query values are removed The black triangle cursor associated with the currently selected plot will also be omitted from the copied image Use caution when pasting images from the clipboard into email messages Some clients may encode them in uncompressed form resulting in messages too large to email reliably When in doubt consider attaching a saved PNG file instead Impo
69. IONIN LU NULIdINoSs 30 856 Een u 1841 uteb xp hiriqnedwo gt g9ZZ211 403 Mo pan pesn iON 9d ran 394 1X3 N9 Z 394 LNI PPN 3SN3S H O pu9 US PPN ONYY 6 ppn fuo 2111965 AD013 PPN E Z 3 NWBSE PPN AWGZT PPN E Z 7 0 6 gan E309 Podewt aszhreuy wnajseds 55049 VOLES ITI 60 seu AT STTS rs ooz E oon EJOV hi Tee GORE 219 Cono a km s N Lo 3 Y DEM 4 w ir 28 e we E Mm 9TZZILA TN E ae 8588393 E ONU voad TI QONO E20 AT 0 AT BOTA yT 0 Zeta vaa ger Tre 2010 90 31300 Dar 48 ING 41 8 ONS ST BISNET EICH 3391X3_ 306 s 1 y 255322988 F o _ QTL Hal 9 7 00 I 1T NI d 1 g8988 88z685558998555 da ii 152 E SIINIONIL 3190 J 018 J0 3 093 Ud 0 2048 2102 3 03008 1841 2 9 1133H8 T 0 rPOd url y aszh euy unap ds 55049 YBEES IT ubtseg 511 2 983 naar T A QET 00 17 DOTA T Sd 0Y 379 430 19 920 3T2 DSEEWT ai GIIA 002 012 2677 7 0 BT2 Z8 EE0 3710 1H33 rom 903 7 9zT3 YORNGIASTO 32919 2n vondo 2T3 TYLXAZT 10x30 92M uondo 404 NW BBZ NW BST 2DEIJOA LonTsuea 91IUYM INIQ
70. Lab a local copy of the TimePod 5330A manual is also installed on your hard drive About TimeLab This command displays an About box showing the program version compilation date and any supported command line parameters Debug mode TimeLab contains some debugging development specific features that are not documented or supported for general use and are likely to be removed or deprecated in the future For example Measurement gt F requency spectrum is intended for debugging rather than as a supported feature because the firmware isn t optimized for general spectrum analysis work These debugging features will be inaccessible if Help gt Debug mode is turned off It s not recommended that you enable this debug mode under most circumstances as it may disable important safeguards against measurement errors and cause other features to function in unexpected ways Check for updates Ctrl u By default TimeLab will automatically check the Miles Design web site on a weekly basis and inform you if a newer version is available for download Updates to TimeLab are always free of charge You can use the Help gt Check for updates Ctrl u command to reschedule or disable these notifications 109 110 Appendix Some examples of residual performance The gold standard diagnostic resource for the TimePod 5330A is a simple residual test conducted after at least a 1 hour warmup in which you drive the inputs at gt 10 dBm using a
71. N N ae ee ee te 92 Decrease font size or Ctrl Mouse Wheel scsi 92 Increase font size or Ctrl mouse wheel Js esle 92 Fa Eee een 93 Measurement Ie sucia ea 95 Masks Meli a ads 97 Clear mask selEC LION cairo 97 USEr detined Mask entries aaa 97 Edit Mask definitions asii 98 SEN DES MENU Eee ee 99 Creating a New testscribb sara s au Sa w ui SSS ea 99 RUN CDE asa 100 EEES AO 100 A niehlease 100 Run lastsexecuted script Shift Space siii usa 100 Toggle script console for selected plot 1 101 SIORaILFUNAINESCHDESHF Deere ee ei 101 PCOUIN CAN ENU ae 40 E E bn oe 103 Miles Desien MMEPOO e 103 Acquire trom Counter in 191 0117 MOO zuteil p i a aypa lia 103 Acquire from live ASCU MIG cc te Bis leet ee HH A ee eee 104 HPSS PS 19 5313 A SSIS IA anne 104 ERS 2 20002 2 1 ene aera ro E 104 HESSIAN O OSO E O O asien 104 A O NSR ES aysa 104 APS 3712 53 A EE EEE een 104 05 6 1 DOS E OS a E SS 104 PicotestiArray UB200A SETE S CDS A SE OS m SE SR 104 Stanford Research ROD iia cias 104 Wavecrest DTS 2050 2070 5 104 Symmetricom 5115A 5120A 5125A Frequency stability 00 sa sss sess 105 Symmetricom 5115A 5120A 5125A 105 Stop repeatracquisition Space ee nes 105 Abort and retrigger selected acquisition Ctrl a r 106 Keep and retrigger selected
72. O BETY 195 68 tO CNIVHAST Arddns 0X90 2 ET eat TIYLXNZT 57 Bes WLXNST ten Neh S96T 17 el 7 butun 0 IM ASZ 4P OF 3274 AGZ 4M BT ecto ONS Witt HOZ SS ne aT reno J E 9LE YdD 93U349 98 DOU dern zz ar an Sz J391X3 TIO 2378 MES AN 2 IW A NYJ TINE L3391X3 EDDY BT ITT a 35N35 ino S 7 SS99917 9 DW AS 3391X3_23009 153 NIO TUIN 9d S 3 8900 104 haoss 55u Ud 0 2048 2102 3 03608 1541 24 85 6 60 43zh euy wnajseds 55049 peag ITI Ubisag set peag peag peag daaT STI 985 52207 TX degt 22 pasnum YE NST UMdSZTENTLBFZNS 11713143 N 2 3 391200 8390y NANO 40 e Ob a a Po 5 B 1 200 79 9 N 210 070 3 11200 0 8 NI 7 11 00 sen BBELINISENS ans 36 BET Locas 3BBZTSEIX Jeuerseds 11170 9068113 Array 0 2 99785N ren 2938 491U YOd4 85N YI INE ST B18N8 Z 904 afal 8 ST BISN8 E904 R z 2 P 2 s s 3 s 1 olololotototoloteoteoteotretretro ololololololololo a s N gt N m lt o M J AT N N 2 N N 2 s DE 2 0752 209 o EZ NTT 757 8 C E zen 12032 074 Ed 0 14 Appendix Legal and regulatory notices 155 Federal Communications Com
73. P 7 mal 5330A Programmable Cross Spectrum Analyzer Operation and Service Revision 1 2 May 28 2013 milescesign Manual and software copyright 2012 Miles Design LLC All rights reserved TimePod is a registered trademark of Symmetricom Inc 16758 45 Ave NE Lake Forest Park WA 98155 425 351 5226 www miles io Support john miles io Table of Contents lil O TOM u e o A o ee 9 O HI ON aaa 11 E A 13 WILL INA NE DOK nc oy 13 2l ad technical SUDOR sad 13 USB driver and software installation 15 EON 1 NS o o AAA 17 FR r pales pu u u uu ee 19 Choosing an external 20 MARKIE your first measurement sierras u uu L nee 21 Ji TORN WISES anta 24 prior tes I NO Ci u 2 mu n 27 Making Measurement arias 29 Whats all this ADEV stuff anyhoW si cias 31 Allan DEMOS anta 32 Modified Allan Deviation IM seen neigen 32 Hadamard Deviation atacado peon ee en ea ee 33 TIME DEVON O er 33 Examining changes in stability over 1 34 Common artifacts in ADEV and related measurements 35 Hints TOFXDEW measurement nenne nein 40 Working with phase and frequency difference trace 7 43 Phase difference Original Wii ies 43 Phase difference Unwrapped D luminosas 43 Frequency difference ar eat 44
74. SED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY WHETHER IN CONTRACT STRICT LIABILITY OR TORT INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE 163
75. a screen image in TGA GIF BMP PCX or PNG format or a TIM file representing the measurement currently associated with the script By default if path is empty the user s Documents folder is treated as the destination path This path must already exist The subdir parameter is optional it represents a subdirectory relative to path in which the destination file will be saved Unlike path the subdir folder will be created automatically if it does not already exist FileSave returns a string containing the saved file s fully qualified pathname Any errors that occur will not be reported to the script They will result in a JavaScript exception which will terminate the script with an appropriate error message To save TIM data from multiple plots in a multichannel measurement you must use ScriptBindToPlot to associate the script with channels other than the first one See 5330A_performance_test js for an example FileSaveText String path String subdir String filename String contents FileSaveText saves the ASCII contents string to filename As with FileSave above the user s Documents folder is treated as the destination folder if path is empty Any explicitly specified path must already exist The subdir parameter is optional it represents a subdirectory relative to path in which the destination file will be saved Unlike path the subdir folder will be created automatically if it does not already exist FileSaveText
76. able linked with the Library with the complete machine readable work that uses the Library as object code and or source code so that the user can modify the Library and then relink to produce a modified executable containing the modified Library It is understood that the user who changes the contents of definitions files in the Library will not necessarily be able to recompile the application to use the modified definitions b Use a suitable shared library mechanism for linking with the Library A suitable mechanism is one that 1 uses at run time a copy of the library already present on the user s computer system rather than copying library functions into the executable and 2 will operate properly with a modified version of the library if the user installs one as long as the modified version is interface compatible with the version that the work was made with c Accompany the work with a written offer valid for at least three years to give the same user the materials specified in Subsection 6a above for a charge no more than the cost of performing this distribution d If distribution of the work is made by offering access to copy from a designated place offer equivalent access to copy the above specified materials from the same place e Verify that the user has already received a copy of these materials or that you have already sent this user a copy For an executable the required form of the work that uses the Library must
77. acquisition Ctrl k 3 106 Enable deterred acquisition Et cara uy u u uy idad 107 Trigger deferred acquisition s ENTE enero aaa kas Seka as 107 Configure deferred acquisition sacs oa BE SSeS q S uni 107 AA O 109 User ot dei o 109 About 11 SEN SE E O 42222044 444 444 RES 109 82111120020004 EN 109 Check or updates Crk0 uuu ia i 109 Appendix Some examples of residual 22 6 111 Appendix JavaScript API Function Reference 115 Appendix The STREAM EXE Phase Frequency Data Server ooccccccncccnnnnncnnnnnnnnnnnananccnnnncnnnnnnnnononononnnnaninas 135 Launching STREAM EXE did a uk la lasa 136 USME URE AW PAP need 137 erl S ini uu A tee 137 JOE shens uuu umu AE uya unun ee ee kyu anka a 137 lesliei e A aR ONY A a uyta masu 138 DORE DOFNUN ate Qua des 138 OB O 139 A o A A O 139 A A ee 4 ee 140 Pate lt l 10 100 1000 gt ais 141 Ju mestam b ES MID ub AS et cto de kaa le baul e bos des Seth bt de na ints ba call Gs LO ott 143 o 7 aaa asas ta ee ee 143 JO a A A a a O a a A N 144 INDUC EE N N RC TR E ER TRLEE O REN 144 NOUDA aa uu x A ulo sss 145 TOE 146 A te AA mas Dah puti asa sa 146 J OW T uuu u e E va es 4 See ieee 146 Appendix Schematic diagrams and 6 6 147 Appendix Legal and resulatory Notices surcar iaa EAE s
78. additional plots you must close at least one 68 Close all visible plots Home Closes all loaded plots at once removing them from the graph and legend table Delete selected plot s TIM file Ctrl Del After prompting for confirmation this command unloads the selected plot s data from memory and also deletes its associated TIM file if any After closing a plot the next plot in the legend table if any becomes the selected plot Up to 9 plots may be loaded into memory at once to acquire load or import additional plots you must close at least one Quit q or Esc Exits from TimeLab Depending on the setting of File gt WAarn before exiting with unsaved plots a confirmation prompt may be issued Unless you hold the Shift key as the program exits TimeLab will write all of its global settings and dialog fields as well as a list of known Legend menu entries and currently loaded plots to a file called TIMELAB INI These properties will be restored when the program is next launched The Shift exit feature can be handy if you have opened or closed various plots or changed any options or colors but don t wish to retain the changes or otherwise lose your previous startup defaults Note that acquisition and file import dialog field contents are not backed up in TIMELAB INI The most recently used dialog entries associated with these operations are stored in instrument specific INI files The instrument driver updates its INI fi
79. alified personnel powered by external supply with UL CUL TUV CB CE approvals Directives 2006 95 EC The Low Voltage Directive and its amending directives 2004 108 EC The Electromagnetic Compatibility Directive and its amending directives 2002 95 EC Restrictions on Hazardous Substances and its amending directives Standards EN 61010 1 2001 Safety Requirements for Electrical Equipment for Measurement Control and Laboratory Use Part 1 General Requirements EN 61326 1 2001 Electrical Requirements for Electrical Equipment for Measurement Control and Laboratory Use Part 1 General Requirements Signature I hereby certify that this equipment has been designed and manufactured in accordance with the above referenced Standards and complies with all essential requirements of the Directives John Miles Principal Miles Design LLC February 24 2012 156 Performance Certification and Validation Miles Design LLC certifies that this product met its published specifications at time of delivery Because measurements made by the TimePod 5330A Programmable Cross Spectrum Analyzer are always based on differences between the signals applied to the INPUT and REF IN ports no specific periodic calibration procedures are required In the absence of errors reported by the measurement software no specific maintenance procedures are necessary including preventative or periodic maintenance For formal verification purposes the procedures outlined in
80. all within each graph column must either be peak detected or combined by averaging When the averaging window is set to zero seconds TimeLab effectively does both using a per pixel algorithm to provide as much information about the skipped phase record samples as possible As shown in the first plot above a shaded vertical line is drawn in each pixel column that connects the minimum and maximum data values that fall within that column The darker portion of the trace in the middle of the shaded area represents the average of all data points covered by each individual column The effective averaging time is not fixed but is equal to the duration of the visible portion of the trace divided by the width of the graph in pixels This algorithm is simple fast and effective but since the peak detected line segments are drawn in a lighter shade of the trace color it s easy to overlook brief glitches that fit within a single pixel column Consider enabling Trace gt Tick marks k when looking for outliers in per pixel mode 81 Draw xDEV traces with spline interpolation i Allan Deviation Allan Deviation 1 10 1 11 1 12 16 12 16 13 0 0015 Dis 8 00015 0 015 0 415 15 105 input Freq Sample interval Acquired 10000 MHz 0 000886 22766 pts TimePod 025 10 000 MHz 0 000886 22766 pts TimePod 330A By default screenspace points corresponding to the tau bins in Allan deviation and related statistical views are c
81. and 5330A_ADC test js ScriptBindToPlot Number selection Associates the script instance with the plot at the specified position in the legend table from 0 to 8 Most script authors will not need to use ScriptBindToPlot It is required only in scripts that support multichannel plots such as 5330A_performance_test js and 5330A_ADC test js A script can be associated bound to only one plot at a time and most operations performed by a script implicitly involve the currently bound plot When a measurement initiated by a script specifies multiple stability channels as in the TimePod 5330A validation scripts mentioned it s necessary to use ScriptBindToPlot to access the plots that represent all channels of the measurement By default scripts are bound to channel 0 of a multichannel acquisition It s a good idea to restore the default channel 0 binding with ScriptBindToPlot AcqChannel 0 before returning from any function or event handler that uses ScriptBindToPlot Since plots in multichannel measurements may be moved up and down in the legend table by the user ScriptBindToPlot is normally used together with the AcqChannel function See the two performance test scripts mentioned above for further comments and usage examples ScriptBoundToPlot Returns the position in the legend table beneath the graph from 0 to 8 of the plot to which the script is currently bound Most script authors will not need to use Script
82. ant to view a subset of plots in o verlay mode b rowse mode will exclude all but the selected plot from the display while the v isibility toggle gives you the control needed to display some all or none of the loaded plots in o verlay mode If you want to look at several overlaid plots while temporarily hiding one or two of them the visibility toggle is the answer Select next plot in chart or down arrow Select previous plot in chart or up arrow Move selected plot up Ctrl up arrow Move selected plot down Ctrl down arrow For an introduction to the selected plot concept and its related commanos refer to Making your first measurements on page 21 The Ctrl up down arrow commands can be very helpful for organizing displays with multiple plots Holding down the Ctrl key when you press an arrow key will not change the currently selected plot but will instead move the selected plot up and down in the legend table Since the trace colors in TimeLab are assigned based on each plot s position in the legend table this feature can be useful if you don t like the color of a particular plot or if a plot farther down the table is obscuring data in an earlier plot The Ctrl up down arrow commands are frequently handy when using Trace gt Show estimated instrument noise F2 for instance 91 X zoom in X zoom out Y zoom in Y zoom out The bracket and shift bracket keys are useful for navigating zoomed phas
83. arks associated with Miles Design LLC may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission from Miles Design LLC THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY MILES DESIGN LLC 5 AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED IN NO EVENT SHALL MILES DESIGN LLC BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT INDIRECT INCIDENTAL SPECIAL EXEMPLARY OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES LOSS OF USE DATA OR PROFITS OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY WHETHER IN CONTRACT STRICT LIABILITY OR TORT INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE 157 Software License FFTSS http www ssisc org fftss index html en Copyright 2002 2007 Akira Nukada All rights reserved Copyright 2002 2007 The SSI Project All rights reserved The Scalable Infrastructure Project supported by Development of Software Infrastructure for Large Scale Scientific Simulation Team CREST JST Akira Nishida Department of Computer Science The University of Tokyo 7 3 1 Hongo Bunkyo ku Tokyo 113 8656 Japan Redistribution and use in source and binary forms with or without modification are permitted provided that the following c
84. armup is corrected in software Ch 0 Combination of physical ADC channel s contributing data to FFT channel 0 Ch 1 Combination of physical ADC channel s contributing data to FFT channel 1 Channel Identifies the channel number associated with a multichannel acquisition Counter Connection Type Interface used for acquisition from TIC or frequency counter Data Type Type of the incoming data e g phase frequency differences or absolute frequency Decimation Hardware decimation ratio Device ID Instrument serial number or other identifier Driver Identifies the Timelab TLL driver used for acquisition Duration Measurement duration Duration Type Measurement duration type DUT Freq Frequency of DUT provided by user prior to any conversion multiplication or division EFC Acquisition clock EFC DAC value ENBW Equivalent noise bandwidth in Hz of recorded data ENBW Factor Equivalent noise bandwidth of recorded data expressed as a fraction of the data rate EOS Character End of string character for data source FFT Win Index or other identifier for FFT window function used for noise measurement FFT Window FFT window function used for noise measurement Field Numeric field position from which data was extracted FPGA Bitfile Name of the bit file used to configure the FPGA prior to acquisition FPGA Version FPGA firmware version Frequency Incoming data consists of absolute frequency readings Frequency Difference Incoming data consists of fract
85. ask gt Edit mask definitions This option will open masks txt in Windows Notepad You can then create your own mask definitions edit existing masks remove masks from the menu or simply review the mask testing features and capabilities in the current version of TimeLab Important To preserve any user created mask definitions your existing masks txt file will not be overwritten when a new copy of TimeLab is installed The only exceptions to this rule occur when new features are introduced that render the mask file format incompatible with newer versions of TimeLab In such cases the TimeLab setup program will make a backup copy of masks txt in the same directory under the name masks_backup txt You will then need to transfer any user created mask definitions from masks_backup txt to the new masks txt file Clear mask selection The first command on the Masks menu simply deselects any currently selected mask removing its limit line s from the applicable measurement views User defined mask entries Menu entries appearing between Mask gt Edit mask definitions and Mask gt Edit mask definitions are defined in masks txt Only one mask may be selected at a time Once selected the mask s title and limit line will be visible only in measurement views corresponding to valid limit lines in the mask definition To see the results of the selected mask test you ll need to select one of these views from the Measurement menu and enable the Legend gt Mask R
86. ast one frame to be rendered AcqGetXDEVBins does not have any of these constraints AcqNumAcquiredPoints Returns the number of acquired points in the phase data record AcqNumChannels Returns the number of acquisition channels in the measurement associated with the Script instance In scripts that perform only standard single channel acquisitions this function always returns 1 116 AcqParam String key Each script instance maintains a dictionary of acquisition parameters that can be used to override any or all of the default acquisition dialog parameters when AcgStartAcquisition is called AcqParam returns the value for the specified acquisition parameter If an existing plot is associated with the script instance AcqParam will return the specific value associated with the plot Otherwise if the script has not yet started a measurement AcqParam will return the value from the dictionary of initial parameters that will be passed to AcqgStartAcquisition for the plot In either case an attempt to look up an unrecognized parameter value will return an empty string See AcgSetParam and AcqClearParams for more information AcqReadAMNoiseTrace Number offset_Hz AcqReadPMNoiseTrace Number offset_Hz These functions return the current AM noise or phase noise level in dBc Hz at the specified offset from the carrier A value greater than 0 indicates that data is unavailable either because the AM noise or phase nois
87. ber of elapsed seconds since the beginning of the phase record 65 Export binary phase data This command is supported only when viewing the selected plot s phase record contents using Measurement Phase difference p or Measurement gt Frequency difference f It will save a binary file containing phase difference data in seconds represented as a block of double precision IEEE 754 values in little endian Intel format If a selected or zoomed area has been defined by dragging with the mouse only that portion of the phase record will be exported As with File gt Export ASCII phase data x the default file suffix is CSV This is usually inappropriate for binary data you should specify a suffix appropriate to your application Exported binary phase data may not be re imported into TimeLab Export phase data to Stable32 Ctrl x This command is useful for transferring data from the selected plot s phase record directly into a third party analysis application such as Stable32 from Hamilton Technical Services Stable32 is a popular application for offline data analysis It supports many statistical features and display options beyond the limited set implemented by TimeLab This command works by exporting the selected plot s phase record to a temporary file using the same functionality as the File gt Export ASCII phase data x command If a selected or zoomed area has been defined by dragging with the mouse only that portion of the
88. by TimeLab the statistical plots are updated simultaneously in real time Allan Deviation a Allan deviation or ADEV is the square root of the Allan variance o T Like its related statistics MDEV and HDEV ADEV describes the fractional frequency deviation o or sigma of a set of samples taken at an interval t tau ADEV has a few disadvantages that are addressed by other deviation types such as inability to distinguish white PM and flicker PM noise It also exhibits relatively low confidence in the presence of smaller sample sizes compared to some newer statistics Still ADEV is among the most commonly used performance metrics for high performance clocks and frequency standards Modified Allan Deviation m MDEV or Mod o t is a slight variation on ADEV that can discriminate between white PM and flicker PM noise Both ADEV and MDEV render flicker PM noise at a slope oft White PM noise is also rendered by ADEV at but it appears as a steeper downward slope of T in MDEV Consequently an ADEV plot may appear artificially elevated when either of these two noise types is present Switching to Measurement Modified Allan W J Riley Handbook of Frequency Stability Analysis http tf nist gov general pdf 2220 paf 32 Deviation m will render the two noise types separately at the timescales where they belong As an example here are ADEV and MDEV plots showing the residual noise of an HP 5370B time interval counter For th
89. c 51 Franklin Street Fifth Floor Boston MA 02110 1301 USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document but changing it is not allowed This is the first released version of the Lesser GPL It also counts as the successor of the GNU Library Public License version 2 hence the version number 2 1 Preamble The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it By contrast the GNU General Public Licenses are intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software to make sure the software is free for all its users This license the Lesser General Public License applies to some specially designated software packages typically libraries of the Free Software Foundation and other authors who decide to use it You can use it too but we suggest you first think carefully about whether this license or the ordinary General Public License is the better strategy to use in any particular case based on the explanations below When we speak of free software we are referring to freedom of use not price Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software and charge for this service if you wish that you 158 receive source code or can get it if you want it that you can change the software and use pieces of it in new free programs and that you are informed that you can do these things
90. ces rather than only the selected plot and they never alter the underlying measurement data Most options on the Trace menu apply only to a given measurement family xDEV statistics phase frequency differences or phase noise AM noise measurements For example Trace gt Averaging window for phase frequency traces has no effect on phase noise or Allan deviation traces The majority of Trace options are simple on off toggles In the Measurement gt Phase difference p display for instance applying the Edit gt Subtract global linear phase trend frequency offset Ctrl o command to each visible trace would have the same visible effect as Trace gt Show linear phase frequency residual r as discussed below But Trace gt Show linear phase frequency residual r does not actually subtract the trend from the phase record Issuing the command again will restore normal trace rendering behavior Phase frequency traces begin at zero z Show linear phase frequency residual r These two commands can be used individually or together to maximize visible detail in phase frequency plots When enabled Trace gt Phase frequency traces begin at zero z causes all phase and frequency difference traces to be displayed with their first data point pinned to Y 0 0 In unzoomed views or in zoomed views with Trace gt Phase frequency Y axis unlocked in zoom mode y disabled to permit automatic Y axis scaling this will force the left end of the trace to th
91. changes over time If Trace gt Toggle trace thickness T is enabled only the most recent region will be displayed with a heavy trace You can specify a new Trace History value at any time after acquisition in the Edit gt Trace properties e dialog In the example below eight minutes of frequency readings were taken from an OCXO shortly after power up and later rendered with Trace History set to 20 Consequently each ADEV trace represents about 24 seconds of phase data As the oscillator warms up the later traces exhibit better stability Allan Deviation Tau Sigma Tau 2s 4 95E 11 4 4 86E 11 8s ASE Sample Interval Duration Phase Record Instrument 1081160111 warmup 10 MHz 1321s sm 360 pts HP 53708 Values displayed on the Sigma Tau chart apply to the most recent trace For more advanced displays of dynamic AVAR ADEV and related metrics as described in the literature consider using the File gt Export phase data to Stable32 Ctrl x command described on page 66 for offline analysis 5 i I Galleani L Tavella P Interpretation of the dynamic Allan variance of nonstationary clock data Frequency Control Symposium 2007 Joint with the 21st European Frequency and Time Forum IEEE International pp 992 997 2007 34 Common artifacts in ADEV and related measurements High resolution plots captured by the 5330A can reveal artifacts that don t seem to be present when
92. channels available with the Ch 0 IN and Ch 2 IN jacks is worthwhile though because it opens up some possibilities for advanced measurements For example you can make low noise measurements at VHF and microwave frequencies far beyond the 5330A s rated 30 MHz limit by using two identical downconverters to mix the DUT signal down to an IF in the supported 0 5 30 MHz range If the Ch 0 and Ch 2 downconverter local oscillators are uncorrelated their phase noise and AM noise contributions will disappear from the cross spectrum average over time just like the ADC noise the Ch O IN and Ch 2 IN jacks However application of DC levels greater than 5V peak to any RF signal input is not recommended 17 18 ACC POWER STATUS REF IN Cu u 0 USB 2 0 High Speed support is required for all 5330A acquisitions In most cases the use of passive or active USB hubs with the 5330A is acceptable but if connection problems occur you may find it helpful to connect the supplied ACTIVE 0 5 30 MHz CLIP 420 dBm Max FANT USB cable directly to the host PC In general measurement errors are much more likely to be caused by insufficient CPU resources than by USB connectivity problems Rear panel features The rear jack panel provides a TNC F input for the external reference signal required in all 5330A measurements All guidelines regarding signal levels and interconnect choices for the INPUT jack also a
93. clean signal i e without excessive broadband noise fed through a passive splitter Mini Circuits ZFSC 2 1 or similar The following observations don t reflect specification limits but they will give you an idea of what to expect At 50 Hz ENBW residual ADEV at 5 MHz should be in the high E 14s at t 1s Thermal effects will then push the slope out somewhat especially in an unstable environment or when warmup time has been insufficient A look at the p hase difference graph will often show a curved phase slope for the first 30 60 minutes of a measurement made after a cold start Residual PN at 5 MHz should be lt 150 dBc Hz at 10 Hz after a few hours With a strong clean input signal at 5 to 10 MHz the residual PN floor in the 10 kHz 100 kHz decade will usually end up below 175 dBc Hz after less than two hours Expect lower performance near either end of the supported frequency range Phase hits and large outliers in the frequency difference trace are never normal in a residual test with a clean source signal They should be investigated if they recur with no obvious explanation Bear in mind that absolute phase drift measurements require you to explicitly enter the same frequency in both the Input Freq and Reference Freq fields of the acquisition dialog unchecking their corresponding Measure boxes Otherwise the slope of the p hase difference measurement will reflect an arbitrary internal frequency estimate As an aid t
94. cs at 500 Hz ENBW but be aware that the noise floor will be higher Again a separate residual plot at the frequencies and signal levels of concern can tell you exactly where the limits are The measurement bandwidth also influences the size of the phase record that must be allocated before a measurement of a given duration can begin As a result you may experience out of memory errors if you tell TimeLab to record several hours worth of phase data at 500 Hz ENBW 1K points per second Increasing the Output Decimation value in the Frequency Stability tab is a great way to reduce acquisition memory requirements but it will not change the xDEV noise floor The only way to lower the xDEV floor is to select a narrower measurement bandwidth Fewer samples are available to contribute to bins near the right end of an xDEV trace As a result measurement confidence decreases at longer tau intervals To increase the minimum number of samples that must contribute to a given xDEV bin in order for that bin to be displayed you can change the Bin Threshold parameter in the acquisition dialog or use Edit gt Trace properties e to specify a new value for the same field at any time after acquisition However because TimeLab employs overlapped xDEV algorithms small changes to Bin Threshold may have no effect Once the phase record grows long enough to provide data at a given tau interval each additional sample adds another data point to the corresponding xDEV
95. ctive background tasks may be under way for the selected plot at the time this command is issued Active background tasks are those in which the plot s memory resident phase record is being written such as during initial acquisition and when reloading a saved TIM file Ifthe phase record has finished loading but the xDEV statistical traces are still being refreshed the refresh operation will be cancelled then restarted after the command finishes 74 Subtract global linear phase trend frequency offset Ctrl o Subtract global linear frequency trend drift line Ctrl 1 Subtract quadratic linear frequency trend drift curve Ctrl q These related commands are used to remove global offsets and trends from the selected plot s phase record This is typically done to improve visibility of local trends and features whose magnitude is small compared to the Y axis range For detailed usage information and examples as well as some alternative viewing methods that don t alter the phase record contents see page 48 Two commands on the Trace menu Phase frequency traces begin at zero z and Show linear phase frequency residual r provide non destructive functionality similar to the Edit gt Subtract global linear phase trend frequency offset Ctrl o command See page 77 for more information If the selected plot has any background tasks in progress when any of these commands are issued an error message will be displayed Background tasks ar
96. de advanced features and specifications similar to the TimePod 5330A However separate options in the Acquisition menu must be used to obtain data for xDEV and phase frequency difference plots and the Fourier spectrum used for phase noise plots Phase frequency data will be acquired continuously for the duration of the measurement while phase noise acquisition will retrieve a snapshot of the analyzer s current phase noise trace noise floor estimate and spur table As with other TimeLab acquisition processes these acquisitions may be launched concurrently Stop repeat acquisition Space This context sensitive command associates the most common acquisition verbs with a single easy to remember keyboard shortcut e f deferred acquisition mode is active and at least one acquisition is pending the Space bar terminates all active acquisitions after prompting e Otherwise if the selected plot is associated with an acquisition in progress the Space bar will terminate that acquisition after prompting e lf one or more acquisitions is running but the selected plot is not among them the Space bar will offer to terminate the acquisition that was most recently started e If no acquisitions were running the Space bar will bring up the most recently used acquisition dialog Because TimeLab measurement sessions often involve repeated acquisitions with the same instrument the Space bar shortcut will usually do what you mean It will
97. e Frequency Difference Zero based baer aging window Per pisel Un 1008 32808 S s 7608 0508 1 1108 13308 1508 1108 10008 NE 1801160111 Sonome 0 0048 momos Timepnd5308 To sum up selecting Measurement gt Frequency difference f applying Subtract global linear frequency trend drift line Ctrl l and enabling Trace gt Phase frequency traces begin at zero z can reveal details which are impossible to spot in the raw phase difference trace All of this being said in order to get the same detailed view we really only needed to enable Trace gt Show linear phase frequency residual r while viewing the frequency difference trace Frequency Difference Linear residual zero based An i er aging window Per Un 1008 2808 5708 7608 0508 11408 13308 1508 1108 10008 NP BILE som onas 12m0mos 07 The Trace gt Phase frequency traces begin at zero z and Trace gt Show linear phase frequency residual r commands are both extremely useful Enabling one or both of these features can give you a detailed view of most phase or frequency difference traces without altering the phase data itself Keep the r and z keys in mind while working with these traces and experiment with them frequently 11 Note that the Subtract quadratic linear frequency trend drift curve Ctrl q operation has no view only equivalent It operates in a manner similar to the Subtract g
98. e and frequency difference traces on a laptop or other PC without a three button scrolling mouse These menu options can be thought of as placeholders for their respective keyboard shortcuts Specifically after a zoomed region has been selected by dragging with the left mouse button these commands allow you to increase and decrease the magnification factor without returning to the unzoomed display On a desktop PC a combination of scroll wheel and middle button input is normally the best way to navigate within phase frequency traces The scroll wheel expands and shrinks the magnification factor while the middle mouse button allows you to scrub the zoomed trace data left and right These commands have no effect in zoomed phase noise or AM noise measurement views or in Allan deviation or other statistical views For more about TimeLab s zoom functionality refer to Navigating zoomed graphs on page 49 Decrease font size or Ctrl mouse wheel Increase font size or Ctrl mouse wheel Like the X zoom Y zoom commands the font size control options are primarily meant as placeholders for their respective hotkeys the left and right parentheses They provide easy access to a choice of several discrete font sizes Also as with most Web browsers and other newer Windows applications scrolling with the mouse wheel while holding down the Ctrl key will expand or shrink the text within TimeLab s display window 92
99. e and clock frequencies If an explicit reference frequency was specified the reference channel s baseband frequency is measured once again It should be very close to DC unless the ADC clock or the reference is drifting If the reference channel baseband frequency is greater than 5 of the selected measurement bandwidth the observed difference is used to refine the ADC clock frequency estimate under the assumption that an explicitly specified reference frequency is likely to be much more stable than the 5330A s own clock The driver returns to step 5 above in this case looping indefinitely until the baseband signals are close enough to DC As the measurement begins the Input Freq and Ref Freq fields in the legend table beneath the graph will be brought up to date based on the progress made through the steps above Any estimated frequencies are displayed at 1 kHz precision while any explicitly specified frequencies are displayed at the precision given 46 Some of the implications are rather subtle For example if you don t enter an explicit reference frequency the accuracy of your frequency count chart entries will depend on how close the actual reference frequency is to the 1 kHz rounded estimate used by TimeLab This means that if your REF IN jack is connected to an atomic or GPS standard whose output is nominally a multiple of 1 kHz as is often the case then the accuracy of your frequency count chart entries will be as good
100. e goal is to maintain good electrical contact with the INPUT panel while minimizing the net mechanical stress on the SMA jacks solder connections after their outer nuts are tightened Reinstall the washer and nut on the INPUT TNC jack after all other fasteners are in place As with the SMA nuts torque should be the minimum necessary to keep the nut secure 147 Ud 60208 6 Z2102 32 b 038 7 7 65 ve 0 aszhteuy wnajseds 55049 YBEES ubtseg SIT 91 zn dS SyYST 190 gan 2304 gun Juk EID 214 AOT S2 334 14 85 JOT NIS 334 ly g 93 85 Sot I IOS 338 14 0 Hay ae 2 35 800 TEBBBNTSIX E0S3 8 6 72 daat 8 105 1 lu B ABT Td T Bul fa eta MID u Tr X 5 mN NIS 7 ID 8 ONS _7_ lt or esas 8 dS SUST LYO en 5 286 67 2053 ONO 7 noX NLU 2t d 1XS wap Z BT 113 une ZHH BE ONO 23253 P er 1MANI 4 1 o J MT Z d0Y TUL Ids 5 ok ms 909 NOOT T ET dIXS 11143 10S3 8pp T888nTS3X71 S XOT dapt daat WEP BZ BT ZHH BE 09 329393338 b XOT Han 1 zu 1 ABT MOS 0 lU E Ta ABT 105 B Gn y o 2 C j 9 j j p E AE Uri 0 Tr 10 Teinur 099 93121101121 210011 NOLIdivds3d Nau 03 Hd 08008 2102 32 03048 1849
101. e a special need to encourage the widest possible use of a certain library so that it becomes a de facto standard To achieve this non free programs must be allowed to use the library A more frequent case is that a free library does the same job as widely used non free libraries In this case there is little to gain by limiting the free library to free software only so we use the Lesser General Public License In other cases permission to use a particular library in non free programs enables a greater number of people to use a large body of free software For example permission to use the GNU C Library in non free programs enables many more people to use the whole GNU operating system as well as its variant the GNU Linux operating system Although the Lesser General Public License is Less protective of the users freedom it does ensure that the user of a program that is linked with the Library has the freedom and the wherewithal to run that program using a modified version of the Library The precise terms and conditions for copying distribution and modification follow Pay close attention to the difference between a work based on the library and a work that uses the library The former contains code derived from the library whereas the latter must be combined with the library in order to run TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION 0 This License Agreement applies to any software library or other program which con
102. e difference frequency Appearing at a similar magnitude in both AM and phase noise plots these spurs also cause peaks and nulls in ADEV and related measurements Modified Allan Deviation 1 11 1 12 1E 13 0 01s 0 1s 1s 10s Sample Interval ENBW Morion MV89A 3m RG58 house clock on 10 000003 MHz 10 MHz 0 004 s 52 7 Hz TimePod 5330 A Morion MV89A 3m RG58 house clock off 10 000003 MHz 10 MHz 0 004 s 52 7 Hz TimePod 5330A Morion MV89A 3m RG400 house clock on 10 000003 MHz 10 MHz 0 004 s 52 7 Hz TimePod 5330A Crosstalk can also occur when a third signal incidental to the measurement environment causes beatnote effects that are asynchronous to both test inputs This case is illustrated in the plot above where a TimePod was used to measure a high stability OCXO against another one of similar quality In this case while the OCXO driving REF IN was very close to 10 MHz the OCXO driving the INPUT port was set approximately 3 Hz higher for demonstration purposes Also present in the room but not participating in the measurement was a GPS disciplined frequency standard and distribution amplifier supplying 10 MHz to various instruments through long cables The 5330A s reference source was connected with a double shielded RG400 cable in all three trials The blue trace and magenta traces were taken with the input source connected with a 3m length of RG58 A significant MDEV peak was visible in the blue 38 trace b
103. e listed here for reference only A few of the properties are defined by TimeLab itself and will appear on the Legend menu by default in all installations ADC Clock Nominal acquisition clock rate in Hz Add l AM Gain Optional user specified gain value added to AM noise traces Add l PN Gain Optional user specified gain value added to phase noise traces Address Address of instrument used to acquire data Attenuate Instrument Spurs True if known instrument spurs are suppressed automatically Auto DUT True if the DUT frequency matches the frequency at the analyzer input jack Auto Input True if input frequency measured automatically Auto Ref True if external reference frequency measured automatically Automatic Configuration True if the Timelab driver should infer various measurement params based on incoming data Autosense Rate True if the TimeLab driver should automatically measure the sample interval Beatnote Amplitude in dBm of calibration beatnote Bin Density Determines the number and distribution of tau points in statistical deviation measurements Bin Threshold Minimum number of data points required to display the statistical deviation at a given tau BW Index Index or other identifier for a given measurement bandwidth Cancel CM Drift True if common mode drift e g due to ADC clock w
104. e lower and upper in limit cursors with Ctrl left click 170 0 and Ctrl right click respectively on 200 0 1 TimeLab does not make a Residual jitter 5MHz 104dBm 2 4E 14 5 TimePod 53304 distinction between random and deterministic jitter so any spurs in phase noise plots are integrated as if they contained only random noise Consequently when viewing any of the RMS integrated noise values you should use either Trace Smooth noise traces Ctrl w or Trace gt Suppress spurs Ctrl s to remove as much coherent energy as possible from the phase noise trace Otherwise time jitter and integrated noise readings may be artificially exaggerated Along with many other sources HP Application Note AN270 2 provides a concise summary of the math behind phase noise integration 54 The spur table The spur table is a list of all coherent amplitude or phase modulated spectral components detected by the instrument in the course of measuring AM noise or phase noise respectively Each plot acquired from an instrument that supports spur detection has its own spur table Spur levels are reported as CW power levels relative to the carrier each at a given offset from the carrier frequency Phase Noise P in 7 110 0 PM Spur Offset Hz dBc en 120 3 115 3 la tgpi etnai a 241 6 130 4 130 0 pt n mu 360 9 135 8 m panier 480 2 135 3 768 9 125 2 140 0 ipen 1544 6 125 8 x x pa 2314 5 126 1 3089 2 121 3
105. e midpoint of the graph s Y axis Since autoscaled Y axes in TimeLab are symmetrical about zero this may allow the trace to occupy more of the visible graph area Frequency Difference Frequency Difference Zero based Averaging window Per pixel Averaging window Per pixe 1 005 11 2 00E 11 3 0E 11 4 00E 11 5 00 11 1 50E 11 2 00E 11 2 50E 11 Os 23 ds 65 Bs 10s 11s 136 16s 175 1 input Freq Sample Interval Acquired Instrument Sample Interval Instrument 0 004 s 3930 pts TimePod 63304 10MHz 0 004s 0 3930pts TimePod 63304 71 When used in the Measurement gt Frequency difference f view the effect of Trace gt Phase frequency traces begin at zero z is somewhat similar to applying Edit gt Subtract global linear phase trend frequency offset Ctrl o to each visible plot It s not quite the same though because a trace s first data point is not necessarily anywhere near its trend line Subtracting the trend will often do a better job at centering individual traces symmetrically about the Y axis as seen below Frequency Difference Averaging window Per pixel 1 00E 11 8 00E 12 6 00E 12 4 00E 12 2 00E 12 0 00E 0 2 00E 12 4 00E 12 6 00E 12 8 00E 12 1 00E 11 Os 2s 45 6s 8s 10s 11s 13s 15s 17s 19s _InputFreq Sample interval Acquired Instrument 10MHz 0 004s 3930 pts TimePod 5330A Of course Edit gt Subtract global linear phase trend frequency
106. e those in which the plot s memory resident phase record is being accessed by a background thread during initial acquisition when reloading a saved TIM file and when reconstructing the xDEV statistical traces after a previous modification to the phase record Undo last flatten or subtract operation Ctrl z This command rolls back the most recent change to the selected plot s phase record performed by any of the following other commands Edit gt Flatten selected or zoomed phase data Ctrl f Edit gt Subtract global linear phase trend frequency offset Ctrl o Edit gt Subtract global linear frequency trend drift line Ctrl I Edit gt Subtract quadratic linear frequency trend drift curve Ctrl q Edit gt Trace properties e applies to Rescale Phase only A second undo command will redo the last reverted action If the selected plot has any background tasks in progress when this command is issued an error message will be displayed Background tasks are those in which the plot s memory resident phase record is being accessed by a background thread during initial acquisition when reloading a saved TIM file and when reconstructing the xDEV statistical traces after a previous modification to the phase record 75 76 Trace Menu The Trace menu contains options that affect the way measurement data is processed and rendered as traces on the graph Unlike the Edit menu options the Trace options apply to all visible tra
107. e trace has not yet been displayed or because noise data from the FFT segment containing the specified offset frequency is not yet available Values returned by these functions are based on the most recent AM noise or phase noise trace rendered Scripts should use MeasurementSelectView Or MeasurementDeferSelectView to select the appropriate measurement view prior to attempting to read noise trace values Typically this is done from within an EventTimer event handler in order to ensure that valid data is available during a subsequent timer event AcqSetParam String key String value Each script instance maintains a dictionary of acquisition parameters that can be used to override any or all of the acquisition dialog parameters when AcgStartAcquisition is called AcqSetParam updates the stored value for the specified acquisition parameter The best way to obtain a list of measurement parameter names and values for a given instrument is to use the Save Measurement Script button in the Utility tab of the acquisition dialog to create a script that will contain explicit AcqSetParam statements for each supported parameter Almost all parameters will have obvious counterparts in the instrument s acquisition dialog you can also refer to the Legend menu section on page 93 for individual descriptions See AcqParam and AcqClearParams for more information 117 AcqStartAcquisition String menu_entry Boolean skip_dialog Starts a new
108. eLab also have single key shortcuts for faster more interactive workflow When present the shortcut key is shown after the name of the menu option 61 62 File menu The File menu helps you work with data files and images Supported actions include opening saving closing and deleting plots stored in TIM files saving image files printing or copying the currently displayed window contents and importing and exporting raw measurement data Various user preference toggles are also provided Load TIM file Loads a saved TIM file TIM files are ASCII text files that contain all measurement data acquired or imported by TimeLab together with any applicable metadata Specific fields and tables within each TIM file may vary depending on the measurement type s saved in the file For frequency stability measurements made with counters or timing analyzers the TIM file contains the phase record obtained from the instrument during acquisition The phase record may have been derived from a series of frequency readings or other raw data stream formats It may also have been decimated to conform to a specified measurement rate or bandwidth For phase noise and AM noise measurements the TIM file contains the FFT bin contents needed to render the applicable graphs Save image or TIM file s This command can either save the selected plot as a TIM file or save the current contents of the TimeLab window as an image file in PNG G
109. eady exists it will be overwritten Typically the file is shared with other applications that can access it in read only mode while it s being written by STREAM EXE The data written to the file may be followed from within TimeLab by selecting Acquire gt Acquire from live ASCII file You can also monitor the data written to the file with a command such as tail f lt filename gt from Cygwin Finally pressing the Scroll Lock key will cause STREAM EXE to print a copy of all lines written to the file to the stdout device i e the DOS console itself Example stream timepod tll notcp file HOMEPATH Documents mydata txt The command above writes a continuous stream of phase difference readings to the file mydata txt in the current user s Documents folder You can then use TimeLab or another application to follow the file Even if the acquisition fails or otherwise encounters problems you can use the appropriate File gt Import option to bring the data into TimeLab at any time 137 Additionally the notcp option Is used in this example to keep STREAM EXE from attempting to open a network port logfile lt filename gt Specifies the pathname for a logfile which will record status warning and error messages If the logfile parameter contains an absolute path specification the log file is placed at that location Otherwise if logfile specifies a filename by itself the log file is placed in the folder indicated by the first
110. eep in mind that JavaScript execution does not disable or inhibit the rest of the TimeLab user interface While test masks are easy to create and use in TimeLab script based mask evaluation is complicated by the need to establish the correct measurement view allow enough time for the display to update and wait for valid results to become available for the X axis range covered by the mask all while allowing for the user s ability to switch measurement views move plots up and down in the legend table or alter other settings manually at any time Typically the best way to coordinate the necessary script actions while allowing for manual user intervention is to use an EventTimer handler to check the mask results and the current measurement view selection at the same time then make any changes such as selecting the next measurement view for evaluation at the very end of the timer handler Script authors are strongly encouraged to use the EventTimer handler in 5330A_performance_test js as a model for their own mask test procedures MaskResultValid Returns true if valid data is available from MaskResultMargin or false if the mask test was not ready for evaluation for any reason For example ADEV mask results will not be available if the measurement has not yet run long enough to return valid data at the tau corresponding to the left endpoint of the mask limit line or if the user has turned visibility off for the plot associated with the sc
111. ems If you need to record long phase records with the 5330A or any other equipment an x64 system with several GB of RAM is recommended 16 INPUT o 0 e 20 dBm Max Front panel features Four SMA jacks and one TNC jack are present on the 5330A s input jack panel In most applications the input signal from the device under test should be applied to the centrally located TNC jack labeled INPUT Internally the INPUT jack is connected to a 50 ohm 0 RF splitter whose two outputs are routed to the SMA jacks labeled Ch 0 OUT and Ch 2 OUT These jacks are normally connected to the adjacent Ch 0 IN and Ch 2 IN jacks using two SMA jumpers Although TNC interconnects offer superior mechanical stability BNC TNC adapters are also provided for convenience Regardless of your choice of coax fittings double shielded cables such as RG223 or RG400 are recommended for low level measurements that may be affected by crosstalk and environmental interference Use of RG58 and other single shielded cables can cause artifacts in stability and noise plots Input signals should be greater than O dBm for best performance 5 to 15 dBm is recommended The 5330A s specifications assume that sine wave signals from 50 ohm sources are applied to the INPUT and REF IN jacks but you can also measure CMOS and other square wave clocks with the help of a simple L network resistive or otherwise to attenuate the signal and increase the load impeda
112. en successive timestamps will always be equal to the reciprocal of the rate parameter whose default is 10 readings per second The sep option may be used to specify an additional separator character that will appear before the space between the timestamp and measurement value If the client requires comma separated values for example sep would be useful Any numeric value used as the sep argument is treated as an ASCII code e g sep 9 generates a tab character Example stream timepod tll rate 1 format F timestamp MJD sep cs Administrator C Windows system32 cmd exe CAGAS Stream timepod tll rate 1 format F timestamp MJD sep Desktop Users johnm Ddesktop ULDATA Users johnm AppData Local Miles Designs XProgramData Miles Designs Users johnm AppData Local Miles Design TimeLab ProgramData Miles Design TimeLab deu t ime lab deu t ime labs deu t ime labs Streaming data server U0 95 of Aug 19 2612 Miles Design LLC Press ESC to terminate SCROLL LOCK to view traffic john miles io 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 Initializing host JMCORE64 address 192 168 1 117 9192 Loaded driver Miles Design TimePod gt Preparing acquisition Looking for input signal Pretuning Setting attenuators Measuring amplitude Measuring frequency Calibrating measurement Acquisition in progress Input frequency 9999999 046071649 Hz Input amplitude 11 9
113. ent measurement T Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TraceThickness with no argument TraceTickMarks Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Tick marks k Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TraceTickMarks with no argument TraceXDEVBars Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Show xDEV error bars Ctrl e Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TraceXDEVBars with no argument TraceXDEVClipBW Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Clip xDEV traces by noise bandwidth Ctrl b Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TraceXDEVClipBW with no argument TraceXDEVClipConfidence Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Clip xDEV traces by confidence Ctrl v Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TraceXDEVClipConfidence with no argument 133 TraceXDEVSpline Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Draw xDEV traces with spline interpolation i Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TraceXDEVSpline with no argument 134 A
114. er information FileCloseAllChannels Closes all plot s acquired in the most recent measurement executed by the script stopping any acquisition s that may still be in progress For conventional single channel measurements FileCloseAllChannels is equivalent to calling FileClosePlot with no argument As an example 5330A_performance_test js uses FileCloseAllChannels in its EventAcqDone handler to discard the two plots generated during the preliminary warmup acquisition that the script performs before running the actual test Because the warmup acquisition has already terminated at this point EventAcqDone is not reissued Simply calling FileClosePlot here would have closed only the first of the two plots 120 FileCloseAllPlots Equivalent to calling FileClosePlot on all loaded plots For example 5330A_ADC_test js uses FileCloseAllPlots to ensure that enough slots are available in the legend table to hold the four plots that it acquires for various ADC combinations FileClosePlot Number selection If the optional selection parameter is specified FileClosePlot closes the plot at the specified position in the legend table from O to 8 Since plots being acquired under script control may be moved up and down in the legend table by the user like any other loaded plots AcqChannel is needed to obtain the value passed to this function if the intent is to close any of the plot s that are associated with a measurement
115. esult Legend gt Mask Margin or both Pass fail results and margins will then appear in the legend table below the graph updated in real time as the measurement progresses 97 For detailed instructions and hints carefully review the comments in masks txt The latest usage guidelines for the current TimeLab release will appear as comments in this file Edit mask definitions As noted above the last command on the Masks menu opens masks txt in Notepad for editing and review Allan Deviation on 1E 9 Tau Sigma Tau 1s 13E 12 2 2s 6 37E 12 ia 4s 5 74E 12 8s 4 14E 12 10s 3 67E 12 20s 251E 12 40s 1 70E 12 ni 80s 1 20E 12 100s 107E 12 200s 7 48E 13 400s 37E 13 1E 12 800s 3 83E 13 1000s 3 51E 13 2000s 2 50E 13 4000s 1 84E 13 8000s 1 66E 13 16 13 10000s 1 67E 13 1E 14 0 01s 0 1s 1s 10s 100s 1000s 10000s 100000s 1000000s Trace Notes ImputFreq Mask Result Mask Margin Imported From HP 5071A HP 5065A Pass 6 76E 015 K Program Files Miles Design TimeLab 5071A txt HP 5061B HP 5065 A Pass 5 73E 015 K Program Files Miles Design TimeLab 5061B txt 98 Scripts Menu TimeLab includes an embedded JavaScript engine ks Scripts Acquire Help Run script that can run automated test scripts using the Edit script TimePod 5330A Script based access to other Delete sept C Users Public Documents TimeLab Scripts 53304_performance_test js instruments such as time interval counters
116. extensive mouseover help text that is maintained alongside TimeLab itself so the individual fields will not be described here at length Simply position your cursor over each field to learn more about it Some areas of the dialog may be disabled depending on the data type s available in the selected plot Also certain properties notably those in the Frequency Stability area that determine the bin configuration for Allan deviation and other statistical measurements cannot be edited while acquisition is in progress If you didn t enter the desired values in the acquisition dialog before data collection began you ll need to wait for the measurement to finish before you can change them 71 72 Flatten selected or zoomed phase data Ctrl f N Phase Difference Frequency Difference Averaging wine Averaging window Per pixel low Per pixel Right click to deselect 2 50 108 2 00E 10s 1 50E 108 1 00 105 5 00E 11s 000E 06 5 006 114 1 00E 10s 1 501 10s 2 00E 10s 2 500 10s 2 50E 11 2 00E 11 150 11 1 00E 11 5 00E 12 0 00E 0 00E 12 105 411 1 50 11 200E 11 2 50E 11 Os 60s 120s 180s 740 300 360s 4708 4805 5405 6005 Ds 60s 120s 1650s 2405 300s 360s 420s 480s S405 600s 0687 Wenzel UNTO 13 999 Miz 9 999 m z ooa7s 10m 16 Wenzerutnio 9399 MHz 0 047 Com 7 Above the Flatten selected or zoomed phase data Ctrl f command has replaced the selected regi
117. from a designated place then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place satisfies the requirement to distribute the source code even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code 5 A program that contains no derivative of any portion of the Library but is designed to work with the Library by being compiled or linked with it is called a work that uses the Library Such a work in isolation is not a derivative work of the Library and therefore falls outside the scope of this License However linking a work that uses the Library with the Library creates an executable that is a derivative of the Library because it contains portions of the Library rather than a work that uses the library The executable is therefore covered by this License Section 6 states terms for distribution of such executables When a work that uses the Library uses material from a header file that is part of the Library the object code for the work may be a derivative work of the Library even though the source code is not Whether this is true is especially significant if the work can be linked without the Library or if the work is itself a library The threshold for this to be true is not precisely defined by law If such an object file uses only numerical parameters data structure layouts and accessors and small macros and small inline functions ten lines or less in length then the use of
118. g Frequency Stability Noise and Jitter Advanced Utility Bin Density 29 Bin Threshold 4 Trace History 1 Measurement BW lso Hz approx 200 points sec Start Measurement Press this button to accept the current measurement parameters and begin acquisition To get started simply connect the 5330A s USB cable to your PC and launch TimeLab Once TimeLab is running select the Acquire gt Miles Design TimePod menu option The dialog box that pops up should contain a list of available TimePod device s in a dropdown box at upper right just below the instrument photo The C Programming Language Second Edition 1988 Bell Telephone Laboratories 21 Assuming the appropriate TimePod 5330A instrument is selected the acquisition parameters are all valid you ve connected stable reference and DUT input sources to the 53304 and you ve allowed at least a few minutes warmup time all you need to do is press the Start Measurement button The acquisition dialog will disappear and the STATUS indicator on the 5330A should change from white to green Over the next ten seconds or so various informational messages will appear in the TimeLab status bar at the bottom of the program s main window as the software characterizes the applied input and reference signals If all is well the status bar message should soon change to Acquisition in progress Measurement data will now begin to appear in graphical form Unless you
119. g heavy averaging But Ctrl F3 lets us view the imaginary part of the cross spectrum at full resolution It s readily apparent that the spur near 50 kHz has almost the same amplitude in the imaginary cross spectrum as it does in the real measurement This is a strong indicator that the spur is an instrument artifact There are other spurs in the imaginary cross spectrum that correspond to similar spurs in the real plot but most appear to be AC line harmonics that both the 5330A and the sources under test are exposed to and their amplitudes are substantially different Although the Ctrl F3 technique isn t foolproof it can offer some valuable insight when you need to account for unanticipated low level spurs 12 See Rubiola and Vernotte The cross spectrum experimental method and Grove et al Direct digital phase noise measurement 58 Hints for noise measurements The 5330A can render an estimate of its own noise floor in AM PM noise plots if you enable Trace gt Show estimated instrument noise F2 See page 84 for more information For AM and phase noise a good indication that the noise trace has converged on its final level is the variance of the trace or its overall fuzziness thickness If you measure a conventional signal generator or noisy oscillator you ll notice that the trace stops falling relatively quickly after the measurement begins and then becomes smoother over time This smoothing effect is an important cue that tells yo
120. gend table beneath the graph from O to 8 of the plot associated with the script instance s specified acquisition channel Since plots being acquired under script control may be moved up and down in the legend table by the user like any other loaded plots AcqChannel is needed to obtain the value needed when calling ScriptBindToPlot in multichannel acquisitions The channel parameter should range from 0 to one less than the value returned by AcqNumChannels Scripts that perform only standard single channel acquisitions will not need to use this function AcqCheckOptions String option_name String option_name This function is reserved for compatibility with Symmetricom 3120A test scripts It always returns TRUE in scripts associated with TimePod 5330A measurements AcqClearParams Each script instance maintains a dictionary of acquisition parameters that can be used to override any or all of the acquisition dialog parameters when AcgStartAcquisition is called AcqClearParams clears this dictionary It is normally called before issuing the AcqSetParam call s needed to configure the measurement Acquisition parameters that the script does not explicitly set with AcqSetParam will assume their default values when the measurement begins See AcqParams and AcqSetParam for more information http code google com p v8 115 AcqGetAMSpurTable Array offset_array Array amplitude_array Populates offset_array and am
121. gs Treated as Errors Wrap Period Name of file or device from which data was imported Time in seconds between successive data points from Approximate input amplitude in True if input Input frequency True if input Instrument model used to acqui Configuration details for the IP address or hostname of inst Additional dBc Hz value at dBm re data GPIB adapter the instrument frequency is a low precision estimate amplitudes should be adjusted by 3 dB serial or LAN adapter that should be rounded for display for internal or external RF splitter or other interface rument used to acquire data value used to convert dBc Hz readings into L f SSB phase noise top of SSB noise graph dBc Hz value at bottom of SSB noise graph Gain provided by LNA stage True if measurement contains True if measurement contains True if measurement contains p True if measurement contains p AM noise data Modified Julian Date when th Approximate input amplitude in two sided frequency spectrum data hase noise data hase frequency st measurement was dBm for each channel tability data triggered in a multichannel measurement New tau zero interval for resampled phase data Additional measurement notes Option codes associated with i Final decimation ratio for out Rate at which data samples ar put Overlap between succe
122. h any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this License 12 If the distribution and or use of the Library is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces the original copyright holder who places the Library under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded In such case this License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License 13 The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and or new versions of the Lesser General Public License from time to time Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns Each version is given a distinguishing version number If the Library specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and any later version you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation If the Library does not specify a license version number you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation 14 If you wish to incorporate parts of the Library into other free programs whose distribution conditions are incompatible with these
123. h data rates must be used in order to track drifting sources But decimation factors of 2 1 or greater also have the effect of satisfying the To gt 1 2 ENBW criterion With the default Output Decimation value of 2 1 phase difference data that s affected by lowpass attenuation will be kept out of the measurement even if Trace gt Clip xDEV traces by noise bandwidth Ctrl b is turned off Note that Trace Clip xDEV traces by noise bandwidth Ctrl b will have no effect on plots rendered with data captured from counters and other instruments that don t report their measurement bandwidth It should be left enabled in most cases Line related spurs The most conspicuous artifact in the ADEV plots above is the ripple in the blue and magenta traces This is caused by AC line interference primarily a single 120 Hz spur Phase Noise f in dBc Hz PM Spur Offset Hz dBc 9 8 128 6 60 0 127 0 120 0 110 0 240 0 123 6 480 0 129 2 790 0 123 9 60340 0 A Trace Notes Sample Interval ENBW Instrument GPS clock OCXO 0 004s 52 7 Hz TimePod 5330A Note that 1 120 Hz 0 008s which corresponds to the first genuine trough in the ADEV traces above Depending on how they re introduced to the measurement AC line spurs commonly appear at either the fundamental power line frequency or its second harmonic Users in the EU and other locales with 50 Hz power will see similar effects near t 0 010 and 0 0205 In all of
124. h quality crystal oscillator has been measured over the course of several hours Most of the visible spurs are well below the 5330A s specified limits so it isn t clear which ones the instrument may be responsible for However because complex signals are used throughout the 5330A s DSP pipeline we can take advantage of a mathematical observation While the cross spectrum of a physically realizable signal should fall on the real axis of the Argand plane at least some instrument spurs are caused by data conversion errors that can show up elsewhere in phase space Keeping in mind that the 5330A achieves its low noise floor by cross correlating the results reported by two independent instruments in the same box these errors suggest some correlation between the noise from one ADC with the noise from its companion in the other instrument Like random ADC noise the numerical distribution of these errors is not limited to the real axis but unlike random noise they don t average to zero over time They appear on the graph as instrument spurs Switching to the Trace gt Show imaginary part of cross spectrum display Ctrl F3 view at right reveals the noise and spurs that correspond to the imaginary part of the cross spectrum average specifically the absolute value of the Q component at each bin Ordinarily this data is used only to create the shaded area used by the Trace gt Show estimated instrument noise F2 feature after undergoin
125. he Available Measurements options in the acquisition dialog 19 Choosing an external reference In addition to the host PC and an appropriate power source all measurements made with the 5330A require an external reference to be supplied at the REF IN jack Virtually all aspects of measurement performance accuracy repeatability noise floor spurious responses depend on your ability to provide the best reference signal possible But what does the best reference possible mean It depends on the goal s of your measurement Few reference sources are ideal for both short and long term measurements Typical house clocks that distribute 5 or 10 MHz signals at levels between 5 and 20 dBm often work well for ADEV and other time frequency measurements but atomic and GPS standards that are often used as sources for centralized clock distribution may exhibit more short term phase noise than an undisciplined crystal oscillator Distribution amplifiers can also add substantial noise of their own as well as phase drift at longer timescales due to temperature sensitivity Finally even when using the best standards distribution amps and double shielded cables it s almost impossible to build a large clock distribution network that s free of environmental spurs As a result you should consider using a standalone low noise OCXO for phase noise and AM noise measurements Unlike most other stability and noise analyzers the 5330A can work
126. he facility is invoked then you must make a good faith effort to ensure that in the event an application does not supply such function or table the facility still operates and performs whatever part of its purpose remains meaningful For example a function in a library to compute square roots has a purpose that is entirely well defined independent of the application Therefore Subsection 2d requires that any application supplied function or table used by this function must be optional if the application does not supply it the square root function must still compute square roots These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Library and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves then this License and its terms do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Library the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it Thus it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you rather the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Library In addition mere aggregation
127. he results will not be identical because HDEV also responds to some high divergence noise types One interesting use for HDEV is predicting the ADEV performance of crystal oscillators that have not yet fully warmed up Unless the oscillator is exhibiting frequency jumps or inconsistent drift characteristics its short term ADEV will eventually resemble the HDEV performance that was observed only a few minutes after power up Time Deviation t TDEV or o t expresses the time stability of phase at the specified tau in units of seconds Numerically TDEV is equal to MDEV t sqrt 3 It s similar to the TIE Time Interval Error statistic used by the telecommunications sector 33 Examining changes in stability over time To make basic dynamic ADEV measurements refer to the help text for the Duration and Run Until fields in the acquisition dialog as well as the Trace History field In the TimePod dialog Trace History is found on the Frequency Stability tab Trace History 10 Duration 60 Minutes v Run Until Manually terminated or acquisition complete y Specifying a Trace History value greater than 1 causes TimeLab to divide the phase record into the given number of regions Subsequent displays of xDEV measurements will assign each region its own trace As the measurement runs more recently acquired regions towards the end of the phase record are drawn in darker colors revealing how the stability of a given device
128. heets Exported data may be re imported into TimeLab if necessary by the File gt Import ASCII phase or frequency data command Select All files as the file type if the data was not exported with the suffixes TXT or DAT then select Phase difference sec as the file data type Optionally each sample in the ASCII phase data file can be timestamped with its absolute MJD or the number of elapsed seconds since the beginning of the phase record Export ASCII frequency data X This command is supported only when viewing the selected plot s phase record contents using Measurement gt Phase difference p or Measurement gt Frequency difference f It will save an ASCII text file containing absolute frequency readings in hertz one entry per line at 16 digits of precision to the right of the decimal point If a selected or zoomed area has been defined by dragging with the mouse only that portion of the phase record will be exported By default the exported frequency readings will be saved with the suffix CSV for ease of reading into Excel and other spreadsheets Exported data may be re imported into TimeLab if necessary by the File gt Import ASCII phase or frequency data command Select All files as the file type if the data was not exported with the suffixes TXT or DAT then select Frequency Hz as the file data type Optionally each sample in the ASCII phase data file can be timestamped with its absolute MJD or the num
129. ialog Other environmental hazards Frequency Difference Averaging window Per pixel 1 00E 9 8 00E 10 6 00E 10 4 00E 10 2 00E 10 0 00E 0 2 00E 10 4 00E 10 6 00E 10 8 00E 10 1 00E 9 Os 44s 88s 132s 176s 220s 264s 308s 352s 396s 58 Input Freq Sample Interval REF FTS4050 INPUT Z3801 10 MHz 0 050s TimePod 5330A Above a measurement of two 10 MHz sources was interrupted by bursts of apparently random noise at roughly 50 second intervals The culprit turned out to be a cellular phone sitting on a nearby bench Try to keep all RF radiation sources intentional and otherwise well away from your testing area 8 l I E g http www minicircuits com pdfs FTB 1 1 pdf When using coaxial baluns make sure they re actually helping though In particular watch out for elevated phase noise floors crosstalk artifacts and assorted spurious responses picked up by the now ungrounded coax shield 37 Crosstalk Finally don t confuse power line spurs or other sources of low frequency interference with crosstalk This is an insidious artifact that may be observed in high performance measurements or worse may go unnoticed When working with the 53304 crosstalk tends to appear when the signal frequencies at the INPUT and REF IN ports are nearly the same but not precisely As the two signals phases slowly approach coincide and separate any coupling between them creates a spurious response at th
130. ialog s Utility tab AcqStartAcquisition will return true if the acquisition is initiated successfully or false if an error occurred Reasons for failure might include the lack of an available slot in the legend table for the plot s created by the acquisition the use of an unrecognized menu_entry name the specification of an invalid acquisition parameter value with AcqSetParam or if skip_dialog is false the user s selection of the Cancel button Once the measurement begins collecting data the script s EventAcqTriggered event handler if any will be called Because AcqStartAcquisition returns immediately after launching the acquisition thread measurement specific parameters such as Input Freq will not be available to the script until EventAcqTriggered is called AcqStopAcquisition Immediately stops any acquisition associated with the running script instance and calls the script s EventAcqDone handler if any Unless a fatal error occurs the plot s will not be closed and the script will continue to run until ScriptEnd is called 118 DisplayOverlayMode Boolean overlay_mode Equivalent to the Display gt Browse plots one at a time b or Display Overlay all loaded plots o command depending on the overlay_mode parameter overlay_mode is optional if it is not provided by the script the function simply returns true in Overlay mode or false in Browse mode If a new overlay_mode value is specified the functio
131. idth Ctrl b rr 83 Clip xDEV traces by confidence y u u A ea 83 Show correlation gain for selected noise trace Ctrl g a 83 Show FFT segment filter Slopes Ctrl i Sesion a AS 83 Show imaginary part of cross spectrum Ctrl F3 3333333 84 Show estimated instrument noise 84 Mark SBUrs inmolse traces ri 85 Suppress spurs IN MOISE Traces Cl er A Du ui ou 85 Smooth MOISE traces CE Wi y uuu uu u A 85 Show raWwPN channeltracels Cierra id 85 SHOW AM NOISE In PN VIEW ESV SSS coca 86 Tick Marks a aus 86 Toggle trace thickness for current measurement T cccccconccncnnccnnncnnnnnonanonnnnnnnanonnnnnonanononnnonaninonnos 87 Display MENU 0 0 e SaaS 4 839 A IOP e e 89 ls Ori A et ee et enter enge 89 N umeretableiCiriEn esen uu ee 90 SOW CU SO CINE SS asien nis ern 90 Show cursor time HEMN SS euere ah ea 90 ShOWSCUFSOrtIme dalestampe2 a E SEDA SS 90 DONOESHOW CUSO Valenciano 90 Browse plots one ata Medline os 91 02273111020 else ai uen as 91 Togele Visibility Of selected DIOL V aa 91 Select next plot in chart or arrow oenina a 91 Select previous plot in chart Or UD arrow ar e E kein 91 Move selected plot up Ctrl Up arrow iii aa a 91 Move selected plot down Ctrl down arrow rr 91 X GO III ee IN 92 O A sup 92 A o E A 92 1 ZOOM OBE
132. ield This mouseover text is the principal source of hardware specific documentation in TimeLab since it s always up to date with the latest changes made to each hardware driver It should be read carefully when using a given instrument or dialog option for the first time Miles Design TimePod The TimePod 5330A uses real time techniques from the Software Defined Radio SDR field to measure frequency stability phase noise and AM noise with specifications substantially beyond those offered by traditional counters and timing analyzers Depending on the Available Measurements options selected in the TimePod acquisition dialog the 5330A can perform any or all measurements supported by TimeLab Acquire from counter in Talk Only mode This option allows you to acquire frequency phase TI or timestamp readings from almost any GPIB or RS232 connected counter that supports a Talk Only mode in which ASCII readings are emitted autonomously with no interaction from a host controller RS232 based timing analyzers such as the picPET are also supported by the Talk Only option TimeLab supports GPIB connectivity through adapters from National Instruments or Prologix It may also be possible to use later model Agilent GPIB adapters with NI488 2 compatibility enabled 103 Acquire from live ASCII file Similar to the Talk Only acquisition option described above this option allows you to specify the location of a text file containing frequency
133. include any data and utility programs needed for reproducing the executable from it However as a special exception the materials to be distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed in either source or binary form with the major components compiler kernel and so on of the operating system on which the executable runs unless that component itself accompanies the executable It may happen that this requirement contradicts the license restrictions of other proprietary libraries that do not normally accompany the operating system Such a contradiction means you cannot use both them and the Library together in an executable that you distribute 7 You may place library facilities that are a work based on the Library side by side in a single library together with other library facilities not covered by this License and distribute such a combined library provided that the separate distribution of the work based on the Library and of the other library facilities is otherwise permitted and provided that you do these two things 161 a Accompany the combined library with a copy of the same work based on the Library uncombined with any other library facilities This must be distributed under the terms of the Sections above b Give prominent notice with the combined library of the fact that part of it is a work based on the Library and explaining where to find the accompanying uncombined form of the same work 8 You may no
134. ional frequency differences FRQ Max Offset Maximum offset frequency for spectrum display FRO Max Scale dBm value at top of spectrum display FRQ Min Offset Minimum offset frequency for spectrum display FRQ Min Scale dBm value at bottom of spectrum display HP 5313xA Mode True if the TimeLab driver should ignore statistics data from an HP 53131A 53132A counter 93 ported From m ncoming Sample nput Amplitude nput Estimated Input Freq n n n LP Art put Splitter strument terface Address f Factor Max Scale f Min Scale LNA dB Measure Measur Measure Measure MJD AM Noise Frequency Spectrum PM Noise Stability New t0 Notes Options Output Output Overlap Overlapped Phase PN Max Offset PN Min Offset Port Precision ct ct Interval Multichannel input amplitude Decimation Sample Rate Prologix Compatibility Mode Property Page Read Existing Ref Amplitude Ref Ch Ref Estimated Ref Freg Rescale Factor Rev RS 232 Setup Sample Interval Sample Rate Scale Factor Scale Jitter to Scale PN to DUT Segment Table Specified Data DUT Input Frequency Specified Referenc Spur Threshold Stability Ch Stop Condition Time Date Timestamp Trace Trace History TSC Phase Unwrapped Unwrapped Phase USB Version Use Input Rate Frequency Stability Channel Count Data Rate Warnin
135. irs of phase difference readings as described above If you specify a larger value with window n the frequency differences are computed from phase readings separated by n sample intervals or the number of intervals since the acquisition began whichever is less In the example below an attempt was made to measure the actual output frequency from a DDS whose nominal frequency was set to 10 MHz The use of rate 1 yielded one reading per second at the minimum supported measurement bandwidth of 0 5 Hz The DDS clock was derived from the same 10 MHz reference that was supplied to the TimePod making this a true residual frequency measurement Example stream timepod tll input 10E6 ref 10E6 rate 1 format F window 100 140 cx Administrator C Windows system32 cmd exe AENA stream timepod tll input 18E6 ref 1BME6 rate 1 format F windo w 100 Desktop Users johnm DesktopN ULDATA C Users johnm AppData Local Miles Designs UCDATA C ProgramData Miles Designs LOCDATA C Users johnm AppData Local Miles Design TimeLab COMDATA C ProgramData Miles Design TimeLab AppExe C deu t ime labs InitCWD C Docs CWD C deu t ime lab deu t ime labs Streaming data server U0 95 of Aug 19 2812 Miles Design LLC Press ESC to terminate SCROLL LOCK to view traffic Jjohn miles io 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612 8 19 2612
136. is a generic launcher for STREAM EXE that specifies the timepod tll and autoupdate options on behalf of the user passing along any other command line options as well TSC BAT demonstrates the use of the format TSC and port 1298 options along with autoupdate SERVE BAT appears below in its entirety echo off rem rem Batch file to launch TCP streaming data server with TimePod driver rem and automatic restart capability rem start rem rem If stream exl exists in the directory rename it to stream exe and run it rem passing any command line arguments that were originally used with rem serve bat rem if not exist stream exl goto serve copy stream exl stream exe gt nul del stream exl serve if not exist stream exe goto bail stream timepod t11 autoupdate rem rem If stream server exits with code 2 it means that the autoupdate option rem detected a new copy of stream exl in the directory Go back and launch rem the new version without any manual intervention rem if errorlevel 2 goto start Basil 145 noexit By default STREAM EXE will disconnect any attached clients close its destination file if any and terminate with exit 1 under a variety of abnormal conditions including loss of input or reference signals out of range signal frequencies or amplitude levels or other acquisition errors To force the server to restart itself instead of terminating after errors that may be transient or otherwise n
137. is test the counter s START input was fed with a 1 pps divider which was driven by a 10 MHz clock that was also connected to the STOP input using an RF splitter The counter s noise floor consists almost entirely of white PM and flicker PM noise Allan Deviation Modified Allan Deviation 1E 10 1E 10 18 11 18 11 16 12 16 12 1 13 1 13 18 14 1E 14 1E 15 1E 15 15 105 100s 100085 100005 1000008 15 105 1008 100085 100005 1000008 Input Freq Sample interval Duration Instrument Input Freg Sample interval Duration Instrument om as sn HP 46 soma as sn HPS The ADEV plot shows a consistent t slope to 10000 seconds which could be indicative of either white PM or flicker PM noise The MDEV plot renders the white PM noise at a slope of r transitioning to flicker PM near t 400s or so Limited sample availability beyond t 2000s makes it difficult to draw further conclusions but it s clear that MDEV reveals more about the counter s noise characteristics than ADEV Hadamard Deviation h HDEV expressed as Ho t can be thought of as a 3 sample alternative to ADEV HDEV plots of drift free sources will generally appear similar to ADEV but while ADEV fails to converge in the presence of linear drift HDEV is unaffected by it This means that switching from ADEV to HDEV will yield results similar to viewing ADEV after an Edit Subtract global linear frequency trend drift line Ctrl 1 operation T
138. l s attempts to remove known spurs from phase noise and AM noise traces As noted above spurs that appear as artifacts in noise traces are not rendered at their true amplitude levels due to the use of FFT noise bandwidth normalization If you are concerned with spur amplitudes in a given measurement you should use Trace gt Suppress spurs in noise traces Ctrl s to erase each detected spur from the graph and Trace gt Mark spurs in noise traces Ctrl m to replace them with vertical lines showing their true CW amplitude levels relative to the carrier Trace gt Smooth noise traces w always implies Trace gt Suppress spurs in noise traces Ctrl s For better visual quality TimeLab will attempt to erase any known spurs prior to smoothing the trace Display gt Numeric table Ctrl n can be used to show or hide the spur chart for the selected plot Like the numeric charts and tables associated with other measurement types the spur chart appears to the right of the graph area The Ctrl n command toggles table visibility for all measurement types not just the currently visible one Spur measurement options Frequency Stability Noise and Jitter Advanced Utility Graph Top 50 0 dBc Hz PN Gain 0 0 dB FFT Window Flat top 7 Graph Bottom 190 0 dBc Hz Spur Threshold 6 0 dB Z Scale PN by OUT Input Frequency Ratio Graph Left Mes Z Scale Jitter to DUT Frequency Graph Right 100 3 Hz The Noise and Jitter tab in the Ti
139. lay 2 zoom out commands will be usable and the scroll wheel will expand or contract the magnified region in both directions at once Dragging with the middle mouse button will scrub the zoomed region in both the X and Y directions You can enable Y axis autoscaling in zoom mode at any time A quick way to zoom out in Y while maintaining the current X position and magnification factor is to tap the y key twice in succession once to temporarily re enable autoscaling and again to restore 2D navigation with the middle button scroll wheel or shortcuts Averaging window for phase frequency traces g Increase averaging window Ctrl Decrease averaging window Ctrl These commands allow you to specify the length of an averaging window in seconds that will be applied to phase and frequency difference traces The averaging process makes it easier to spot trends and patterns that may be obscured by short term noise Setting the window length to its default value of zero selects a hybrid per pixel peak average detection algorithm discussed below 80 Frequency Difference Linear residual Frequency Difference Linear residual Averaging window Per pixe Averaging window 0 6 seconds 2 50E 11 2 00E 11 1 50E 11 1 00E 11 5 00E 12 y 0 006 0 5 00E 12 1 00E 11 150E 11 2 00E 11 2 50E 11 2506 12 200E 12 1 50E 12 1 00E 12 5 00E 13 0 00E 0 00E 13 1 002 2 1 50E 12 2006 12
140. le as soon as you select Start Measurement or otherwise initiate an acquisition or import operation not when the program exits If desired the INI files used by TimeLab and its instrument drivers may be copied backed up or edited manually The location of the directory where TimeLab stores its INI files varies depending on the operating system version In Windows 7 these files are normally located at c Users lt user name gt AppData Local Miles Design TimeLab also accessible at LOCALAPPDATA Miles Design TimeLab In Windows XP the INI files are normally located in the hidden directory c Documents and Settings lt user name gt Local Settings Application Data Miles Design TimeLab TimeLab does not store configuration data in the Windows registry or anywhere else besides its INI files only installation related data is stored in the registry After updating TIMELAB INI any temporary files that may have been created by instrument drivers or the File gt Export phase data to Stable32 Ctrl x command are deleted For debugging purposes temporary file cleanup is also inhibited if you hold down the Shift key while the program terminates 69 70 Edit Menu Plots that have been loaded or acquired in TimeLab may be displayed with a variety of options and transforms However any changes to the measurement data or display parameters associated with a specific plot must be made through the commands in the Edit menu Trace properties e
141. lobal linear phase trend frequency offset Ctrl o and Subtract global linear frequency trend drift line Ctrl l commands and can be even better at revealing details in plots like this one 50 Hints for phase frequency stability measurements Due to slight variations in FPGA USB interface temperature that occur when acquisition begins the 5330A s own impact on critical residual phase measurements can be minimized if you use Acquire gt Enable deferred acquisition ctrl d to force the acquisition to throw away incoming data until you press Enter to trigger it This feature is normally used to improve synchronization in multiple acquisitions but you can also use it to force a single instrument to reach its equilibrium temperature before the software saves any data You can accomplish the same thing by selecting the Measurement gt Phase difference p view using the left mouse button to select the first few minutes of data where the phase slope may be artificially degraded When you release the button it will zoom to the selected area of the plot You can then hit F4 to delete that chunk of data from the phase record The ADEV and other phase derived graphs will be recalculated This will not affect the phase or AM noise plots as mentioned elsewhere they are acquired with a completely different signal path than the one that decimates and records the phase difference data Pressing Scroll Lock will latch the current Y axis limits pre
142. mePod 5330A s acquisition dialog contains two parameters that influence how spurs are recognized and recorded First the Spur Threshold field defines the amplitude level relative to the average level of nearby FFT bins below which a given bin s amplitude will not be considered indicative of a coherent spur Second the choice of FFT Window implies a compromise between the accuracy at which a given spur s offset frequency and amplitude are reported The Flat top window excels at measuring spur amplitude levels but the Hann window offers better frequency resolution and may improve the odds of detecting a given spur as well Finally the Edit segment table button in the Advanced tab allows you to change the FFT kernel sizes used in the individual noise trace segments which can affect both spur identification performance and acquisition time 56 Is it a spur or isn t it Identifying genuine spurs while disregarding false ones can be a challenge The 5330A s DSP software may fail to detect spurs when they occur in clusters near the FFT segment s resolution limits in steeply sloped areas of the noise trace or near segment boundaries You can lower the Spur Threshold for a given measurement but the risk of misclassifying random noise spikes as coherent spurs will become greater When you see random spurs appear and disappear from the spur chart over the course of a measurement you can increase the Spur Threshold try changing FFT window
143. measurement based on the script instance s current set of acquisition parameters menu_entry should correspond exactly to the name of the instrument as it appears on the Acquire menu including any ellipsis that follows it Currently the only officially supported instrument name for scripted measurements is the Miles Design TimePod entry so this string should be supplied as the menu_entry value With a script initiated measurement the acquisition parameters are recalled from the same driver specific INI file that provides the dialog defaults when the acquisition is initiated manually from the Acquire menu These default parameters are then overwritten with any entries that appear in the script instance s acquisition parameter dictionary as described in AcqParam and AcqSetParam Unlike a manual measurement script based measurements do not write their parameters back to the driver s INI file As a result the dialog defaults that will appear in the next user initiated acquisition will not reflect the parameters used for the last scripted acquisition Next if skip_dialog is false TimeLab will present the acquisition dialog to the user allowing any parameters to be changed before the measurement begins In most cases skip_dialog should be set to true to allow the script to run without further user intervention This will be the case for measurement scripts created with the Save Measurement Script button in the acquisition d
144. measurement view that may have taken place between timer ticks Script authors are encouraged to use the EventTimer handler in 5330A_performance_test js as a model for test procedures that use multiple measurement types The difference between MeasurementSelectView and MeasurementDeferSelectView is that the latter will not take effect until after the event handler returns This distinction is important when multiple instances of the same script may be executed at once Essentially deferring the view selection until after all script instances with the same EventTimer interval have been serviced leaves a single script instance in charge of the view reducing opportunities for confusion MeasurementView Returns the current measurement view as a String containing the hotkey for the view as it appears in the Measurement menu For example when viewing a phase noise plot MeasurementView will return P the shortcut key for Measurement Phase noise See MeasurementSelectView for additional notes on measurement view selection 124 Print Displays one or more user specified values in the script console window associated with the currently bound plot Multiple arguments may be separated by commas a line feed will be inserted after each argument To avoid this you can use string concatenation rather than multiple Print arguments Numerous usage examples for the Print function appear in 5330A_performance_test js
145. memory and CPU resources A key observation is that each of the three basic measurement types Frequency Stability Phase Noise and Jitter and AM Noise uses a completely separate data record and internal pipeline The phase record mentioned in the documentation and help text has nothing to do with Phase Noise measurements for example Instead the phase record and its associated controls are used only for Frequency Stability measurements These include ADEV MDEV TDEV and HDEV as well as the frequency and phase difference plots Referring to the diagram above the phase record is created from two parallel streams of 236 ks sec complex data samples arriving from one input channel 00 10 and one reference channel 01 11 These two streams are decimated to accommodate the requested measurement bandwidth ENBW typically 5 to 500 Hz The phase differences between corresponding samples in the two low bandwidth streams are then calculated and used to construct the various xDEV plots as well as the frequency difference plot So when you save a Frequency Stability measurement to a TIM file you re actually saving these low bandwidth phase differences If you use Edit gt Remove selected or zoomed phase data F4 or the various flattening or trend removal functions to edit parts of the phase record after acquisition the 27 XDEV and frequency difference plots will be recalculated but nothing will happen to the phase noise or AM noise
146. mission Statement This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device pursuant to part 15 of the FCC Rules These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference in a residential installation This equipment generates uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions may cause harmful interference to radio communications However there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver Connect the equipment into an outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected Consult the dealer or an experienced radio TV technician for help Changes or modifications not expressly approved by the party responsible for compliance may void the user s authority to operate the equipment EC Declaration of Conformity Manufacturer Miles Design LLC 16758 45 Ave NE Lake Forest Park Washington 98155 USA Product MD 5330A Programmable Cross Spectrum Analyzer Description Small portable electronic instrument for laboratory use by qu
147. n one sample period but this isn t guaranteed Configure deferred acquisition As noted above when deferred execution is selected data from subsequent measurements is discarded until the measurement is triggered manually with Trigger deferred acquisition s Enter or by cancelling deferred execution with a second Enable deferred acquisition Ctrl d command Configure deferred acquisition provides an additional way to trigger a deferred measurement With this option the measurement triggers itself automatically once a specified number of seconds has elapsed after initiation For example this feature might be used to ignore the first few minutes of data when measuring oscillators with long warmup times or large startup transients When making deferred measurements with the TimePod 5330A you should consider using scripting techniques instead as demonstrated in the OCXO_2hr_stability_test js example Because the 5330A will not tolerate excessive DUT drift while waiting for a deferred measurement to begin OCXO_2hr_stability test js delays the entire measurement operation not just its trigger point 107 108 Help Menu User guide F1 This command launches the system s default Web browser to display http www miles io timelab readme htm Links on this page will allow you to download the latest version of TimeLab and access the latest edition of the TimePod 5330A Operation and Service manual this file When you install Time
148. n returns the previous display mode DisplayShowNumTab Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Display gt Numeric table Ctrl n Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call DisplayShowNumTab with no argument EventRunScript This is a mandatory user supplied function that must appear in every TimeLab script It is called when the user issues Scripts gt Run script or a similar command and serves as the entry point for script execution Typically EventRunScript does little more than set up the appropriate acquisition parameters and call AcqStartAcquisition returning immediately afterwards Subsequently the script s EventAcqTriggered handler is called by TimeLab when the acquisition begins collecting data EventAcqTriggered in turn may use TimeSetTimer to arrange for periodic callback service to EventTimer Scripts that need to perform extensive measurement supervision and control operations normally do so within their EventTimer handlers while final result evaluation and report generation is done within EventAcqDone For a detailed look at the operation and overall life cycle of TimeLab scripts refer to the 5330A_performance_test js 5330A_ADC_test js and OCXO_2hr_stability_test js example scripts provided with TimeLab as well as the other API function descriptions in this section 119 EventAcqTriggered This is an optional user
149. n the Library independent of the use of the Library in a tool for writing it Whether that is true depends on what the Library does and what the program that uses the Library does 1 You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Library s complete source code as you receive it in any medium provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty and distribute a copy of this License along with the Library You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee 2 You may modify your copy or copies of the Library or any portion of it thus forming a work based on the Library and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above provided that you also meet all of these conditions a The modified work must itself be a software library b You must cause the files modified to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change c You must cause the whole of the work to be licensed at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License d If a facility in the modified Library refers to a function or a table of data to be supplied by an application program that uses the facility other than as an argument passed when t
150. nce where necessary Spur performance may be compromised with non sinusoidal inputs This is especially true at lower frequencies where multiple harmonics fall within the 0 5 30 MHz passband Both the INPUT and REF IN jacks are coupled to their respective input splitters via 0 1 uF 100V capacitors These capacitors are also present at Why the added complexity Wouldn t a single input jack be enough The 5330A is really two identical instruments in one box Each of these two instruments consists of a pair of software defined HF receivers for the DUT and reference input signals All four receiver channels are implemented with high performance 16 bit RF ADCs During cross correlated phase noise and AM noise measurements the even numbered channels 0 and 2 are assigned to the input ADCs while odd numbered channels 1 and 3 are associated with the reference ADCs Because the instrument noise originating within each ADC tends to be uncorrelated with the noise from that ADC s counterpart in the other instrument the differential mode noise falls out of the cross spectrum average approaching zero amplitude over time Ideally only the desired phase and amplitude information will remain Like the input channel ADCs 0 and 2 ADC channels 1 and 3 are fed identical copies of the signal at the REF IN jack through an RF splitter but this signal path is only routed internally Making the individual input ADC
151. nt TraceShowIlmag Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Show imaginary part of cross spectrum Ctrl F3 Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TraceShowlmag with no argument TraceShowNoiseFloor Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Show estimated instrument noise F2 Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TraceShowNoiseFloor with no argument TraceShowRaw Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Show raw PN channel trace s Ctrl r Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TraceShowRaw with no argument 132 TraceShowSlopes Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Show FFT segment filter slope s Ctrl i Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TraceShowSlopes with no argument TraceSmoothNoise Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Smooth noise traces Ctrl w Refer to this command for more information To return the current flag value call TraceSmoothNoise with no argument TraceThickness Boolean status Sets and or retrieves the status of the flag controlled by Trace gt Toggle trace thickness for curr
152. nt additional notes rate lt 1 10 100 1000 gt By default STREAM EXE configures the TimePod driver to make 10 measurements per second The baseband measurement bandwidth is half of this interval or 5 Hz by default You can use the rate option to select 1 reading per second to minimize network bandwidth and or disk space for use with extremely stable sources Conversely 141 measurements of drift prone sources may require rate 100 or rate 1000 to avoid acquisition failures Note that measurements made at 1 reading per second are likely to fail if insufficient warmup time is allowed for the DUT the reference source or the TimePod itself 142 timestamp lt s MJD gt sep lt character gt These related options cause STREAM EXE to timestamp each phase difference or frequency reading sent to files or network clients By default no timestamps are emitted When timestamp MJD is specified the Modified Julian Date MJD associated with each phase difference or frequency value will be written as the first numeric field on each line followed by a space character ASCII 32 then the measurement value itself MJD timestamps are generated with six digits of decimal precision resulting in roughly 10 unique MJD values per second You can also use timestamp s to emit a simple numeric timestamp at one microsecond precision These timestamps begin at 0 000000 for the first reading acquired In either case the difference betwe
153. nt is still in progress e Now isa good time to start picking up the keyboard shortcuts Instead of selecting Measurement gt Frequency difference try the f key To return to the Allan deviation plot use a Uppercase A selects AM noise while uppercase P selects phase noise In some cases the TimeLab features and commands described in this manual will be referenced by their hotkeys rather than their menu entry names after the menu entries have been introduced e Save the measurement data to a TIM file with File gt Save image or TIM file s A TIM file is an ASCII text file that contains the data needed to recreate all of the available graphs 22 associated with a given measurement This data includes the entire phase record as well as the FFT bins from the phase noise and AM noise plots You don t have to wait for the measurement to end at any time during a measurement you can save the available data to a TIM file or load another TIM file for display alongside the existing plot s that have been loaded or acquired e Use File gt Load TIM file to read the TIM file you just saved Now you should have two copies of the same plot in memory If the measurement is still in progress you can switch to the p hase or f requency difference views to watch its phase record continue to grow while the saved copy remains unaffected For power users three of the most common commands in TimeLab are Display gt Browse plots one at a time b
154. nu is almost entirely user configurable It consists of a list of mask definitions for optional use in TimeLab Masks are useful in production test applications where fast reliable and repeatable pass fail judgments are required You can also use mask testing for proof of performance verification of the TimePod and other instruments supported by TimeLab At startup Timelab constructs the Masks menu based on the Clear mask selection contents of the user editable file masks txt By default masks txt is HP 86624 absolute 5558 phase noise 0 01 to 119 9 MHz spec limit l stored in the ALLUSERSPROFILE Documents TimeLab Masks 1 11 1 HP 50614 B ADEY and PN 5 MHz Option 004 tube time constant 1s folder This folder s location will vary from one Windows version to HP S071A ADEV and PN S Mr standard performance I I I Symmetricom 50714 ADEY and PN 5 MHz standard performance the next For example in a typical Windows 7 installation on drive C 1 TimePod 53304 residual ADEV noise phase stability 5 MHz 15 dBm it can be found at C ProgramData Documents TimeLab Masks TimePod 53304 residual ADEV nose 25 MHz 15 dBm Edit mask definitions while under Windows XP SP2 the directory is located at C Documents and Settings All Users Documents TimeLab Masks Generally the easiest way to read and modify masks txt is by selecting the last entry on the Masks menu M
155. o troubleshooting and performance verification some typical real world residual measurements appear below Blue trace 25 68 MHz crystal oscillator ZFSC 2 1 splitter about 10 minutes warmup time Measurement was allowed to run for three hours Magenta trace 5 MHz crystal oscillator ZFSC 2 1 splitter tested under near ideal conditions with several hours warmup time Measurement ran overnight 12 hours 111 Allan Deviation 1E 11 Tau Sigma Tau 0 014s 2 24E 012 0 0195 1 58E 012 1E 12 0 024s 1 32E 012 0 038s 8 64E 013 0 0475 7 15E 013 0 0955 3 78E 013 0 195 2 00E 013 0 385 1 05E 013 1E 13 0 475 8 53E 014 0 955 4 49E 014 2s 2 42E 014 4s 1 31E 014 55 9 84E 015 105 5 48E 015 1E 14 21s 2 78E 015 43s 1 48E 015 47s 1 34E 015 95s 7 69E 016 189s 4 99E 016 379s 4 38E 016 as 474s 4 27E 016 947s 3 36E 016 1894s 2 05E 016 3788s 1 57E 016 4735s 2 20E 016 1E 16 1E 1 4 001s 0 01s 0 1s 1s 10s 100s 1000s 10000s 100000s lo Trace Imputfreg Input Amplitude Ref Amplitude Acquired Instrument 25 MHz residual 3 hours 2568004 1 671 Hz 9 dBm 10 dBm En 7Hz ae 3E 014 2167272 pts TimePod 5330A 5 MHz residual 12 hours 5000000 Hz 12 3 dBm 12 3 dBm 52 7 Hz 4 1E 014 9119124 pts TimePod 5330A Phase Difference Linear residual zero based Averaging window Per pixel 5 0000E 012s Origin Slope sec sec 6 07E 012 1 06E 013 4 0000E 012s 2 41E 012 1 92E 017 3 0000E 012s 2 0000E 012s 1 0000E 012s
156. oise S f in dBc Hz and spur picture by a wide 90 0 margin PM Spur Offset Hz 6 60 0 126 6 Valuable insights can be gained 120 0 113 2 240 0 131 7 i TON EL by looking at your data from Zu more than one point of view 729102 1188 For instance the visible ADEV ripple below 0 1 second corresponds to the 60 Hz and ai 120 Hz AC line spurs in the 160 0 phase noise plot pa l Meanwhile drift and sporadic 180 0 er 1 Hz 10 Hz 100 Hz 1 kHz 10 kHz 100 kHz instability can be examined in the Frequency Difference display When using a 5330A the frequency count chart offers Ll Trace inputFreg Input Amplitude Sample Interval ENBW Elapsed instrument HP 10811 60109 10 000MHz 13dBm 10 000MHz 0 0045 52 7 HZ 3m0s TimePod 5330A over 13 digits per second of usable precision at gate times Frequency Difference Zero based A from 0 1 second to over 1000 Origin Drift Hz sec Drift Hzimin seconds 8 00E 11 8 64E 12 6 14E 7 3 68E 5 6 00E 11 Avg Time s Freq Hz at 180s Error 4 00E 11 0 100 10 000 000 013 018 839 1 30E 9 2 00E 11 0 300 10 000 000 013 017 127 1 30E 9 1 10 000 000 013 019 862 1 30E 9 0 00E 0 3 10 000 000 013 023 891 1 30E 9 10 10 000 000 013 027 977 1 30E 9 2 00E 11 30 10 000 000 013 032 110 1 30E 9 1 100 10 000 000 013 020 335 1 30E 9 4 00E 11 6 00E 11 8 00E 11 1 00E 10 Os 18s 36s 54s 7
157. ometimes useful to measure the phase noise or stability of a DUT by using an identical device as the reference In sucha case where the phase noise of the reference and DUT is presumed to be identical but uncorrelated the resulting PN graph will be 3 dB too high while Allan deviation and related measurements will be artificially elevated by a factor of sqrt 2 You can use the Rescale Phase field in TimeLab s Edit gt Trace properties dialog to correct the ADEV of two identical devices by scaling the phase data by 0 707 Similarly the phase noise may be corrected by entering 3 in the PN Gain field to lower the trace by 3 cB 20 Making your first measurements To paraphrase Kernighan and Ritchie TimeLab is not a large program and it s not well served by a large manual Likewise the TimePod 5330A hardware is easy to work with after some basic measurement concepts are understood As an introductory exercise or a quick operational check you may wish to perform a measurement using the default acquisition parameters in TimeLab Acquire data from Miles Design TimePod Caption First ight Available Measurements Additional Motes Frequency Stability W Phase Noise and Jitter Duration 3 Minutes T i AM Noise Run Until Manually terminated or acquisition complete Reference Freq He wl deai TimePod 53304 S5908 304876 x Input Freq Hz w Measure Start Measurement Cancel Restore Defaults He WW Use Input Freq DUT Fre
158. ommands the p and u views will always be identical just as if the data had been acquired from a frequency counter or direct digital analyzer Further references to the phase difference view in this manual will appear simply as Measurement Phase difference p omitting the distinction between wrapped and original phase data Frequency difference f Frequency Difference Zero based Averaging window Per pixel 2E Origin Drift Hz sec Drift Hz min 2 00E 10 _2 57E 11 _8 04E 8 4 82E 6 1 50E 10 1 00E 10 Avg Time s Freq Hz at 132s Error 1 9 999 999 961 900 000 3 81E 9 5 00E 11 3 9 999 999 962 500 000 3 75E 9 10 9 999 999 962 619 999 3 74E 9 0 00E 0 30 9 999 999 962 636 666 3 74E 9 100 9 999 999 962 634 999 3 74E 9 5 00E 11 1 00E 10 1 50E 10 2 00E 10 2 50E 10 Os 285 56s B45 1125 1405 Trace Notes InputFreq Sampleinterval Instrument __ HP 108114 Trimble Thunderbolt 10MHz 1 00s HP5370AB Shown above is a third way to view the phase data from the earlier example Each point on the Measurement gt Frequency difference f trace is calculated by dividing the difference between successive pairs of phase difference samples by the sample rate Taking the time derivative of n adjacent phase difference points in this manner yields a stream of n 1 frequency difference points Because of this differentiation process the Measurement gt Frequency difference f view of the phase record is of
159. on of the phase record with a straight line The result appears as a flat spot in the Frequency Difference measurement view This command is supported only when viewing the selected plot s phase record contents using Measurement Phase difference p or Measurement gt Frequency difference f In addition a region within the plot must first be specified You can specify a region with a Shift Left drag operation that leaves the region boundaries visible within the existing graph as in the images above or you can simply drag with the left mouse button to zoom in on the desired region In either case the command will replace the data within the specified region of the selected plot s phase record with a straight line segment that connects the data points at the region boundaries As seen in the figures above a straight line in the phase record corresponds to a flat region in the Measurement gt Frequency difference f view You can use Edit gt Flatten selected or zoomed phase data Ctrl f to remove glitches and outliers from an acquisition Subsequently Edit gt Undo last flatten or subtract operation Ctrl z can be used to restore the flattened data Unless you absolutely must preserve the original length of the phase record though it s better to use Edit gt Remove selected or zoomed phase data F4 in most cases No active background tasks may be under way for the selected plot at the time this command is issued Active background tasks are
160. onditions are met 1 Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice this list of conditions and the following disclaimer 2 Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and or other materials provided with the distribution 3 Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE SCALABLE SOFTWARE INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT AS IS AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED IN NO EVENT SHALL THE SCALABLE SOFTWARE INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT INDIRECT INCIDENTAL SPECIAL EXEMPLARY OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES LOSS OF USE DATA OR PROFITS OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY WHETHER IN CONTRACT STRICT LIABILITY OR TORT INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE Software License FIDLIB http uazu net GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2 1 February 1999 Copyright C 1991 1999 Free Software Foundation In
161. onfatal in nature use the noexit option Attached clients will still be disconnected when the server restarts but they may reconnect if desired assuming the server is able to start a new acquisition If a destination file was specified with the file option it will remain open and the new acquisition process will continue to update it Note that certain conditions such as memory allocation failures and loss of the TimePod s USB connection are still considered fatal even with noexit and will cause STREAM EXE to terminate notcp You can use notcp to keep STREAM EXE from opening any network ports or otherwise attempting to act as a TCP IP server See the description of the file option for an example nowarnings When nowarnings is used certain conditions such as excessive reference input frequency and amplitude drift that would normally result in warning messages will generate error messages instead Subsequently STREAM EXE will disconnect any attached clients close its destination file if any and terminate with exit 1 If noexit is used in conjunction with nowarnings the server will attempt to restart itself under these circumstances rather than terminating See the noexit option description for further details 146 Appendix Schematic diagrams and service notes The TimePod 5330A s FPGA constraints file timepod ucf is supplied in the drivers TimePod subdirectory beneath the TimeLab installation folder The US
162. onnected with a cubic spline Spline interpolation results in a smooth visually appealing curve but it can distort or exaggerate ringing artifacts and other abrupt transitions in the graph When Trace gt Draw xDEV traces with spline interpolation i is toggled off straight lines are used to connect the xDEV bins above left Show xDEV error bars Ctrl e Allan Deviation 1E 13 1E 14 1E 15 0 1s 1s 10s Input Freq Input Amplitude ENBW Acquired Instrument 10 000 MHz 9 6 dBm 51Hz 18108 TimePod5330A When enabled this option draws error bars at each tau bin in Allan deviation and other statistical plots These bars approximate the one sigma 68 confidence interval at o sqrt N M where N is the number of phase record samples that contribute to each bin and M is the bin s t multiple This calculation does not take either the deviation type or the noise slope into account so it should be considered a rough estimate of the actual confidence interval obtainable through more sophisticated offline analysis Consider exporting your phase data to Stable32 page 66 if your application requires better confidence interval estimates 82 Clip xDEV traces by noise bandwidth Ctrl b This display option is used to suppress artifacts near the tau zero points in Allan deviation and other statistical plots that can appear when incoming data is oversampled for lowpass filtering xDEV values at tau intervals close
163. ors or for incidental or consequential damages in connection with the furnishing use or performance of this document or of any information contained herein Should Miles Design and the user have a separate written agreement with warranty terms covering the material in this document that conflict with these terms the warranty terms in the separate agreement shall control THE REMEDIES PROVIDED HEREIN ARE THE CUSTOMER S SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDIES MILES DESIGN LLC SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT INDIRECT SPECIAL INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHETHER BASED ON CONTRACT STRICT LIABILITY OR TORT ARISING FROM THE USE OF THIS EQUIPMENT ITS ACCOMPANYING SOFTWARE OR ITS ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE Software License TimeLab http www miles io timelab readme htm Copyright c 2011 2012 Miles Design LLC All rights reserved Redistribution and use in source and binary forms with or without modification are permitted provided that the following conditions are met 1 For all components that include source code provided by Miles Design LLC redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice this list of conditions and the following disclaimer 2 Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and or other materials provided with the distribution 3 Names and tradem
164. ou if a newer version is available for download Updates are always free of charge To configure or disable automatic update notifications select Help gt Check for updates For best results TimeLab should be installed prior to connecting the 5330A to your PC s USB port for the first time Before exiting from the install program make sure that the box ia labeled Install TimePod 5330A USB Driver is checked This will ee en help Windows locate the USB driver without further intervention when the 5330A is connected After the driver has been successfully installed on your system a confirmation message will appear 15 To perform measurements with the 53304 an Intel Core 2 Duo or faster processor is required Referring to the benchmarks at http www cpubenchmark net common cpus html the minimum PassMark score for reliable acquisition falls in the 1 600 to 2 000 range Use of a system with inadequate CPU performance may result in acquisition errors often accompanied by a flashing red fault indication on the 5330A s status LED It may be necessary to disable one or more measurement types to achieve reliable operation in such cases For example if you are interested only in phase frequency stability uncheck the Phase Noise and AM Noise boxes in the Available Measurements area of the TimePod acquisition dialog For improved performance a 64 bit version of TimeLab will automatically be installed on x64 based syst
165. ou ve learned about the watch The X axis obviously needs to be logarithmic given that your timescales of interest range from minutes to years The deviation figures will need to be plotted on a log axis as well because they might be thousands of times worse at one year intervals than they are at one minute intervals Finally even though you recorded several years worth of annual readings your graph will need to end at the one year point There s simply not enough data to describe the watch s behavior at longer timescales If you keep these guidelines in mind as you graph your data you ll end up with a legitimate ADEV plot It will have three data points each containing the result sigma of an independent calculation based on at least a few samples of the clock s frequency that were taken at a specific interval tau Lines or curves can be fitted to this collection of discrete points and the result will be a plot like those drawn by TimeLab and other ADEV applications TimeLab s statistical capabilities aren t limited to Allan deviation the Measurement menu allows you to view any of four types of deviation plots during or after acquisition Formulas exist to calculate Allan deviation and other statistics on the basis of both phase and frequency samples TimeLab always works with phase data internally using incremental calculations for fast processing and overlapped algorithms for high statistical quality As with other measurements made
166. own a bit ency Difference rachel rin window Pr rr e aging welom Per spiel SET LAR fs 5 008 88 0 006 05 500 58 5hDR fa 500 Ts DE 1908 File 5 08 Fee 9508 11408 13308 1508 17108 8 Un 1008 32808 S s 7608 0508 1148 13308 1508 1108 10008 Sample interval Elapsed Instrumen 5 a a O OE In fact we could have achieved a similar effect without altering the phase record by viewing the phase difference trace with Trace gt Show linear phase frequency residual r or by viewing the frequency difference trace with Trace gt Phase frequency traces begin at zero z For these reasons Subtract global linear phase trend frequency offset Ctrl o is not a commonly needed command At first glance Subtract global linear frequency trend drift line Ctrl 1 seems more useful 1 The Trace gt Phase frequency traces begin at zero z option can actually be more useful not only can it be toggled on and off without altering the phase data but it also forces the beginning of the frequency difference trace to midscale See page 66 48 Phase Difference Frequency Difference Avrr aging window Por piooel Ase aging wand Per pial 250 0 1 006 9 7 008 8 unik EBERLE nand Gao E ION A E 196 101 E A SELLE A ee a 1908 85 i 6 008 10 500E 95 2008 10 0 006 05 DLODE I
167. phase record will be exported When the command is issued a dialog box allows you to specify the location of the Stable32 executable or other third party program as well as the command line to be passed to it The command line may contain various predefined variables described in the dialog box s help text including placeholders for the name of the temporary file and the data rate tau zero in samples per second Upon pressing the Launch Stable32 button the temporary file will be generated and the specified program launched TimeLab will then continue to run normally Temporary files created by TimeLab are cleaned up when TimeLab exits so it s advisable to leave TimeLab running until after the third party analysis application has exited 66 Export xDEV trace Available in the Measurement gt Allan Deviation a Measurement gt Modified Allan Deviation m Measurement gt Hadamard Deviation h or Measurement gt Time Deviation t views this command creates an ASCII text file containing a tau sigma tau value pair for each visible xDEV bin in the selected plot One value pair is written per line each value is rendered with 16 digits of precision to the right of the decimal point The number and distribution of xDEV bins may be specified prior to acquisition with the Bin Density field in the Frequency Stability tab of the acquisition dialog Additionally the selected plot s bin density may be adjusted after acquisition through the Edi
168. plitude_array with a list of all detected AM spurs in the current measurement returning the total number of AM spurs AcqGetPMSpurTable Array offset_array Array amplitude_array Populates offset_array and amplitude_array with a list of all detected PM spurs in the current measurement returning the total number of PM spurs AcqGetXDEVBins String selection Array tau_array Array sigma_array AcqGetXDEVChart Array tau_array Array sigma_array Populates tau_array and sigma_array with a list of sigma tau values from all valid bins in the specified statistical measurement or from the most recently rendered sigma tau chart depending on which function is called The selection parameter passed to AcqGetXDEVBins should be a string beginning with a h m or t corresponding to Allan deviation Hadamard deviation modified Allan deviation or time deviation respectively AcqGetXDEVBins differs from AcqGetXDEVChart in that AcqGetXDEVChart returns results only for the 1 3 10 tau multiples beginning at t 1s that were displayed in the most recently visible numeric table for the measurement Before calling AcqGetXDEVChart you should use MeasurementSelectView Or MeasurementDeferSelectView to display the statistical measurement for which the chart contents should be returned Additionally TraceShowNumTab true should be called to ensure that the numeric table is visible and the script must allow time for at le
169. power at all standard line voltages from 100V to 240V and is compatible with IEC320 C13 power cords available locally Sales and technical support For prompt assistance contact Miles Design at the email address or telephone number on the inside front cover of this manual When leaving a message please include your name organization callback number and preferred time to call if any Telephone calls and email are typically returned within 12 24 hours 13 14 USB driver and software installation Display Legend Measurement Acquire Help Phase Noise f in dBc Hz Wenzel Timekeeper Unsaved HP 50618 Cs off 10 000 MHz 0004s 1309 th 109773 pts TimePod 5330A The current TimeLab release may be downloaded from http www miles io timelab readme htm Please install the most recent version of TimeLab before using your new 5330A The latest edition of this manual is available at http www miles io TimePod 5330A user manual pdf TimeLab runs on Intel or AMD x86 based PCs equipped with Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or later versions It supports a wide variety of time and frequency measurement instrumentation in addition to Miles Designs own instruments Minimum system requirements are 100 MB of disk space 1 GB RAM and a CPU with SSE2 support A dual or quad core processor is strongly recommended By default TimeLab will automatically check the Miles Design web site on a weekly basis and inform y
170. ppendix The STREAM EXE Phase Frequency Data Server TimeLab includes a Windows console application STREAM EXE which can be used to provide remote access to measurement data acquired by a TimePod 53304 Continuous streams of phase difference or frequency measurements acquired by STREAM EXE can be written to a shared file or streamed continuously via TCP IP over a local or wide area network 135 Launching STREAM EXE STREAM EXE uses relatively little CPU time or RAM compared to the full fledged TimeLab application As a console application it displays no graphics at all Consequently it can run on almost any Windows PC including energy efficient servers or netbooks You can launch STREAM EXE from a Windows desktop shortcut but it s preferable to run it from a command prompt DOS box instead Because the program s user interface is based on command line parameters rather than GUI controls you ll find it easier to work at the command prompt during the familiarization process After you ve determined what options and parameters are needed in your application you can create a batch file or shortcut to launch STREAM EXE with the same parameters STREAM EXE is installed in the same directory as the rest of the TimeLab package Unless you specified a different location during installation you can find it by opening a DOS session and changing the current directory to c Program Files Miles Design TimeLab To do this select Start gt Run
171. pply to the REF IN input Suggestions for choosing appropriate reference sources appear below Additionally the 5330A s rear panel provides a 5 pin DIN jack for connection to the power supply POWER an 8 pin Mini DIN jack for future accessory expansion ACC and a USB Series B receptacle for PC connectivity USB The STATUS indicator is a high brightness RGB LED that reveals the instrument status at a glance Blue Present for the first few minutes while the 5330A s internal OCXO warms up The 5330A is ready to acquire data Stability measurements at 50 Hz and higher bandwidths may be performed as soon as the LED turns from blue to white although a 30 minute warmup period is recommended Input reference drift warnings may occur with shorter warmup periods Green A measurement is either pending or in progress No fatal errors have occurred Flashing purple Excessive signal level is present at either INPUT or REF IN causing input clipping in one or more ADC channels An unexpected increase in signal level after measurement has begun can cause this indication This is not a fatal error but acquired data is questionable Damage may occur at input levels greater than 20 dBm Flashing red A USB data overrun has occurred This is a fatal error Insufficient CPU power or disconnection of the USB cable during a measurement is typically responsible You may be able to run the measurement successfully if you uncheck one or more of t
172. ption is a diagnostic aid intended for use when editing FFT segment table files for phase noise and AM noise acquisition with TimePod hardware When acquiring noise plots on the 53304 data for each visible FFT segment undergoes highpass and or lowpass filtering based on the declarations in the segment table accessible via the Advanced tab in the TimePod acquisition dialog By rendering the entire extent of each segment record Trace gt Show FFT segment filter slopes Ctrl i provides a visual display of the filter skirts for each segment as well as the overlap between them In this mode you can temporarily hide the skirts by holding the SHIFT key 83 For detailed information about the segment table s format and contents refer to the comments within the default segment table file This file can be accessed by pressing the Advanced Edit segment table button in the TimePod acquisition dialog Most users will not need to edit the segment table Show imaginary part of cross spectrum Ctrl F3 Show estimated instrument noise F2 Phase Noise f in 7 Trace Notes ImputFreg Input Amplitude Acquired Instrument Residual 5MHz 10 4 dBm 24780 pts TimePod 5330A Phase noise and AM noise plots acquired with the TimePod 5330A and Symmetricom 512X analyzers can be displayed with a shaded area that provides an estimate of the instrument noise floor if you enable Trace gt Show estimated instrument noise F2 In the 53
173. q Hz w Measure To understand the compromises involved let s look at some of the steps that the 5330A software driver executes when you press the Start Measurement button Refer to the figure above taken from the Acquire gt Miles Design TimePod acquisition dialog 1 2 3 4 5 6 Using the nominal ADC clock frequency specified in the acquisition dialog typically 78 050 MHz or 76 050 MHz zero crossing detectors are used to obtain a rough estimate of the signal frequencies at the INPUT and REF IN jacks If you unchecked the Measure option next to the Reference Freq field and entered an explicit reference frequency this value replaces the estimated REF IN frequency The difference between the estimated and entered reference frequencies is used to improve the estimate of the ADC clock frequency If you unchecked the Measure option next to the Input Freq field and entered an explicit input frequency this value replaces the estimated INPUT frequency The INPUT frequency may be specified only if REF IN is also specified explicitly The DDS cores on the FPGA are tuned to the estimated or entered input and reference frequencies The driver spends a few seconds measuring the actual input and reference channel baseband signals For any frequencies you didn t specify explicitly these baseband measurements are used to refine the current estimates The DDS cores are then fine tuned using the updated input referenc
174. riginal data 5 000 MHz TimePod 53304 ULN5 Original data 000 MHz See 53304 ULNE Rescale Phase 1 5 000 MHz TimePod 63304 ULNS Rascale Phase m 000 MHz TimePod 53304 51 52 Phase noise AM noise and jitter Phase Noise L f in dBc Hz PM Spur Offset Hz dBc 10 0 Input Amplitude Ref Amplitude dBc Hz at 10 kHz HP 8640B Unsaved m 5061A 5098148 754 Hz 9 5 dBm 5000001 076 Hz 15 9 dBm 140 8 ne 5330A To measure the phase noise of a drift prone source such as this HP 8640B cavity tuned signal generator uncheck the Frequency Stability option in the acquisition dialog This will allow greater drift tolerance since it won t be necessary for the signal to remain within a narrow measurement bandwidth passband Thanks to the magic of cross spectrum averaging the TimePod 5330A can measure phase noise and AM noise on HF signals at exceptionally low levels Below are some guidelines to help you make the most of this capability 53 Integrated noise and jitter measurement You can display various measures of integrated phase noise between two arbitrary offsets by enabling any or all of the following Legend menu fields Residual FM RMS Integrated Noise Degs RMS Integrated Noise Rads RMS Time Jitter SSB Carrier Noise When one or more of these Phase Noise Zi f in dBc Hz parameters is enabled for display 100 in the legend table two spot ae cursors will appear in blue You can move thes
175. ript Always check MaskResultValid prior to calling MaskResultMargin See MaskResultMargin for other notes on scripted mask tests 123 MaskSelect String mask_name This function selects a mask for use with MaskResultMargin and MaskResultValid returning the previously selected mask if any If mask_name is omitted the function returns the currently selected mask name In both cases the function will return an empty string if no mask was selected Mask names should be specified exactly as they appear in the masks txt file accessed via Masks gt Edit mask definitions which also determines the names under which they are added to the Masks menu See MaskResultMargin for other notes on scripted mask tests MeasurementSelectView String hotkey MeasurementDeferSelectView String hotkey These functions accept a hotkey parameter that consists of the case sensitive shortcut key for the desired measurement view as it appears in the Measurement menu For example MeasurementSelectView P will emulate the P keyboard shortcut Measurement Phase noise P If your script is performing mask tests with multiple measurement types it s a good idea to call MeasurementDeferSelectView as the last action taken before returning from EventTimer Upon the next invocation of EventTimer your script should call MeasurementView and evaluate the masks or other test parameters for that view regardless of any changes to the
176. rming that you would like to reset all options settings colors and dialog fields to their default values the next time the program is launched If confirmation is given the INI files associated with TimeLab and all of its instrument drivers will be deleted forcing them to be recreated with default values when the program is relaunched Default disabled If desired the INI files used by TimeLab and its instrument drivers may be copied backed up or edited manually The location of the directory where TimeLab stores its INI files varies depending on the operating system version In Windows 7 these files are normally located at c Users lt user name gt AppData Local Miles Design TimeLab also accessible at LOCALAPPDATA Miles Design TimeLab In Windows XP the INI files are normally located in the hidden directory c Documents and Settings lt user name gt Local Settings Application Data Miles Design TimeLab TimeLab does not store configuration data in the Windows registry or anywhere else besides its INI files only installation related data is stored in the registry Close selected plot Del Closing the selected plot frees the memory it occupies and removes it from the graph and legend table If the plot is associated with a saved TIM file the file is not deleted After closing a plot the next plot in the legend table if any becomes the selected plot Up to 9 plots may be loaded into memory at once to acquire load or import
177. rt PNP phase noise data N Imports a PNP file saved by PN EXE a popular freeware phase noise measurement application from the KESFX GPIB Toolkit Phase noise plots from various RF spectrum analyzers not otherwise supported by TimeLab may be imported from PN EXE and rendered in TimeLab Import ASCII phase or frequency data L Reads an ASCII text file containing phase difference frequency frequency difference or timestamp data one entry per line The imported data is converted to a standard TimeLab phase record and may be rendered manipulated and saved as a TIM file As with other acquisition dialogs TimeLab s data import dialog provides detailed mouseover help text for all fields Refer to this help text for usage information To watch a continuously updated data file use Acquire gt Acquire from live ASCII file instead 64 Export ASCII phase data x This command is supported only when viewing the selected plot s phase record contents using Measurement Phase difference p or Measurement gt Frequency difference f It will save an ASCII text file containing phase difference data in seconds one entry per line at 16 digits of precision to the right of the decimal point If a selected or zoomed area has been defined by dragging with the mouse only that portion of the phase record will be exported By default the exported phase data will be saved with the suffix CSV for ease of reading into Excel and other spreads
178. s indicating a lack of available RAM Running on an x64 system can help avoid memory problems as they can access much more RAM than legacy 32 bit Windows systems When contacting Miles Design for technical support it s a good idea to attach TIM file s associated with the issue rather than image files TIM files greater than 3 MB in size should be zipped or otherwise compressed If you don t receive a reply within 48 hours please email again without the attachment to confirm delivery 25 26 A brief architectural note 1 Q DDS ADC 0 Phase freq difference traces Allan deviation Ch 0 Ch 2 INPUT 0 5 30 MHz Filter QO 10 and Q1 11 at desired ENBW Decimate QO IO and Q1 I1 to desired data rate Compute phase slope Q1 11 phase slope Q0 10 ADC 2 AM noise CLOCK __ Q bps 78 MHz Compute and accumulate average cross spectrum of FFT magnitude Q0 10 magnitude Q1 11 and FFT magnitude Q2 12 magnitude Q3 13 S gt TQ DDS y USB 2 0 236 ksps baseband A ADC 1 Phase noise Ch 1 Ch 3 REFERENCE 0 5 30 MHz Compute and accumulate average cross spectrum of FFT phase slope Q0 10 phase slope Q1 11 and FFT phase slope Q2 12 phase slope Q3 13 ADC 3 TimeLab host software Windows 1 Q DDS FPGA It can be helpful to understand some basic details about the TimePod 5330A s DSP topology especially when measurements may be constrained by available
179. s command renders a copy of the AM noise trace in the Measurement gt Phase noise P view using a lighter color or trace weight Both PM and AM spur tables are displayed space permitting Tick marks k Allan Deviation Allan Deviation 1 1 is Os ds 10 1005 Input Amplitude Sample Interval Instrument Input Amplitude Sample interval Instrument GPS clock 2 9 599 MHz 6 0 dEm DOT s ADC test bed Qutgalng test 5 MHz 10 4 dBm 0 004 s TimePad 33304 GPS clock 2 54 559 MHz 88 7 0 317 s ADC test bed Outgoing test 5 MHz 10 4 dBm 0 004 s TimePod 868 This command toggles tick marks on and off Tick marks are supported in most trace types and display modes They can be especially handy when examining phase frequency difference plots In cases where many data points contribute to a single pixel column in the graph and no explicit averaging time has been specified TimeLab s per pixel renderer displays the average of all of each pixel column s contributing points while the maximum and minimum points that fall within each pixel column are rendered in a lighter shade of the same color The k command can help you spot brief glitches and frequency jumps in these plots that would otherwise go unnoticed 86 Toggle trace thickness for current measurement T Phase Noise f in dBc Hz Phase Noise f in dBc Hz 100 kHz 10 000 MHz 13dBm TimePod 5330A 10 000 MHz 13dBm TimePod 5330A This command
180. ssive FFT Incoming data consists of phas Maximum offset for SSB noise g Minimum offset for SSB noise g buffers True if overlapped FFT processing is enabled for faster measurement specified at acquisition time or via Edit gt Trace Properties nstrument samples generated by the TimeLab driver be rounded up to th nearest decade difference values raph which will raph which will IP port of instrument used to acquire data be rounded down to th nearest decade Precision of incoming floating point data e g O single 1 double True if serial ports with FTDI Selected property page number True if existing text from th file d vic Approximate referenc Physical channel s True if reference frequency is Reference frequency Detailed instrument informatio amplitude in dBm acting as reference D2XX drivers should be treated as Prologix GPIB adapters should be skipped prior to acquiring new data a low precision estimate that should be rounded for display User supplied rescale factor for phase data Configuration string for RS 232 COM port seconds between successive data points Incoming data rate from instrument in samples per second Numeric scale factor used to convert TI True if jitter and carrier noise values should be based on Time in n including firmware version and or options readings if used
181. supplied function EventAcqTriggered is called when a measurement initiated by AcqStartAcquisition begins collecting data Typically this happens a few seconds after AcqStartAcquisition is called by the user provided EventRunScript function unless the deferred acquisition options on the Acquire menu have been used to postpone data collection Any errors that occur between EventRunScript and EventAcqTriggered automatically terminate script execution See EventRunScript for further information EventAcqDone success This is an optional user supplied function EventAcqDone is called when an acquisition ends either because the requested measurement duration expired because an error occurred or because it was stopped manually by the user The optional success parameter is a Boolean value that indicates whether the hardware driver reported any errors during the measurement See EventRunScript for further information EventTimer This is an optional user supplied function EventTimer is called periodically at a rate determined by the parameter passed to TimeSetTimer Because TimeLab s scripting system relies on cooperative multitasking most non trivial scripts should carry out the majority of their processing work in their EventTimer handler while their measurement s are in progress For detailed examples of timer usage refer to 5330A_performance_test js and 5330 06 test js Also see EventRunScript for furth
182. switches between heavy and light traces in the currently active measurement view TimeLab keeps track of the requested trace thickness for each Measurement menu entry 87 88 Display Menu Display related options that aren t measurement specific appear on the Display menu Controls on this menu determine the visibility and selection status of loaded plots the order in which plots appear in the legend table below the graph and the choice of Display gt Overlay o or Display gt Browse b mode that determines whether all loaded plots are displayed or only the selected plot Color contrast font size and graph magnification options also appear on the Display menu along with a choice of formats for the mouseover information at the upper left corner of the graticule Errererr 23 Edit colors mi m mim mm This command leads to a second level menu a LLL FET offering a choice of various graphical elements in the TimeLab window from font and trace colors to table borders and backgrounds Once an element is chosen a standard Windows color palette dialog appears As you click on the palette areas to 10 Hir 10 F r 1 kiz 10 kh change the selected color the TimeLab window is updated in real time making the color selection process interactive and easy to use High contrast C Phase Noise f in dBc Hz Phase Noise f in dBc Hz 100 0 120 0 E LM LL 130 0 a SITET A
183. t TTY window becomes visible by default upon successful execution of AcqStartAcquisition However because the TTY can obscure a large portion of the TimeLab graph display area simple scripts such as OCXO_2hr_stability_test js that report little or no status information should hide the TTY window The user will still have the option to select Scripts Toggle script console for selected plot F11 to show the TTY manually Unlike the other TTY functions ScriptShowTTY may be called at any time The visibility state that it establishes will be inherited by any subsequent plots that the script acquires ScriptShowTTY Boolean show Shows or hides the script TTY window that is associated with the plot s bound to the script instance returning ScriptShowTTY Boolean show Shows or hides the script TTY window that is associated with the plot s bound to the script instance returning TimeHoursSinceTrigger TimeMinsSinceTrigger TimeSecsSinceTrigger These three functions return the elapsed time since the measurement currently associated with the script was triggered if the measurement is still in progress Otherwise if the measurement is no longer in progress the overall duration of the acquisition is returned The values returned are floating point Numbers that equivalently represent the elapsed time in terms of hours minutes or seconds 130 TimeSetTimer Number msec This function arranges for TimeLab to call the script
184. t copy modify sublicense link with or distribute the Library except as expressly provided under this License Any attempt otherwise to copy modify sublicense link with or distribute the Library is void and will automatically terminate your rights under this License However parties who have received copies or rights from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance 9 You are not required to accept this License since you have not signed it However nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Library or its derivative works These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License Therefore by modifying or distributing the Library or any work based on the Library you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so and all its terms and conditions for copying distributing or modifying the Library or works based on it 10 Each time you redistribute the Library or any work based on the Library the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy distribute link with or modify the Library subject to these terms and conditions You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients exercise of the rights granted herein You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties with this License 11 If as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other
185. t gt Trace properties dialog See the help fields in these dialogs for details By default the exported tau sigma tau pairs will be saved with the suffix CSV for ease of reading into Excel and other spreadsheets Export AM PM noise trace Available in the Measurement gt Phase noise P and Measurement gt AM Noise A views this command creates an ASCII text file containing offset dBc Hz values corresponding to the visible noise trace for the selected plot One value pair is written per line each value is rendered with 16 digits of precision to the right of the decimal point One offset dBc Hz pair is written for each pixel column in the displayed graph This means that if you zoom in on a portion of the phase noise or AM noise graph only the trace data corresponding to the visible area of the selected plot will be exported Conversely if the graticule s X axis boundaries extend beyond the minimum or maximum offset for the selected plot no offset dBc Hz pairs outside the valid range will appear in the exported file By default the exported offset dBc Hz pairs will be saved with the suffix CSV for ease of reading into Excel and other spreadsheets Note that when Show imaginary part of cross spectrum Ctrl F3 is active the File gt Export AM PM noise trace command will export the imaginary cross spectrum trace data rather than the normal AM noise or phase noise trace Export AM PM spur table Available in the Measurement gt Phase
186. tains a notice placed by the copyright holder or other authorized party saying it may be distributed under the terms of this Lesser General Public License also called this License Each licensee is addressed as you A library means a collection of software functions and or data prepared so as to be conveniently linked with application programs which use some of those functions and data to form executables The Library below refers to any such software library or work which has been distributed under these terms A work based on the Library means either the Library or any derivative work under copyright law that is to say a work containing the Library 159 or a portion of it either verbatim or with modifications and or translated straightforwardly into another language Hereinafter translation is included without limitation in the term modification Source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it For a library complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains plus any associated interface definition files plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the library Activities other than copying distribution and modification are not covered by this License they are outside its scope The act of running a program using the Library is not restricted and output from such a program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based o
187. ted using the difference between the incoming frequency readings and the first one recorded and all of these readings can be assumed to carry the same accuracy and precision When a time interval counter TIC is used however TimeLab sees only a series of START to STOP interval times It s impossible to infer the input frequency automatically Instead you must enter it into the appropriate field of the acquisition dialog specifying at least as much precision as you expect to obtain when viewing the frequency count chart Phase frequency measurements with the TimePod For TimePod 5330A users the situation is a bit more complex First it must be emphasized that the values on the Measurement gt Frequency difference f plot have nothing to do with the difference between the absolute signal frequencies at the INPUT and REF IN jacks as might be surmised Instead the frequency difference plot reveals changes in the difference between these frequencies that occur after measurement begins On the 5330A the process of determining the input frequency can be thought of as a choice between the frequency counter and TIC methods Options in the Acquire Miles Design TimePod acquisition dialog allow you to enter an explicit REF IN frequency both INPUT and REF IN frequencies or neither The choice between ultimate accuracy and plug and play convenience is left up to you 45 Measurement initialization Reference Freg Hz w Measure Input Fre
188. ten better at revealing glitches and other short lived artifacts in the phase record than the actual 44 phase difference trace is Long term oscillator drift and temperature dependent effects are also easily spotted When the optional chart to the right of the trace area is enabled with Display 2 6 table Ctrl n TimeLab can be used to emulate a frequency counter with impressive performance The chart can be viewed at any time during or after acquisition Its entries are computed in real time by integrating the frequency difference values in the currently visible trace at successively longer intervals The integration process moves from right to left starting with the newest sample points and moving farther back in history as more data becomes available How does TimeLab measure frequency It s important to understand that the frequency differences shown on the graph are actually fractional deviations from a value known as the input frequency If the measurement s input frequency is exactly 10 000 000 Hz then a frequency difference reading of 1E 7 would mean that the absolute frequency is 10 000 001 Hz at that moment in time But what exactly is this input frequency Where does it come from and how accurate is it When acquiring data with a frequency counter it s easy enough to determine the nominal input frequency for the measurement we simply use the first reading All subsequent data points in the phase record are compu
189. the default mask definition file masks txt will permit customer verification of all performance specifications using commonly available test signals For more information select Masks gt Edit mask definitions in TimeLab to open the mask definition file and refer to the TimePod 5330A performance test masks section The automated test script 5330A_performance_test js may also be used to verify all performance specifications Limited Warranty Miles Design LLC warrants the TimePod 5330A Programmable Cross Spectrum Analyzer against all defects in materials and workmanship for a period of ONE 1 year from the date of original customer delivery The sole responsibility of Miles Design LLC under this Warranty is limited to repair or replacement of the TimePod 5330A Programmable Cross Spectrum Analyzer at the sole discretion of Miles Design LLC Contact information for Miles Design LLC for technical support and warranty claim purposes may be found on the inside of the first cover page of this manual The material contained in this document is provided as is and is subject to change without notice in future editions Further to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law Miles Design disclaims all warranties either express or implied with regard to this manual and any information contained herein including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose Miles Design shall not be liable for err
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191. those in which the plot s memory resident phase record is being written such as during initial acquisition and when reloading a saved TIM file Ifthe phase record has finished loading but the xDEV statistical traces are still being refreshed the refresh operation will be cancelled then restarted after the command finishes 73 Remove selected or zoomed phase data F4 Like Edit gt flatten selected or zoomed phase data Ctrl f this command is useful for removing glitches and outliers from the selected plot s phase record Instead of replacing the affected region with a straight line however Edit gt Remove selected or zoomed phase data F4 shortens the phase record by removing the data altogether This command has the same requirements and constraints as Edit gt Flatten selected or zoomed phase data Ctrl f except that it cannot be undone with Edit gt Undo last flatten or subtract operation Ctrl z Consider saving your original data to a TIM file first so that it can be recovered if necessary When removing data from the middle of the phase record you ll be asked if you want to maintain phase continuity In virtually all circumstances you should respond Yes to this prompt TimeLab will then ensure a seamless transition between the two remaining regions by applying a constant offset to the phase data following the removed region Otherwise an abrupt phase change due to lost continuity may appear as a glitch in the data No a
192. trl c and File gt Save image or TIM file s when the latter command is used to save a png bmp tga gif or pcx image of the entire screen Tips for new users e In TimeLab almost everything you can do from the menus has a keyboard equivalent in many cases a single key Time spent becoming familiar with the keyboard shortcuts will be rewarded e The acquisition dialog Acquire gt Miles Design TimePod contains a Utility tab with a button labeled Update Firmware which will upload new FX2 or BIT files to nonvolatile memory on the 53304 FX2 files contain 8051 firmware for the onboard USB 2 0 controller while BIT files contain FPGA configuration data TimeLab v1 003 RC4 contains new versions of both files MD5330A_100 bit and MD5330A_100 fx2 These files are present in the directory where TimeLab was installed normally c Program Files Miles Design TimeLab Users of TimePod 5330As prior to S N 55985 should upgrade their hardware with both of these files particularly if USB connectivity problems have been encountered e Use the 5330A in a room with good ambient temperature control for best results Avoid placing the hardware near HVAC vents or other sources of drafts when making high performance measurements e Also for best results avoid placing the 5330A immediately next to equipment that may operate at high temperatures as well as equipment that should not be exposed to heat Normal case temperatures may reach 40C to 4
193. ts of a fully qualified path name and plays the sound from the filename exactly as specified Otherwise filenames without backslash characters are played from the TimeLab installation directory ScriptSetTTYHeader Number linenum String text Sets and or retrieves the text displayed at the top of the script TTY window that is associated with the plot s bound to the script instance The linenum argument specifies which of the first two TTY lines will be retrieved or updated it must equal 0 or 1 The text argument is optional If present it will replace the existing text for the specified TTY line Regardless the function will return the contents of the specified line at the time it was called Note that the script TTY is associated with the most recent plot that has been acquired by the script or otherwise bound to it All channels in a multichannel acquisition share the same TTY The Print function will write its output to the TimeLab status line if no TTY is associated with the script but ScriptTTYHeader will fail with an exception In most cases you should not attempt to write to the TTY before AcgStartAcquisition has been called 129 ScriptShowTTY Boolean show Shows or hides the script TTY window that is associated with the plot s bound to the script instance returning the previous visibility state If the show argument is omitted the function will return the current visibility state without changing it The scrip
194. u how trustworthy your noise measurement is With quiet sources close in segments can take an especially long time to converge at a final smoothed level since they are updated much less often Crosstalk and AC power line interference can create discrete spurs on phase noise and AM noise graphs just as they can degrade ADEV and other statistical plots See page 36 for a discussion of causes and cures TimeLab has a graph smoothing feature Trace gt Smooth noise traces ctr w but it s often not needed with a cross correlating analyzer such as a TimePod 5330A or a TSC 5120A 5125A The best way to obtain a smoother trace with these instruments is to let your measurement run longer Low level residual plots can benefit from Trace gt Smooth noise traces ctrl w but many measurements don t need additional smoothing at all Another tip for smoother phase noise and AM noise traces suitable for TimePod users with faster PCs enable the Overlapped Acquisition option in the Noise and Jitter tab of the acquisition dialog Overlapped acquisition provides better utilization of incoming data by the FFT routines but requires significantly more CPU time When overlaying several measurements on the screen it can be helpful to run with spurs removed from the trace Trace gt Suppress spurs Ctrl s enabled and unmarked on the graph Trace gt Mark spurs Ctrl m disabled 59 60 TimeLab command reference Most of the menu based commands in Tim
195. ua 155 Federal Communications Commission Statement 156 EC Declaration ol CopioOrmiy sida ide 156 Pertormance Certitication and Validator Ao 157 Limitea Warrants da 157 SOIL Wale License Timeline kassieren 157 SOI Ware License riada 158 Software Licenses FIDLIB nie Een 158 Software License VS Javascript Engines Eee 163 Introduction The TimePod 5330A Programmable Cross Spectrum Analyzer measures the amplitude phase and frequency stability of RF sources and two port devices at frequencies from 0 5 MHz to 30 MHz Results can be viewed at timescales ranging from femtoseconds to days Measurements made by the TimePod 5330A include the following Real time strip charts of phase and frequency differences at subpicosecond precision Absolute frequency counts at 13 digits per second 17 digits maximum Allan deviation ADEV typically less than 1E 13 at t 1s Modified Allan deviation MDEV Hadamard deviation HDEV and time deviation TDEV Phase noise and AM noise at offsets from 0 01 Hz to 100 kHz and levels below 170 dBc Hz RMS integrated time jitter with less than 100 fs residual jitter from 0 01 Hz to 100 kHz RMS integrated phase noise residual FM and SSB carrier noise ratio Using high performance host based DSP techniques on a Windows PC all of these measurements can be made simultaneously Real time results appear as you watch
196. unch any acquisitions However if the script has requested timer service with TimeSetTimer it will be allowed to continue running The Scripts gt Stop all running scripts F12 command is issued by the user The user exits from TimeLab Any errors encountered during either loading or execution will be reported in the status line at the bottom of the TimeLab window Edit script This command simply launches an instance of Notepad on the specified js file allowing you to read modify and or copy the script Delete script To delete a test script select Scripts gt Delete script and specify the js file to delete The js file will be deleted without further prompting Run last executed script Shift Space Using Shift Space to re run the most recently executed script is analogous to pressing the Space bar by itself to bring up the most recently used acquisition dialog The script will be relaunched without further prompting from TimeLab 100 Toggle script console for selected plot F11 When a measurement is started under Ti 53304 performance test js Fii Toggle window ta script control TimeLab will display an overlay containing any error or status messages issued by the script This si u Test acquisition in progress console OVe rlay iS shown by defa u It Iintializing ADEW measurement FDIFF mask results mat yet available Script terminated whenever the measurement is otherwise visible
197. ut when the GPSDO was powered down for the magenta trace the spurious response vanished Likewise as the green trace shows replacing the RG58 input cable with an equal length of RG400 also eliminated the interference from the house standard As can be seen the recommendation to use double shielded cables with the TimePod is not born of excessive caution Even plots acquired by conventional frequency and TI counters are vulnerable to crosstalk With the widespread availability of GPSDOs and other inexpensive frequency standards many facilities from international physics laboratories to ham shacks are equipped with 5 and 10 MHz distribution networks Don t use low quality cables with high performance instrumentation 39 Hints for xDEV measurements The TimePod 5330A does not display its own measurement floor in the ADEV MDEV HDEV or TDEV views Instead you can and should make residual plots for measurements that may approach the instrument floor using similar frequencies and signal levels These residual plots can be saved loaded and shown with Display gt Overlay all loaded plots o next to your actual measurement traces There s a direct relationship between measurement bandwidth as selected on the Frequency Stability tab of the TimePod acquisition dialog and the TimePod s measurement floor in ADEV and other phase frequency measurements You may find it helpful to observe drift prone sources or oscillator startup characteristi
198. ve selected a different view from the Measurement menu you will see an Allan deviation ADEV plot for your DUT rendered in real time at 100 points per second Unless you changed the Duration value the measurement will run for three minutes This will be long enough to allow the ADEV trace to reach t one minute and for the phase noise trace to reach 1 Hz You can try any of these suggested actions at any time either during the measurement or after it finishes e Left click on the ADEV graph or any other log log plot Observe that the red spot cursor can be placed at any vertical column The graph s Y value at the spot cursor will be displayed in the legend table beneath the graph area updated in real time to reflect the latest reading At the same time ADEV values at assorted tau periods should be displayed in a chart on the right side of the graph e Left click and drag a box anywhere on the plot When you release the left mouse button the view should zoom in to magnify the specified area You can drag an edge or a corner of the box slightly outside of the graph area to expand the plot in that direction Right click to return to the unzoomed view e Try selecting a few of the different graph types in the Measurement menu Assuming you didn t uncheck any of the Available Measurements options in the acquisition dialog all of the different graph types should be visible updating continuously in a live fashion as long as the measureme
199. venting them from changing regardless of the zoom status or Trace gt Phase frequency Y axis unlocked in zoom mode y option This feature can be useful when you want to keep the view from being rescaled after removing detrending or flattening trace data such as when similar modifications are being applied to multiple traces in an unzoomed view Turning Scroll Lock off will restore the previous Y axis control state Most users will not need to latch the Y axis limits Scroll Lock is one of the few operations in TimeLab with no menu based equivalent To invert the phase slope you can use the Edit gt Trace properties e dialog to specify a Rescale Phase value of 1 This will invert both the slope and the origin of the phase data but you can still use Trace gt Phase frequency traces begin at zero z to display the inverted trace at a fixed origin of zero Phase Difference Phase Difference nore Tasa Averaging window Per plxe raging window 5 006 85 poro r t ill i E i RRES Origin Slope secisec 4 006 8s re Origin Slope secisec 8 00E Bs 3 04E 8 3 48E 11 3 00E 85 5 01E 10 3 4BE 11 A DOE iii jarras 3 04E B 3 48E 11 200E 85 5 01E 10 3 48E 11 200E 4a PARRA 1 00E Bs 0008603 0 006 05 2 006 85 1 00E 88 4 00E 88 iin 2006 88 ii 500E Bs 300E 85 2006 08 SMA 4 00E 85 1 005 78 5 00E 88 Os 255s 595a Os 255s 5555 Trace Notes InputFreq ULNS O
200. vides strip chart views are available to give you a closer look at the raw phase difference data These views correspond to the Phase difference Unwrapped p Phase difference Original w and Frequency difference f options on the Measurement menu Phase difference Original w Phase difference Unwrapped p 51 1 TE ME fs 1 000 78 5 00 8 DE a 3 D0E Bs 1 ME T amp 1 ME fs 2 ME s f MIE 5s Trace 00168 IputFreq HP 108114 Trimble Thunderbolt 10 7 Original Phase Difference Phase Difference Averaging window Per pix Averaging window Per pix 5 0 1 Origin Slope tisti Origin Slope testi 4 DOE TE b b3E 8 1 54E 10 1 03E 7 1 74E 9 3 ME Ts 2 207 5 1 ME TE 0 00 bs 1 ME s 7 ME Ts 3 ME fs 4 ME s 0 3 Da 258 368 BS 1 1408 Da 258 368 BS 1 8 3 Sample interval Instrument Trace Notes Imputfreg Sample interval Instrument _ lS Be HP 108114 Trimble Thunderbolt 10 MHz 10068 MPAA The distinction between these two measurement types is relevant when receiving time interval data from a traditional counter The Phase difference Original w measurement shows the original TI samples as they arrive from the hardware When acquired from a Tl counter these readings are subject to wraparound when they exceed the period of the signal that determines the START to STOP channel interval For

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