FAQs from Rohde & Schwarz

CMA180 lower down measurement time for AF Signal using SCPI commands

Description

I query the AF frequency and level results on a certain input signal that comes from my receiver.
Unfortunately the measurement time is sometimes higher than two seconds. I remember that I could perform much faster readout when trying some commands over my VISA tester.
Can you please let me know how to improve the measurement?

Answer

You can only lower down the measurement time to about 1.1 seconds.
Continuous measurement repetition will be switched of when working with remote control to increase the accuracy when measuring these low frequency signals.

The best way is to lower down all the statistic counts:

***
CMA180.write("CONFigure:AFRF:MEAS:MEV:AF:SCOunt 1") # AF Statistic count to 1
CMA180.write("CONFigure:AFRF:MEAS:MEV:RF:SCOunt 1") # AF Statistic count to 1
CMA180.write("CONFigure:AFRF:MEAS:MEV:AFFFT:SCOunt 1") # AF Statistic count to 1
***

- OLD setup (no change of the stat counts, using READ) performs readout on every 2 seconds:
1.9790422916412354
Test: 1 1: 0.000000 2: 0.000000 3: 0.000149
1.9821467399597168
Test: 2 1: 0.000000 2: 0.097656 3: 0.000162
1.9705696105957031
Test: 3 1: 0.000000 2: 0.000000 3: 0.000156
1.9812266826629639
Test: 4 1: 0.000000 2: 0.000000 3: 0.000150

- Same setup, stat counts lowered to 1 brings us down to about 1.2 seconds :
1.1765117645263672
Test: 1 1: 0.000000 2: 0.927734 3: 0.000162
1.134737491607666
Test: 2 1: 0.000000 2: 0.000000 3: 0.000156
1.1221659183502197
Test: 3 1: 0.000000 2: 0.000000 3: 0.000156
1.1532249450683594
Test: 4 1: 0.000000 2: 0.000000 3: 0.000167