I'm an Application Engineer with Keysight Technologies, and I'm going to talk in this video
about some helpful tidbits and programming shortcuts related to the PNA network analyzer family.
We'll take a look at the help file, some hooks in the help file that increase efficiencies.
So let's get started.
So here we've logged in to our PNA network analyzer.
I am running to a Win XP-based PNA analyzer, and the first topic is we're going to take
a look at the help. There's several ways to get at the PNA help file within the analyzer
across the tab bar. Help, Network Analyzer, Help. This is going to access the embedded
help file on the analyzer. There are other methods if we don't have access to the PNA
or we wanted to refer to the help file on a PC, we have a couple methods. What we'll
do is we'll minimize the help, we will minimize the application. I've got a web browser open.
That web browser is pointing to our PNA support page, and from there, left side of the page,
third icon down, and we see the PNA help. I'm just going to give us several alternatives
to the embedded file. We can get at the online version, which I've done there. So this assumes
that you have web access and can drill into the PNA help file that's the online version,
always going to be the most current version of help with any updates, changes, etc. These
help files will freeze as a function of ongoing and higher releases of firmware. For example,
the one we drilled into is REV AL990. There are later versions. That would be a 1020.
That's going to be a for a Windows 7-based machine. Another thing we can do is we can
download various releases of the PNA help file as a CHM or compiled HTML file then we
don't need web access and we don't need the PNA. We can have that on any PC and we can
view that file at any time that's convenient for us. There is a note here if you have a
problem after you download the file about security settings that you may have to change.
Just drill into this and this will give some more details on what should be done. Let's
go back. The other alternative version, item 3 in this list, is a printable version of
the PNA help file. What I'd like to say is I never have used the PDF file, and I do not
recommend it. When I downloaded and took a look at this AL990 26 MB PNA help PDF file,
the page count is over 4,000 pages, and when you do the PDF, you lose all the embedded
hyper hotlinks that the compiled HTML embedded PNA help file and the online help file version
all have integrated in them. So I've never used the PDF file, and again, I think if you
do start with the PDF file, that's going to be an avenue for frustrations, but still very
thorough, and some people do choose to print despite the 4,000 pages. All right, let's
go back. Let's use our embedded PNA help file. So we're back in the application, we're in
help, we're in the Network Analyzer Help. We'll open this up a little bit, and we're
going to drill into the programming section. So we drill into the programming section.
One of the most common recommendations I make as an assistance or an efficiency for starting up in
programming with the PNA, whether that's SCPI Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments
or COM is this Item 1 from a simulated PNA user interface. So, for example, as a user,
if you know that when you're at the PNA, let's say you wanted to save a CSA file. I would
do that as a user under the File, Save As, CSA, I would give it a name, and I'd hit Save.
So I did a File, Save As. I know this as a user from the UI, the user interface on the
front panel, from the help, what I can use within the programming section, again, is
this Item 1 from a simulated PNA user interface. So I said, well, I know how to do a File,
Save Recall, and that results in an MMEMorySTORe as an equivalent SCPI command. The resultant
page shows both the SCPI command, Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments as well
as the COM or Common Object Model of the PNA. COM would imply running embedded as a Common
Object Model on the PNA. There's also DCOM which would be distributed COM through a LAN
and a remote PC. Focus today is SCPI. So once I say, File, Save, Recall, I know that is
user from the UI, I can drill into the memory store. It saves an instrument state as a CSA,
a CST state file, a .CAL file. Drill in more, and I can even more detail on this command.
This is just a definition that meets a SCPI structure, and then STORe. Square brackets
mean that this is optional. A file is required so you're going to give it a file name, and
within that help is going to be some examples. MMEM:STOR as a string within a string, MyData.S2P.
That would be a touchstone file. So let's go back. And this type of approach to an easy
button to finding commands based on knowledge of keystrokes. This is very, very helpful.