Spectro-X User Manual ver. 4.0 - X
Contents
1. 8 EXPORT OD Ip p fece 9 EXPORTUIGHIDAPATIETERS as 10 READING A DEAR RESULTS F HEC t 13 SAVING AND IRECSELING SETTINGS dot 14 PLAYBACK qu 15 giis IVI ais 15 PLAYBACK CONTROL DIALOG armas 16 PLAYBACK SUMMARY DIALOGO m 18 ACTIVE PLOTS DIALOG nico aia 19 KIACNITODE C AE DATOG oorr E E A A cds 20 PLAYBACK CONTROLE BAR sant A EA ETE EET 21 PLAYBACK 3D PLOT San E E 23 PLAYBACK SPECTROGRAM P AAA A EEEN E 23 SPECTRO GRAN CONTEXT MIEN rias 24 SPECTROGRAM SETTINGS DIALOG rra AEEA EEEE TE ANEA E EAE EEA teense 24 SETTING THE SPECTROGRAM COLOR SCA Erin 24 SPECTROGRAM TOOLBAR ccsccsscsscescceccseceecneeeeceeeseeseeseeeeseeeeeeeeeseeseeseeseeeeeeeeeeeseeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeseeseesseceeeeeceeetaeeaesaeseeeeeees 25 PLAYBACK PERSISTENCE SPECTRUM rs a 27 PERSISTENCE SPECTRUM CONTEXT MIENO ds Rio RR RNE EERE EE REER 27 PERSISTENCE SPECTRUM SETTINGS DIALOG anna 28 SETTING THE PERSISTENCE ssirair i ar ArAnA AANEEN EA NEENA N NE ESAN AEEA A EAEE 29 PERS I TEN E SPECTRUM TOCEBAR sais 29 PLAYBACK 2D PEO TS sai a a a a a a a a a a cs 31 PEAYBACK SCROLLING TIME DOMAIN PLOT sidad idad 31 PERSISTENCE SPECTRUM CONTEXT MENU2. Spectrogram Toolbar buttons the status bar mouse click Marker the Marker Properties dialog Frequency Limits time and frequency Play Starting Here with dE Initiates a playback starting at a point Frequency Limits m in time with limits to the frequency scale 25 Play with Time Limits Play Starting Here T Initiates a playback starting at a point in time Initiates a playback with limits in time Apply Frequency f Apply the frequency limits of one of Limits to All Files the tools above to all of the files not just the file it was chosen on The Apply Frequency Limits to All Files tool is a modifier to some of the other tools It means that the frequency limits chosen on one of the plots should be used on all of the plots Press it to engage it as a modifier Press it again to release it and disable it as a modifier 26 Playback Persistence Spectrum The playback liil Playback Persistence Spectra eo persistence spectrum displays the playback signal in the frequency domain The Magnitude dBm vertical scale IS 468 75 481 25 493 75 506 25 518 75 531 25 468 75 481 25 493 75 506 25 518 75 531 25 magnitude in dBm Frequency MHz Frequency MHz an d the horizontal Real time 00 00 0 007828 Freq 486 271676 MHz File time 0 007828464 sec Power 23 6 dBm streamingoutCH1 scale is relative frequency The color scaling of the image functions as an indication of how much time the spectrum occupies a pow
3. VIEW SPECTROGRAM TOOLUBAR e armas 51 VIEW TIME DOMAIN deat ds 53 VIEW TIME DOMAIN CONTEXT MEN aia ai 53 VIEW TIME DOMAIN SETTINGS DIALOG oraren enna etur o pondo iu ava do Pe an oO asa 54 VIEW TIME DOMAIN FOOEBAR 4 55 a des eo da ae ea end E d 54 MEP ii iaa 55 PENI A A 55 REMOTE CONNECTION Siurana aaa 56 APPENDIC ES 59 APPENDIX A AGILENT WIATEAB FIVE FORMA o 59 APPENDIX B MATLAB FILE FORMA Latina 60 Getting Started Spectro X brings a unique array of post processing tools to the user This manual explains how to get the most from this program Installation Location The default installation location is C Program Files X COM Spectro X 4 The data files may reside anywhere Temporary files and settings are stored in the location C Users UserName AppData Roaming X COM Spectro X 4 where UserName is the current user s user name on the computer Starting Spectro X Spectro X can be accessed through the Windows Start menu under X COM Spectro X 4 Activating Before Spectro X can be used it must be activated When the program starts for the first time a dialog is presented which allows for Spectro X to be run as a 30 day trial or to be activated Activation involves calling or e mailing X COM with two numbers generated during activation X COM uses these two numbers to generate an activation code which is entered in the appropriate location in the activation window The license manager can sometimes conflict with Windows
4. s ssssssssessssessssssessssrsesresesesresesessrsesresesesseseseosrsesreseseorrsesroseseoresesesreseseosesesreseeene 31 SCROLLING TIME DOMAIN SETTINGS DIALOG usaran od 31 SCROLLING TIME DOMAIN TOOLBAR rai A AA A EEEE I MEN ans 32 disi OUMAR PLOT arr 33 111 SUMINARECONTE MEN ll ed dl a dl ee ed EUR ae Mee i 33 SUMMARY SETTINGS DIALOGO ada 33 SUMIVIARY TOBA e o ee AU 33 PLOT MARKER Scouse 35 PLOT IMA RKERS ARRESTADA a O een Oe onic wae 35 PLOT MABKER PROPERTIES DIALOG 00 das 36 PLOT AVIARKERS IVIATH AB G tate ete e e eet 37 SEARCH risata 2599 08390 208909090082 90 0 cewsnassaesenaae dane Sa UE OS SERVED VE Saa oa ca CE GU 38 CARRIER SEARS do 39 STANDARD SEARCH ad iD RPM 41 PADI Ee iNe S EE AEREE E E OEE EE E PAE E EAEE E PAE E EE AE 42 PULSE SEARCH os daa 44 CARRIER SEARCH PRUNING suc adas 45 PULSE SEARCH PRUNING adore 46 SEAR CHIC ON TROL EUR RU e e E 47 SEARCH REUS taa aid 48 PULSE SEARO RES Se T LE DR DR meet 49 VIEW SPECTROGRAM AND VIEW TIME DOMAIN ccccceccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccceccccccccccccccccccccccccecccs 50 VIEW MENU ences parade tern aan o e dede A 50 VIEW SPECTROGRAIM TRENT 50 VIEW SPECTROGRAM CONTEXT MEN dc 50 VIEW SPECTROGRAM SETTINGS DIALOG cccececceccceccececcececcecsccecencecscecenceceacecsacecencecenceceacecsacecsaceceacecenceceaceeeaceseaceeeaceneas 51
5. the Playback Scrolling Time Domain plots and the Playback Summary plots Playback Scrolling Time Domain Plot The Playback Scrolling Time Domain plots display signal power liil Playback Scrolling Time Domain Plots versus time The time 5 scale is the same as that gt in the scrolling spectrogram plot As with E the 3D plots this plot has 80 0 000 1 295 2584 0 000 1 295 a status bar a context a e ea A UL menu a settings dialog and a toolbar Real time 00 00 0 003788 File time 0 003787504 sec Power 22 5 dBm Persistence Spectrum Context Menu Right clicking anywhere in the scrolling time domain plot brings up a context menu Copy Image Copies the image of the plot to the clipboard Copy Image Save Image Saves image as a bitmap JPEG GIF or PNG file Save Image Print Image Sends the image of the plot directly to a printer Print Image Settings Brings up a dialog controlling the magnitude scale DUM Scrolling Time Domain Settings Dialog The scrolling time domain settings dialog is used Settings to set the limits of the vertical power scale Power Scale Scale maximum dBm 20 00 Scale minimum dBm 80 00 Accept Cancel 31 Scrolling Time Domain Toolbar Along the left edge of the window is a toolbar with various tools which can be applied to the scrolling time domain plots These tools determine what action will be taken when a mouse click or a click and drag ope
6. be automatically chosen or Stop 31 250 MHz manually entered The frequencies are relative to the center frequency of the data in the file Resolution Bandwidth Resolution bandwidth adjusts the RBW used to render w Automatically choose REW the image REW 625 000 The Time section controls the vertical scale The start time and amount of time the range can be set Start 0 000 psec Due to the finite sample rate of the data the amount of i R qe ic time that can be displayed in the vertical size of the Minimum Range 100 000 usec plot is not completely flexible Thus the time range is Prefpost padding 0 000 psec the minimum amount of time that will be displayed The Pre post padding is an amount of time that is added before and after the data in order to give a view Scale Maximum dBm 10 00 of the context of the signal which is being displayed This value can be zero um dBm 30 00 The Power Scale section adjusts the range which the Cancel color scale spans in terms of power Power Scale The Accept button accepts the settings in the dialog Pressing Cancel disregards the changes in the dialog and closes it View Spectrogram Toolbar Along the left edge of the window is a toolbar with various tools which can be applied to the view spectrogram plot These tools determine what action will be taken when a mouse click or a click and drag operation occur
7. level is a value above the noise floor The signal shown has a noise floor around 60 dBm A good rule of thumb to avoid the noise floor is to be 20 dB over the floor level If the signal types are unknown in the input data a good initial setting for the power level is 20 dB above the noise floor When searching for carriers any part of the spectrum which exceeds the specified power level is a carrier The width of the signal above the specified power level is not important with respect to finding carriers only that the power level was exceeded 40 Standard Search Standard search allows searches of carriers for particular wireless Standard Search standards The currently supported Input File standards are GSM EDGE 802 11 a g and LTE 4G cell phone Carrier Frequency The Input File list at the top is adi used to control which of the input files the standard search will be Carrier Stepping Carrier stepping on applied to Frequency range 100 000 kHz The carrier frequency for the carrier Frequency increment 10 000 kHz to be searched is entered using the text box The confidence limit allows Candidate Types an adjustment on how sure Spectro mi FE RES X is that a signal is of a certain type EDGE Most signal types which are well an l M 802 11a g aligned in frequency will yield 99 confidence However slight Time Limits uncertainties in the carrier moe frequency can lead to lower level of confidence Man
8. may be other plots which should be activated rather than just those selected in the File Number list Clicking the Close button closes the dialog without making any changes or any further changes beyond those that may have already been made 19 Magnitude Scale Dialog The menu choice Playback Magnitude Scale brings up the Playback Magnitude Scale dialog This dialog is a convenient way to set one set of limits for all ofthe magnitude scales for playback plots The Frequency Domain Plots section sets limits for all playback plots which have a frequency horizontal scale Limits values entered here will set the power scale for all those plots to the entered limits The Time Domain Plots section sets limits for all playback plots which have a time horizontal scale Playback Magnitude Scale Frequency Domain Plots Iw Set Limits Maximum value 30 00 dBm Minimum value a9 no dBm Also apply to View spectrogram Time Domain Plots Iw Set Limits Maximum value 20 00 dEm Minimum value Apply 80 00 dEm The reason that frequency domain plots and time domain plots are handled separately is that the resolution bandwidth RBW can affect the power values in frequency domain plots Press the Apply button to accept the settings in the dialog Press the Cancel button or simply close the window to ignore any changes that have been made Changes made to the scale values of an
9. options are chosen using the radio buttons If the input data is not coming from an xiq file pair the IQ files are in the same directory button should be chosen The three Browse buttons can be used to select input files Note that for xiq files not in the same directory the Browse for Q Folder button can be used to select just the directory for the Q file but not the actual Q file The name for the Q file will be generated automatically in the selected Q directory For xiq file pairs in the same directory either the I or Q file can be chosen The file s sample rate total playback time number of points and time origin are automatically populated The checkbox at the top of the page can be used to turn the file on or off during playback The settings for the current file tab can be accepted by hitting the Apply button It is not necessary to apply the settings for each file tab as hitting the OK button will apply the settings to all file tabs and close the dialog The Common tab has settings which are applied to all of the input files As a convenience plots will be created for each input file if the Automatically activate plots for plot types that are currently showing box is checked Checking this box creates plots when the number of input files changes If the box is not checked plots will not be created for each file when the Input Files dialog closes Plots can always be created using the Playback
10. radio button in the Frequency Scale section There are several optional aspects of the display of the plots The horizontal and vertical grid can be displayed or not The current spectrum can be overlaid on the plots Finally a max hold trace can be displayed The persistence spectrum plots can be displayed side Settings Persistence Medium Decay Power Scale Scale maximum dBm 10 00 Scale minimum dBm 90 00 Color map Rainbow Frequency Scale f Relative frequency scale f Absolute frequency scale Display Options i Display grid lf Display the current spectrum Display the max hold trace Plot Organization Tile horizontally Tile vertically Accept Align with spam Cancel by side tile horizontally or stacked one on top of the other tile vertically When the plots are tiled horizontally the Align with spgm checkbox chooses the same alignment criteria as the scrolling spectrogram plots This makes it easy to align a persistence spectrum plot precisely underneath the associated scrolling spectrogram 28 Setting the Persistence Persistence controls how Playback Persistence Spectrum lolas 10 0 fast or slow the image dies E in time The persistence E has four possible settings E 1 Fast Decay 12 5 12 5 2 Medium Decay 8 Playback Persistence Spectrum laa an Exa 3 Slow Decay 4 In fini te 00 00 0 078021 Origin The figur
11. right are the 3D plots which use color to display a third dimension The window in the lower left contains information about markers which have been placed on the plots pil Spectro X 4 Le les File Playback Search View Help gt in gt 2x 3x Eq SE ls Hl Playback Summary Plots eol m s v y H 3 S 8 E B 10 2767 Mn 7 0 E 2492 l o E m 221 40 m Ej 60 aa 1 936 80 T en 0 0000 50 3302 100 6604 0 0000 50 3302 100 6604 Tt 3 1661 Time msec Time msec g E TT dBm 2 ma 1 380 L Time Origin 1 liil Playback Scrolling Time Domain Plots EJE a 1 105 5 20 Time Origin2 E pU a Zi 3 40 o e 40 80 0 000 1 387 2 767 0 000 1 387 2 767 468 75 481 25 493 75 506 25 518 75 53125 46875 481 25 493 75 506 25 518 75 531 25 Relative Time msec Relative Time msec Frequency MHz Frequency MHz MI Pict Markers ETE MI Playback Persistence Spectra EEE Markers Math e Number Time Frequency Power m E 500 152MHz N A ala Tal o 3 M ra 200 m 468 75 481 25 493 75 506 25 518 75 531 25 468 75 481 25 493 75 506 25 518 75 531 25 Delete All Frequency MHz Frequency MHz Real time 00 00 0 007251 Freq 493 246822 MHz File time 0 007251184 sec Power 2 1 dBm streamingoutCH1 802 11n wb Entering Values Data for time and frequency values are
12. search type is carrier search 38 Carrier Search Carrier Search looks for signals which resemble modulation on a carrier with a constant frequency On a spectrogram these types of signals look like vertical stripes Carrier search estimates the carrier frequency the 3 dB signal bandwidth and gives the start time and duration for the signals found Carrier search is not a good choice when looking for signals which change in frequency such as chirp signals The Carrier Search dialog is accessed using the Search Carrier Search menu choice The Input File list at the top is used to control which of the input files the carrier search will be applied to The fundamental parameter controlling what defines a carrier is the power level There are two means of entering the power level either by absolute power level or by dB above the noise floor This subject will be covered in more detail after the rest of the dialog box discussion The resolution bandwidth can be controlled by entering a value into the RBW box Because the RBW affects the resolution in frequency and the resolution in time Spectro X places limits on how much the RBW can vary Ifan RBW is chosen outside of these limits Spectro X will automatically set it to a valid value and alert the user when the search starts Carrier Search InputFile 4 Power Level f Power level 40 000 dEm Above floor 30 000 dB Resolution Bandwidth v Automatical
13. selected input file In some cases it may be desired that the frequency of the pulse be determined This is true of the instrument acquiring the data was not set at a center frequency equal to the system generating the pulses Checking the Compute pulse frequencies adds a computation of frequency to the pulse search calculations If unchecked the pulse frequency is set to 0 in the results Pressing the Apply button accepts the values in the dialog and sets pulse search as the current search type Closing the window ignores the values in the dialog 44 Carrier Search Pruning Carrier Search Carrier Search Pruning Pruning eliminates Remove a Result if Pruning results found by a Frequency 0 000 Hz Off carrier search Frequency range Inside 7 uius ads T Results in a Carrier Search file process The signals Min 0 000 Hz Mex ooo Hz can be removed Bandwidth lt 0 000 Hz pruned by any of the 1 p y y Bandwidth range Inside fundamental Any Edo EMEN EE arameters of carrier p Start Time z l 0 000 psec frequency bandwidth Start tme range Inside start time duration Min Se Max lo m and carrier power oe Duration lt 0 000 psec The Carrier Search Duration range Pruning dialog 1S Min 0 000 psec Max 0 000 psec accessed using the Power 9 Search Carrier Search Pruning menu choice Power range Min 0 00 Prun
14. signals and input files the automatic choices will Stop 100 660 msec be acceptable However it may be v Automatically choose time increment necessary to alter the default choices Time increment 7044 usec There is no need to uncheck the various i Automatically choose jump time check boxes as entering a value for a setting will un check the associated box Jump time 1 007 msec The Times parameters control the parts Resolution Bandwidth of the input data which will be played If V Automatically choose RBW the Automatically choose start time and RBW E2500 kHz Automatically choose stop time boxes are checked the entire file will be played icing To select a portion of the file enter values Repeat Single into the Start or Stop boxes The time increment is the amount of time that playback steps from one set of data to the next Playback retrieves a part of the input data processes it and displays it on the various plots The next part of the input data will be the time increment further along in the input data For the value of 7 044 microsec above the beginning of the next set of data will be 7 044 microsec later than the beginning of the current data It should be noted that the time step can cause data to overlap or not depending on the choice of resolution bandwidth The Jump time is the time that the retrieval of data from the input file will jump forward or backward when
15. txt 7 Apply a fiter a The Agilent 89600 VSA Output sample rate 150 000 software uses a Output passband lt particular format for txt A Output stopband gt and mat files If the a ELE exported data will be used with the Agilent TUNIS software then check the Use Agilent file format for txt and mat files check box If that box is not checked a more general version of those file types will be written The binary data format for xiq and Tektronix tig files can sometimes be less than optimal when converting between file formats To avoid this problem check the Maximize the dynamic range box This setting only affects xiq and tiq output files Selecting this option uses the full dynamic range of the binary data but requires a two pass process which doubles the processing time If the All time checkbox is checked the entire input file will be exported If the entire input file is not desired a time range can be selected using the Start and Stop text boxes The items in the Processing box are optional processing steps which can be applied to the input data before it is exported to the selected file The Apply a frequency shift check box and associated text box and units button can be used to apply a frequency shift to the data The Decimate by check box and associated text box can be used to enter a factor which will be used to reduce the sample rate The Appl
16. typically entered in dialog boxes Spectro X allows for easy Resolution Bandwidth entering of values and the units for those values As an Automatically choose RBW example consider the resolution bandwidth part of the RBW 1 000 MH Common tab of the Playback Control dialog A value for the resolution bandwidth can be Resolution Bandwidth entered by clicking in the text box and typing in a 7 Automatically choose REV value When the Hz button is clicked a menu of l oo au RBW T AH possible units is presented The appropriate unit na mua can be chosen from the menu mms ed v MHz T Repeat Single Y An alternate method for entering the unit is to kHz type a suffix on the text For example to enter a Hz value of 1 MHz type 1m in the text box The m will not appear but will be used to immediately set the units button to MHz The letter m or M can be used to indicate MHz the case is not important The table below shows letters and the units value that they select Porp picoseconds Horh Hertz Files File Menu Various operations related to files are available on the file menu The file menu allows the user to access dialogs which select the input files It also allows access to a dialog for viewing the markers in a xiq file and a dialog for exporting the current input data in various file formats The file menu also allows the user to read in a search results file Saving and re
17. 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Frequency of sample rate Passband 10 Filter Response 11 Frequency of sample rate Magnitude dB Magnitude dB 10 ES L L L L k L L L E 1 7 r F r E r r s r r E 0r ie 7 0 5 10 0 20 i 0 5 ol A co i E 2 40 7 o S 44 5 50 E 2 70 2 5 3 3 5 r r F E r 4 ES E F la i r r E E m 20 10 0 10 20 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Frequency 96 of sample rate Frequency of sample rate Passband 15 Filter Response 10 rr L L L L k L L L TE 1 Lr r r r r r r r r r E 0r Es 7 0 5 x x 10 gt N 0 20 M j 0 5 30 7 a 2 Ko Sa 40 a e o N S 1 5 50 E S 2 60 4 E 70 2 5 l 3 EH TER 3 5 r E E F PF Lr r t 4 E P P r T E E P P ji E 30 20 10 0 10 20 30 40 50 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Frequency of sample rate Frequency of sample rate Passband 20 Filter Response TA Reading a Search Results File Spectro X can save search results to files Read a Search Results File Those results can be read back from a file using the Read a Search Results File dialog This dialog is accessed using the File Read Search Results File menu choice Use the Browse button to s
18. 2 05 Sep 2012 09 Sep 2012 03 Sep 2012 09 Sep 2012 09 Sep 2012 03 Sep 2012 09 Sep 4012 09 Sep 2012 03 Sep 2012 09 Sep 4012 Time 18 71 30 000016667 18 71 30 000066667 18 21 30 000 29666 18 21 30 00034666 18 21 30 00039666 18 21 30 0006 3666 18 21 30 000686667 18 21 30 000916667 18 21 30 00096666 7 18 21 30 001016667 18 71 30 001256667 18 21 30 001306667 18 21 30 001536667 18 21 30 001586667 18 21 30 001636667 Left clicking an item in the list brings up a context menu Further clicking in the context menu sets that marker as either the playback start or stop time Clicking Close closes the dialog Export IQ Data Dialog It is possible to export the input file data in another format using the Input File n Export IQ Data dialog Output File NEN I Br NSI This dialog is accessed OWSE using the File Export Options IQ Data menu choice Use Agilent file format for txt and mat files Maximize the dynamic range of xiq and tig output files The input file whose data will be exported is selected using the Input File list Use the Browse This time range button to open a start lo psec standard Windows save Stop 1 000000000 file dialog The file extension determines Time Limits Iv All time hat type of file will be M Ww yp ile wi 13 a fri cy shift of 0 0 MH created The currently i D dd Mz supported export types Decimate by are xiq tiq mat and
19. 9958 MHz 163452MHz 2373msec 205187usec 1029dBm the list 10 0003 MHz 1 5138 MHz 3 465 msec 5546593usec 4 43dBm The results displayed in the list are temporary 5ave To File If a new search of the same type is started the current results will be cleared In order to save the results use the Save To File button which will bring up a standard Windows file saving dialog Only the currently displayed results are saved Clicking on a result in the list will bring up the View Spectrogram displaying the input data at the start time for that result Note that the RBW used for carrier searches will be transferred to the View Spectrogram so that the view will be the same as that used by Spectro X in the carrier search algorithm 48 Pulse Search Results The Pulse Search Pulse Search Results Results win dow Search Type Pulse p O p S up Number of results 2852 automati cally Avg Power Start Time PRI Rise Time Fall Time Frequency 33 98 dBm 888 usec 0 0 sec 10 313 nsec 12 396 nsec 470 3125 kHz wh ena p ul se 33 95 dBm 1 088 msec 200 000 usec 17 604 nsec 8 750 nsec 494 965 kHz 1 33 83 dBm 1 288 msec 200 007 usec 9 271 nsec 9 792 nsec 3902 kHz search begins As 33 88 dBm 1 488 msec 200 000 usec 9 896 nsec 8 333 nsec 4 3258 kHz 33 94 dBm 1 588 msec 200 000 usec 9 792 nsec 5 875 nsec 5 9825 kHz res ults are fo un d 43 93 dBm 888 msec 200 000 usec 9 3 5nsec 9 792 nsec 412 472 kHz 33 83 dBm 200 000 u
20. Active Plots dialog The default behavior for Spectro X is to reset all playback settings to automatic mode when a new file is selected If the settings are right the way they are and should not be set to automatic when a new file is selected then il input Files check the Keep Common File 1 File 2 File 3 File 4 current settings when openin ga file check le Automatically activate plots for plot types that are currently showing box Keep current settings when opening a file If the input files are WARP files Compensate for the DC offset WARP files then the DC offset can be automatically removed by checking the WARP files Compensate for the DC offset box Spectro X will accept X COM IQ captures in either xiq or the newer xdat formats X COM WARP files Tektronix tiq files Agilent bin files ASCII text files with a txt extension and ASCII text files in comma separated value format with a csv extension If a file with an extension of txt or csv is selected Text File Format when the Apply button e pressed an additional Please select a format for the data in the txt or csv dialog opens The Text File Format dialog is used to file If the file does not have a column of sample supply additional information about the format of times also enter a sample rate the data in the file For txt files the data is in columns with some sort of whitespace character Data format between the columns For
21. Spectro X 4 User Manual Program version 4 0 C I Thank you for purchasing the Spectro X 4 spectrum analysis toolkit Spectro X 4 is a powerful toolkit for graphically displaying and analyzing captured RF signals capable of producing rich detailed video spectrograms of very large captures Users can offload captured data from X COM s IQ capture systems onto the X COM SigAnalyst workstation with Spectro X 4 for precise data analysis Search functions give the user the ability to find hidden signals and classify unknown signals Table of Contents GETTING STARTED a ccnissstsccsventsoussenteansscocvocawantcecssanssvssveotsaiacentuasauinossosuundiiessunpasnesvenisaucvestunsaumoesesdeuntissvanssossseaneninies 1 INSTALA TO LOCATION ri PH 1 STARTING SPECTRO qe P 1 PACT TING greats S 1 eisdem co 2 ENTERING VALUES C P 3 FILES rt 4 giu n 4 MEUT aD XfecMe m ERE 5 FILE NA ids SI dreccw
22. User Account Control settings When this happens a dialog box like this can appear Spectro X 4 Could not initialize application Error 42 Please try right clicking and choosing Run as administrator If problem persists please contact technical support To remedy this situation first make sure that the current user account has administrator privilege Second Windows User Account control must be turned off during the activation process To do this use the Control Panel item User Accounts and click on Change User Account Control settings Put the slider all the way to the bottom of the scale to Never Notify Click the OK button When the activation process is complete the User Account Control setting can be returned to its previous level General Layout The Spectro X user interface consists of several elements that should be familiar to Windows users Atthe top is a drop down menu with menus labeled File Playback Search View and Help Each of these menus will be covered in a section of this manual Below the menu is a tool bar which is used to control playback and search The playback plots are divided into several windows titled Playback Summary Plots Playback Scrolling Time Domain Plots Playback Scrolling Spectrograms and Playback Persistence Spectra On the left are the 2D plots so called because the data being displayed is two dimensional On the
23. ain plot Show on View Spectrogram Displays the data on the view spectrogram plot 53 View Time Domain Settings Dialog The view time domain settings can be adjusted by right clicking on the plot and choosing Settings View Time Domain Settings The Input File list is used to choose which input file i f Z is being displayed Start The Time section controls the horizontal scale The rt 0 000 psec start time and amount of time the range can be set Range 100 000 usec The Pre post padding is an amount of time that is e added before and after the data in order to give a view Prefpost padding_ 0 000 psec of the context of the signal which is being displayed Power 5 le This value can be zero Power Scale Scale Maximum dBm 10 00 The Power Scale section adjusts the range which the DEMNM un Scale Minimum dBm 90 00 color scale spans in terms of power The Accept button accepts the settings in the dialog Pressing Cancel disregards the changes in the dialog and closes it View Time Domain Toolbar Along the left edge of the window is a toolbar with various tools which can be applied to the view time domain plot These tools determine what action will be taken when a mouse click or a click and drag operation occurs in a plot View Time Domain Toolbar buttons Move Forward in Time Moves the start time forward by the time range and displays the plot Mov
24. ayback for selecting which plots are visible and for controlling the layout of plots k viis E Summary The Contro Summary CHE dn and lil Active Plat Magnitude Scale menu choices will be discussed T next as those choices all lead to specific dialogs Before proceeding to the description of those dialogs the last B I two items in the menu will be discussed aon SE The Arrange Plots menu choice attempts to distribute the plots using the available screen space The 2D plots are given the left 1 3 of the screen space The 3D plots are give the right 2 3 of the screen The 2D plots are distributed vertically with equal space given to each plot The 3D plots distribute vertically according to the number of time points in the scrolling spectrogram and the number of power points in the persistence spectrum The Show Plot Markers menu choice makes the plot marker window visible 15 Playback Control Dialog The menu choice Playback Control brings up the playback control dialog Hil Playback Contro There is a tab for the common settings for Common File 1 File 2 File3 File 4 playback and tabs for the settings which Times are unique to each file Much of the eee playback behavior is controlled using this dialog Most of the settings have a check stat 0 000 psec box which allows for automatic choices of w Automatically choose stop time the various parameters For many
25. calling of the program state is accessible through the file menu Remote connections to the program can be controlled using a dialog access through this menu More information on this topic is available in the section on Remote Connections Finally the user can exit the program through this menu lli Spectro x 4 Playback Search View Help Input File File Markers Export IQ Data Read Search Results File Save Settings Save Startup Settings Recall Settings Recall Startup Settings Preset Remote Connection Exit TBST Input File Dialog The Input File Dialog is fji input Files available from the File Input File menu Common File Rie2 Fie3 File 4 choice wv Use this file number There is a tab for each f JG files are in different directories input file and a tab for settings which are Browse common for all the files Q Fle Name SSCS Mame Browse On the individual file Browse for Q Folder tabs there are two different methods that IQ files are in the same directory are used to specify the File Name c Spech GER ETE ne C Spectro X Data TE EDGE GSM WLANg Ixiq location of the input I files If the input data Hle Contents will be coming from xiq Sample Rate 150 000 E files then the input files Total Time c667 msec can either be in the same or in different Number of Points 1 000 000 directories These two Tine Origin 00 00 0 000000
26. csv files the data is in columns with a comma separating the values Sample Rate Msps Spectro X supports four formats for the data in the file The table below lists the four formats in the Data format list of the dialog and the associated columns of data in the file If the Value or IQ formats are chosen then the sample rate must be supplied using the Sample Rate text box Spectro X reads data from the txt or csv file according to the chosen file format If a line of data does not parse into expected data values then it is skipped Thus text headers for the columns are permissible as Spectro X will simply skip them as a non data line In general txt and csv files are much slower to read and much larger in size than files with one of the binary formats While it may be convenient to be able to read ASCII files one of the binary formats is strongly suggested for large data files File Markers Dialog XIQ and WARP files can E Marker contain markers which mark significant points in the input file The Number of markers 15 Markers dialog can be used to view the markers and to set the playback start and stop times using the markers Access this dialog using the File Markers menu choice The markers in the current input file are listed The first marker in an XIQ file is used to set the time origin for the data Date 09 Sep 2012 03 Sep 2012 09 Sep 2012 09 Sep 2012 05 Sep 201
27. e Backward in Moves the start time backward by the Time time range and displays the plot Value Tool Displays the location of a mouse click in the plot mouse click Marker A mouse click on a marker brings up the Marker Properties dialog 54 Help Help Menu The Help menu has two items A Hil Spectro X 4 Help Help can be used to File Playback Search View display this document describing Spectro X 4 About Spectro X 4 llil Playback Summary Plots Help About Spectro X 4 displays a About Spectro X 4 dialog box which shows the current version of the software which is running Spectra X 4 Version 4 0 0 Copyright c 2012 X LOM Systems All Rights Reserved OK SSS 55 Remote Connections The remote connection dialog is available Ranote Connection using the File Remote Connection I na l V Allow remote connections menu choice This dialog is used to allow remote connections to control Spectro X My LAN Parameters Host name DonsSonyLaptop To allow remote connections check the IP address 192 168 0 4 IP port 5025 Allow remote connections check box The Host name and IP address boxes are merely informational They contain information that the remote client will use to connect to this instance of Spectro X The IP port number text box defaults to 5025 which the SCPI over LAN IP port number assigned for this type of interaction Howeve
28. e shows fast Magnitude dBm decay at the top slow decay next to the top medium decay next to the bottom and infinite persistence at the bottom aon D DAC V t PT x PT n a P vu IN PS RUN P n RUIT 5 0 5 5 0 7 5 12 5 7 2 5 i 2 i 10 0 12 5 8 Playback Persistence Spectrum Eo Time 00 00 0 142325 Magnitude dBm FF a SANA Dr A RA tc PN WP E 25 TT Persistence Spectrum Toolbar Along the left edge of the window is a toolbar with various tools which can be applied to the persistence plots These tools determine what action will be taken when a mouse click or a click and drag operation occurs in a plot Persistence Toolbar buttons Value Tool Ld Displays the location of the cursor in the status bar Place a Marker 8 Allows placement of a marker with a mouse click 29 Marker the Marker Properties dialog Play with Frequency Initiates a playback with limits to the Limits frequency scale Apply Frequency Apply the frequency limits of one of Limits to All Files the tools above to all of the files not just the file it was chosen on The Apply Frequency Limits to All Files tool is a modifier to the Play with Frequency Limits tools It means that the frequency limits chosen on one of the plots should be used on all of the plots Press it to engage it as a modifier Press it again to release it and disable it as a modifier 30 Playback 2D Plots There are two types of 2D plots
29. elect the file from which the results will be read Press the Read File button to read the file and display the results in the Search Results dialog To close the dialog without reading the file just close the dialog 13 Saving and Recalling Settings The File menu has five items related to saving and recalling the settings for Spectro X To save all of the current settings select File Save Settings This brings up a dialog box for creating a file name The file will be saved with a config extension If the File Save Startup Settings menu choice is chosen the current settings will be used as program settings each time Spectro X starts up To recall settings from a file choose File Recall Settings That choice opens a file dialog which can be used to select the settings file To recall the settings used at start up choose File Recall Startup Settings Finally to put the program in a factory default configuration choose File Preset 14 Playback Playback is controlled by items found in the Playback menu and by some items on the Control Bar This section discusses those items as well as the plots which are used to display the playback representations of the data Playback Menu The Playback menu contains items which are used for p llil 5pectro X 4 controlling the playback for saving plots periodically i File Playback Search View Help during the pl
30. ems in the Display section control how a marker is displayed The checkboxes at the top control Summary Plot which type of plot the marker is displayed on The Scrolling Time Domain Plot File Number list allows the marker to be displayed Scrolling Spectrogram Plot on just one file number or on the plots for all file Persistence Spectrum Plot numbers The Color and Shape lists control the View Plots appearance of the marker The three checkboxes at the bottom control the display of line extensions from the actual plot location Color Red Shape Clicking Accept accepts the values of the settings for the various items and closes the dialog Clicking Draw Time Line Cancel closes the dialog without making any Draw Frequency Line chang es Draw Power Line Although the operation of this dialog is described in Cancel relation to a selection on the plot marker list in the Plot Marker window this dialog can also be invoked using the marker properties tool on the toolbar for each plot window File Number 1 36 Plot Markers Math Tab The Math tab can be used to perform simple marker calculations Markers Math llil Plot Markers First marker number Enter a value for the first and second marker numbers and click the Compute button to compute the time Delta Time frequency and power TEE difference between the chosen markers The Delta Power difference is computed as the values from t
31. er level for a given frequency The brighter the color the longer the spectrum has spent at that power level for that frequency The rate at which the colors fade can be adjusted The horizontal scale is frequency relative to a frequency origin This scale is identical to that of the playback spectrogram The control of the scale is also the same as that for the spectrogram Persistence Spectrum Context Menu Right clicking anywhere in the persistence spectrum brings up a context menu Copy Image Copies the image of the plot to the clipboard Copy Image Save Image Saves image as a bitmap JPEG GIF or PNG file Save Image Print Image Sends the image of the plot directly to a printer Print Image Settings Brings up a dialog controlling persistence FE 27 Persistence Spectrum Settings Dialog The persistence spectrum settings dialog is used to set various parameters controlling the display of the persistence spectrum plots The type of persistence can be chosen using the list at the top of the dialog The values for persistence and their effects on the plot will be described in the next section The power scale limits are controlled by the Scale maximum dBm and Scale minimum dBm parameters The color scale can be changed using the Color map list The frequency scale can be set to display frequencies relative to the center frequency of the acquisition or as absolute frequencies using the
32. ers window has two tabs Markers and Math Plot Markers Markers Tab The current markers are displayed on the markers tab Left clicking with the mouse on a marker brings up a context menu which presents options for that marker Enabled Enable or Disable a marker without deleting it v Enabled Delete Delete the marker Delete Set Properties Bring up the Marker Properties dialog Set Properties Use as Math First Use as the first marker number on the T Em lse as Math First Math tab Use as Math Second Use as Math Second Use as the second marker number on the Math tab Set Export Start Time Set Export Start Time Use the marker time as the start Set Export 5top Time time when exporting IQ data to a file a Eam Show on View Spectrogram Set Export Stop Time Use the marker time as the stop E Show on View Time Domain time when exporting IQ data to a file Show on View Spectrogram Bring up the View Spectrogram window showing the data at the marker time Show on View Time Domain Bring up the View Time Domain window showing the data at the marker time 35 Plot Marker Properties Dialog The Plot Marker Properties dialog can be used to ar control the location and display of a marker Placement u Time 16 gam The items in the Placement section are used to fine _msec tune the time frequency or power value which define Frequency 493 178934011 MHz the location of the marker dem The it
33. h Pruning eliminates results A foun d by a puls e Remove a Result if Pruning Peak power lt i i Off search process The m 0 7 m f After the next Pulse Search sign als can be dci OL f Results in a Pulse Search file removed pruned by mU oo STEPS o any of the Lcx pesa lt i Browse fundamental results Avg power range inside y parameters of peak Min 0 00 dBm Max Jo dBm Apply power average Start Time lt 0 000 psec power start time Start time range Inside pulse width Min 0 000 psec Max 0 000 psec duration Pulse vts E i pz Repetition Interval PRI and frequenc UTE d y Min 0 000 psec Max 0 000 psec The Pulse Search PRI lt 0 000 psec Pruning dialog is PRI range Insider accessed using the Min o oo psec Mex 0 000 psec Search Pulse Frequency TE 0 000 Hz Search Pruning m A menu choice Min 0 000 Hz Max 0 000 Hz Pruning can be turned off by selecting the Off button If the After the next Pulse Search button is selected then the pruning will be run after the completion of the next pulse search operation Pruning can also be applied to pulse search results which have been saved to a file The file can be saved in the Pulse Search Results dialog This allows for multiple prunings to be tried on the same set of results without having to rerun the actual pulse search operation This can be a significant time
34. he first marker number minus the values from the second marker number Second marker number 37 Search The Search menu allows access to dialog boxes which control the various types of searches available in Spectro X The three types of search will be discussed in this section The results of searching are displayed in the Search Results window If that window is inadvertently closed it can be opened again using the Search Show Results menu choice spectro X has the ability to remove or prune results from a previous carrier llil Spectro X 4 File Playback View Help 8 I Carrier Search Standard Search Waveform Search Pulse Search Carrier Search Pruning Pulse Search Pruning Show Results Show Pulse Results Magnitude dBm or pulse search that was stored in a file or from the next carrier or pulse search perdon The Search Carrier Search Pruning and Search Pulse Search Pruning menu choices can be used to bring up dialog boxes that implement this functionality Before proceeding to explain the search functionality one item should be noted Only one type of search is active at a time The currently active search type is that search whose dialog box was closed most recently using the Accept button Thus if the Carrier Search dialog was the last one closed using the Accept button in that dialog then the current
35. he waveform search will be applied to Waveform Input File input file will be shifted in order to Browse align the frequency content in the Waveform input file with that of Iv Automatically choose time limits the input file If the Waveform The frequency shift if non zero is the amount of frequency that the Time Limits Manual input file represents a baseband Start 0 000 se signal center frequency of 0 Hz psec then the shift frequency can be Stop 1 000 sec thought of as the carrier frequency in the input data which will be Options shifted to baseband before a Rigorous normalization more accurate but slower comparison is made with the Waveform input file If the Waveform input file does not represent a baseband signal but rather a modulated carrier then the shift frequency can be thought of as the frequency shift applied to the Waveform input file before a comparison is made with the input file Apply The confidence limit allows an adjustment on how sure Spectro X is that the signal in the waveform file has been found Most signal types which are well aligned in frequency will yield 99 confidence However slight uncertainties in the carrier frequency can lead to lower levels of confidence The Browse button in the Waveform part of the dialog is used to select a small input file which determines what signal is being searched for The Time Limits section allows the entire inp
36. hecks on the file contents The spot duration and interval between spots as well as the file length determine how many summary points are generated This method does not rigorously include every input data point in the summary only those in the spot duration The interval between spots and the file length determine the number of points This method is generally faster than the complete summary even if the resulting number of output points is greater 18 Active Plots Dialog The menu choice Playback Active Plots brings up the Active Plots dialog This dialog is used to select which plots will be displayed during playback The list at the top controls how the settings in the checkboxes will be applied to the input files when the Apply button is clicked The choices are Active Files the number of each input file and All Files The selection of this list will determine which files the settings in the checkboxes will be applied to Playback Active Plots File number active Files Active Plots if Summary Iw Scrolling Time Domain v Scrolling Spectrogram i Persistence Spectrum Close There are four plot playback plot types Summary Scrolling Time Domain Scrolling Spectrogram and Persistence Spectrum A check means that this plot type will be shown Press the Apply button to accept the settings in the dialog The dialog does not automatically close when the Apply button is pressed because there
37. ilter Specifications Filter Name Passband Stopband Passband 5 0 05f lt f lt 0 05f f lt 0 1fs and f 0 1f Passband 1096 0 1f lt f lt 0 1f f lt 0 2fs and f 0 2f Passband 15 0 15f lt f lt 0 15f f lt 0 3fs and f 0 3f Passband 20 0 2 lt f lt 0 2f f lt 0 4fs and f 0 4f 10 Magnitude dB Magnitude dB 10 rr L L L L L T L L L E 1 Lr r r r r r r r r r E 0r 7 0 5 10 F 0 20 A j 0 5 30 F a P m 1 e B S 15 50 J 2 60 4 2 5 70 zl 80 T m m 3 V IAM IN WI M Mi IM MM D I i MEI HR Wi HII MILI I MT TW I II PT il ni l I i MN I m I id 100 amp ll ll Le r el r l AL 4 r r i E r r r r r mE 50 40 3 2 10 0 10 20 30 40 50 3 3 5 4 4 5 5 5 5 6 6 5 7 7 5 8 a of sample rate Frequency of sample rate Passband 5 Filter Response 10 rr L L T L L T L L L E 1 Lr r r r r r r r r r E ob F 7 0 5 10 F 0 20 9 0 5 30 lt E m 1 ki 7 o 3 15 50 H 60 4 70 2 5 80 7 IN MI I UAR EV EAE I sep TEIL INN 35 DUI Hy 100 amp el Lir LE rir r r r l E Ur 42 t F r f r r r f i 50 40 30 20 1
38. individual plot after the settings in this dialog have been applied override the settings made with this dialog This allows an individual plot to have different limits which display some aspect of signal behavior more fully The Playback Magnitude Scale dialog is merely a convenient means to set all the frequency or time domain plot scale to the same values without having to set each plot individually 20 Playback Control Bar Playback is controlled by the Playback Pida mn 1 gt lt 2x E fea E El Control Bar The Play Forward Play Reverse Stop and Pause buttons function like a normal video player The Jump Forward and Jump Backward buttons change the current playback time by adding jump forward or subtracting jump backward the amount of time specified by the Jump time parameter in the Playback Control dialog to the current playback time Double Speed makes the signal display twice as fast and Half Speed makes it display half as fast These buttons multiply the time increment parameter in the Playback Control dialog box by either 2 or 1 They do not change the rate at which processing occurs Summary On turns on summary mode during playback Undo Limits Selection undoes settings of time or frequency or time frequency limits for playback which have been applied by using playback tools on the playback plots The last 10 settings can be undone Set to Auto Limits goes back to default settings for the time and f
39. ing can be turned off by selecting the Off button If the After the next Carrier Search button is selected then the pruning will be run after the completion of the next carrier search operation Pruning can also be applied to carrier search results which have been saved to a file The file can be saved in the Search Results dialog This allows for multiple prunings to be tried on the same set of results without having to rerun the actual carrier search operation This can be a significant time savings The Browse button can be used to select an input file If the pruning is being applied to a results file only the pruning will run the next time that the Search Start toolbar button is pressed Thus pruning a file takes precedence over performing a carrier search All of the parameters which control pruning define what kind of results to remove from the list of carriers Each parameter frequency bandwidth start time duration and power has two types of controls a boundary value or range values The top check box for each type of parameter enables the boundary value The lower checkbox enables the range values Both boundaries and ranges can be used together Remember what is being entered in the various criteria is a description of what to remove not what to keep Pressing the Apply button accepts the values in the dialog Closing the dialog discards the entered values 45 Pulse Search Pruning Pulse Searc
40. ly choose REW REW L 500 MHz Time Limits lf Automatically choose time limits Start 0 000 psec stop 6 667 msec Apply The time limits section can be used to limit the search to certain parts of the input data Pressing the Apply button accepts the values in the dialog and makes carrier search the current search type Closing the dialog discards the entered values 39 As mentioned above the fundamental E parameter for S controlling E carrier search is a the power level As an example of how to set the power level consider the plot which is an LTE 4G cell phone signal To get a basic understanding of the power levels in the input data the file was played back The resulting persistence spectrum is shown A good power level for finding carriers is one that cuts through the stump of the spectrum So an absolute power level between 50 dBm and 30 dBm would be a good choice A power level below 50 dBm could inadvertently find carriers in the noise floor A power level above 30 dBm could separate the one carrier into several depending on the instantaneous frequency content of the signal A good value of absolute power for this signal is 40 dBm By entering a value of 40 dBm for the power level we are asking Spectro X to find all carriers with a power level of at least 40 dBm 15 360 9 216 3 072 3 072 9 216 15 36 Relative Freq MHz The alternative method for setting the power
41. olling spectrogram used for displaying the signal during playback but it is static non scrolling It can be moved forward and backward in time using buttons on the toolbar MI View Spectrogram T un a o c Je m 2 ec ae y As with the playback plots the view spectrogram plot has a context menu a settings dialog and a toolbar Freq Origin MHz Time Origin 00 00 0 000000 18 75 6 25 6 25 18 75 Relative Freq MHz View Spectrogram Context Menu Right clicking anywhere in the view spectrogram plot Copy Image brings up a context menu Fr Copy Image Copies the image of the plot to the clipboard Print Image Settings 50 5how on View Time Domain Save Image Saves image as a bitmap JPEG GIF or PNG file Print Image Sends the image of the plot directly to a printer Settings Brings up a dialog for setting various parameters which control the computation and display of the View Spectrogram Show on View Time Domain Displays the data on the view time domain plot View Spectrogram Settings Dialog The view spectrogram settings can be adjusted by l Mia l i View Spectrogram Settings right clicking on the view spectrogram and choosing Settings Input File i Frequencies The Input File list is used to choose which input file mj m P PUN is being displayed Manil The Frequencies section controls the horizontal 31250 MHz scale The limits can
42. one horizontal line to the creation of the next horizontal line 23 In the top left corner of the window is the color scale which is being used to create the spectrogram Along the bottom of the window is a status bar which displays time and frequency values when some of the toolbar tools are selected and the cursor is over a plot Spectrogram Context Menu Right clicking anywhere in the playback spectrogram brings up a context menu Copy Image Copies the image of the plot to the clipboard Copy Image Save Image Saves image as a bitmap JPEG GIF or PNG file Save Image Print Image Sends the image of the plot directly to a printer Print Image Settings Brings up a dialog for adjusting some properties for the spectrogram Settings Spectrogram Settings Dialog Clicking on Settings in the context menu brings up E the Settings dialog The limits of the power scale can be adjusted using the controls in the Power Scale Power Scale section The frequency scale can be set to display Scale maximum dBm 10 00 frequencies relative to the center frequency of the Scale minimum dem 50 00 acquisition or as absolute frequencies using the radio button in the Frequency Scale section Color map Rainbow Setting the Spectrogram Color Scale Frequency Scale 1 f Relat e IT Scalt Changing the color scale can dramatically change the Ern E appearance of the playback spectrogram For the be
43. r that port number can be changed if a firewall is not allowing access on this IP port number Press Apply to use the selections or just close the dialog to cancel Telnet is not the preferred means for controlling Spectro X remotely but it works fairly well Telnet is not usually enabled on Windows computers so you need to do it using the control panel for Programs and Features Click on the Turn Windows features on or off to get to a list of features Make sure that the Telnet Client box is checked At a command line prompt type telnet to get into telnet Type open localhost 5025 to connect to Spectro X If you are on a remote computer use the host name or IP address for the Spectro X computer Type help to get a list of commands Type Remote Close to terminate the remote session Note that this is not a terminal server so if you make a typing error backspacing will not delete the mis typing You are better off just typing to terminate the command and re typing the command All commands must be terminated with either a or a newline character n Commands are not case sensitive Here is the current list of commands 56 Playback Start time lt start time in Set start time seconds gt Playback Stop time lt stop time in Set stop time seconds gt 57 Search Done Is search done query Response 1 yes 0 no SearchResult Carrier Save file lt file Save carrier search res
44. ration occurs in a plot Persistence Toolbar buttons Value Tool L4 Displays the location of the cursor in the status bar Place a Marker Allows placement of a marker with a mouse click Marker the Marker Properties dialog 32 Playback Summary Plot The Playback Hi Playback Summary Plots Summary plots display signal power z versus time This plot 3 helps give an E overview of the E signal content of m large sections of 26 8507 27 7009 28 5511 26 8507 27 7009 data There are 3 Time nsec m ecd traces plotte d the Real time 00 00 0 027323 File time 0 027323476 sec Power 45 6 dBm maximum RMS and minimum data values As with the 3D plots and the scrolling time domain plot this plot has a status bar a context menu a settings dialog and a toolbar Summary Context Menu Right clicking anywhere in the scrolling time domain plot brings up a context menu iS save Image Copy Image Copies the image of the plot to the clipboard Print Image Save Image Saves image as a bitmap JPEG GIF or PNG file EN Print Image Sends the image of the plot directly to a printer Settings Brings up a dialog controlling the magnitude scale A Save Data to File Brings up a dialog which allows for saving of the min max and RMS data to a text file Summary Settings Dialog The summary settings dialog is used to set the settings limits of the vertical power scale Power Scale Scale maxim
45. requency limits for playback This button does not affect magnitude scales only time and frequency limits Arrange Plots will align the open plots in a manner to best fit the viewing area This functionality is identical to selecting the menu choice Playback Arrange Plots The plots will be arranged on the main window wherever the main window lies 21 Playback Toolbar buttons Paroa CA Few se Fam ml pesee OOOO a EN EH Plays the data in a forward direction Plays the data in a reverse direction Stops playing Jump Forward Moves the playback time forward Jump Backward Moves the playback time backward Double Speed Doubles the time increment value Half Speed Halves the time increment value cenerates summary plots only or time frequency limits MER B iim default values Arrange Plots EB Distributes the plots on the screen 2 K eX 2 22 Playback 3D Plots There are two types of 3D plots the Playback Spectrogram and the Playback Persistence Spectrum Playback Spectrogram The playback spectrogram provides a scrolling view of signals with both time and frequency information The horizontal scale is frequency The vertical scale is time The colors represent the magnitude of the input signal at a particular time and at a particular frequency The horizontal frequency MP ona Specirogram scale can be displayed as relative to the center frequency of the acquired data or as an absol
46. rt the list above The particular parameter to which the sorting is being applied must be chosen as well as whether the results should be put in increasing or decreasing order for that parameter Press Sort to initiate the sort Press Undo to go back to the original results The results displayed in the list are temporary If a new pulse search is started the current results will be cleared In order to save the results use the Save To File button which will bring up a standard Windows file saving dialog Only the currently displayed results are saved Clicking on a result in the list will bring up the View Spectrogram displaying the input data at the start time for that result 49 View Spectrogram and View Time Domain View Menu The View Spectrogram and the View Time ff Spectro x4 Domain give static views of a portion of Flem Playback Search Help the input data The plots are particularly pM useful when a very detailed investigation mdf ain gt lt SP of signal characteristics is desired The nd View Spectrogram menu choice makes Hil Playback Summary Pr the View Spectrogram plot visible The window also becomes visible when a result in the Search Result list is clicked The View Time Domain menu choice makes the View Time Domain plot visible View Spectrogram The view spectrogram plot can be used to get a close up view of signal behavior It is very similar to the scr
47. s in a plot 51 View Toolbar buttons a al time range and displays the plot E ual Time time range and displays the plot a mouse Click in the plot mouse click Marker the Marker Properties dialog 52 View Time Domain The view time domain plot can also be used to get a close up view of signal behavior It can be moved forward and backward in time using buttons on the toolbar liil View Time Domain As with the view spectrogram plot the view time domain plot has a context menu a settings dialog and a toolbar E oo LE q Ta m E Iw a Time usec View Time Domain Context Menu Right clicking anywhere in the view time domain plot brings Copy Image up a context menu Save Image Copy Image Copies the image of the plot to the clipboard dmn Save Image Saves image as a bitmap JPEG GIF or PNG v Log Mag vs Time file Phase vs Time Print Image Sends the image of the plot directly to a Unwrapped Phase vs Time printer I amp Q vs Time Log Mag vs Time Displays the data in log magnitude format dBm Settings Phase vs Time Displays the data in phase format Show on View Spectrogram Unwrapped Phase vs Time Displays the data in phase format with the phase wraps eliminated I amp Q vs Time Displays the data as two traces I vs time and Q vs time Settings Brings up a dialog for setting various parameters which control the computation and display of the view time dom
48. savings The Browse button can be used to select an input file If the pruning is being applied to a results file only the pruning will run the next time that the Search Start toolbar button is pressed Thus pruning a file takes precedence over performing a pulse search All of the parameters which control pruning define what kind of results to remove from the list of carriers Each parameter peak power average power start time pulse width PRI and frequency has two types of controls a boundary value or range values The top check box for each type of parameter enables the boundary value The lower checkbox enables the range values Both boundaries and ranges can be used together Remember what is being entered in the various criteria is a description of what to remove not what to keep Pressing the Apply button accepts the values in the dialog Closing the dialog discards the entered values 46 Search Control Bar There are two buttons on the toolbar which control Search gy 4d The Search Start button FA can be used to start a search or pruning operation The Search Stop button w can be used to stop a currently running search 47 Search Results The Search Results Search Results window pops up automatically Search Type when a search Number of results begins As results are found th ey are Camer Frequency Bandwidth Start Time Duration Power 49 9956 MHz 16 3468 MHz 613nsec 204013usec 10 27 dBm added
49. sec 9 3 5nsec 5 458 nsec 12 317 kHz they are added to 33 97 dBm 199 993usec 10 000nsec 13358nsec 132830kHz th e list 33 88 dBm 200 007 usec 10 525 nsec 8 333 nsec 286 2836 kHz 33 89 dBm 200 000 usec 9 583 nsec 10 417 nsec 2 4634 kHz 34 71 dBm 1 200 msec 10 000 nsec 10 000 nsec 31 6723 kHz 34 69 dBm 200 000 usec 9 1657 nsec 12 317 nsec 459 312 kHz The Search 34 71 dBm 200 000usec 10 833nsec 22 917 msec 25 3378kHz Type list can be used to select the type of search results which are being displayed The number of results is shown 34 62 dBm 34 73 dBm 34 68 dBm 39 42 dBm 29 32 dBm 35 41 dBm 200 000 usec 200 000 usec 200 000 usec 200 000 usec 200 000 usec 1 200 msec 200 000 usec 200 000 usec 200 000 usec 9 167 nsec 9 583 nsec 9 583 nsec 9 167 nsec 9 583 nsec 10 000 nsec 9 167 nsec 10 000 nsec 5 512 nsec 8 333 nsec 8 750 nsec 10 233 nsec 9 583 nsec 10 417 nsec 8 333 nsec 12 317 nsec 11 484 nsec 6 016 nsec 16 875 nsec 8 802 nsec 340 464 kHz 12 6689 kHz 3 5191 kHz 7 7421 kHz 31 6 23 kHz 21 1149 kHz 16 8919 kHz 35 1914 kHz 30 4846 kHz 14 1206 kHz 34 0477 kHz 14 8684 kHz s Parameter Direction in the box Peak power f Increasing Decreasing Save To File The vertical scroll bar is enabled when there are more results than can be displayed in the list The Sort section contains controls that can be used to so
50. st Qos esis ans detail in analyzing the entire viewing portion s power resolution the scale needs to be set so that the Cancel maximum color level faintly begins to show in the signal white if the rainbow color scale is selected This ensures that no signal level is far above the color scale In the figure below the image on the left has a good choice for the maximum power level for the color scale The Image in the center has the maximum power level set too low The image on the right has the power 24 level set too high Setting the minimum limit is dependent on how much signal to noise ratio the viewer would like to see and the minimum power level of interest Setting the minimum level very low may reveal previously unknown low level signals but it may also introduce unnecessary noise into the viewing plot If extreme resolution for a particular region of power is required the levels may be set so that the maximum level and the minimum level span a fairly small range The figure below shows the same signal viewed as above but with the power levels set in 10 dBm ranges The image on the left emphasizes the highest powers while that on the right emphasizes the lowest powers Spectrogram Toolbar Along the left edge of the window is a toolbar with various tools which can be applied to the spectrogram plots These tools determine what action will be taken when a mouse click or a click and drag operation occurs in a plot
51. t using the Start and Stop parameters The Time delay parameter can be used to adjust the time alignment of the files during playback Note that this only adjusts the apparent time of one file compared to another during playback All markers and time displays show the actual time of the file and do not take into account the time delay value 17 Playback Summary Dialog The menu choice Playback Summary Lew ree aub brings up the Playback Summary dialog This Complete summary dialog is used to control the settings for the summary type of playback Summary is a quick Number of paints 2000 way to see an overview of the contents of the i l f Spot check faster input files The summary is in the form of min max and RMS values Spot duration 5 000 usec Interval between spots 1 000 sec There are two methods which can be used to generate a summary view of the input files complete and spot check A complete summary looks at every input point in the input files and generates max min and RMS values The number of points is how many points there will be in the resulting summary plots This method is thorough in that it processes every input data point in the files However due to its rigorous nature it can be slower than desired A faster but less rigorous method is spot check This method does not summarize the entire file contents in a fixed number of points but rather does spot c
52. the Jump Forward or Jump Backward buttons on the toolbar are pushed The default value for the jump is 1 of the file length The Resolution Bandwidth parameter controls the RBW which will be used to compute the frequency domain views of the data If the default choice is not correct for the input data a value can be entered using the RBW parameter A smaller value for RBW gives 16 more detail in frequency A larger value of RBW gives less detail in frequency but more detail in time The Repeating parameter controls what happens when a playback is complete Single means that the playback will stop after playing the input data once Continuous means that the playback will go back to the beginning of the input data and continue playing Each file has settings which can be used Hil Playback Control for only that file These settings are accessed on the individual file tabs Common File 1 File 2 File 3 File 4 Frequencies Relative to the Center Frequency The Frequencies parameters control if Automatically choose frequency limits the generation of frequency domain views of the input data These settings start 31250 MHz affect the scrolling spectrogram and the Stop 31250 Mkz persistence spectrum The default frequency range is set by parameters in Times the input file which specify the valid Time delay 0 000 psec frequency range for the data The actual frequency range can be se
53. to the list 9 9961 MHz 15135 MHz usi 554 693 usec 4 20dBm 5 0022 MHz 1 5125 MHz usec 558187usec 13 9dEm The Search Type 49 9958 MHz 16 3452 MHz 337 usec 205 187 usec 10 23 dBm 5 9955 MHz 1 5132 MHz 580 usec 554693 usec 462dEm list can be used to 5 0022 MHz 15120 MHz 581 usec 568 333usec 139dBm select the type of 499958 MHz 16 3452 MHz amp G74usec 205 187usec 10 29 dBm search results 45 9956 MHz 16 3452 MHz 1 012 msec 205 187 Use 0 29 dBm 10 0044 MHz 1 5146 MHz 1 157 msec 554 747usec 451dBm which are being 5 0004 MHz 15126 MHz 1 158 msec 56824Dusec 138dBm displayed The 499964 MHz 16 3531 MHz 1 349 msec 205083usec 10 28 dBm hoo It 49 9958 MHz 16 3452 MHz 1 686 msec 205 187 usec 10 29 dBm number ol results 9 9983 MHz 1 5135 MHz 1 734 msec 554 547usec 44 9dBm is shown in the 5 0129 MHz 1 5127 MHz 1 734 msec 568 187us8c 1 57 dBm bus 49 9958 MHz 16 3453MHz 2 024msec 205187usec 10 29 dBm 5 9950 MHz 1 5131 MHz 2 311 msec 554 693usec 446dBm 4 9985 MHz 1 5121 MHz 2 311 msec 568 187us8c 138dBm The vertical scroll 45 9958 MHz 15 3452 MHz 2 361 msec 205 187 usec 10 29 dBm barice d 49 9958 MHz 163490 MHz 2699 msec 205187usec 10 28 dBm 40 0057 MHz 4 4 43 MHz 66 usec 3 001 msec 83 dBm when there are 3 3998 MHz 1 5141 MHz 2 889 msec 554600usec 496dBm more results than 5 0002 MHz 1 5122 MHz 2 888 msec 565 240 usec 38 dBm i 49 9558 MHz 16 3452 MHz 3 036 msec 205 187 usec 10 23 dBm can be displayed in 49
54. ual tart 0 000 psec stop 1 000 sec Because the carrier frequency is extremely important in determining a signal type it is possible to have Spectro X vary the carrier around the value entered in the Carrier Frequency This automated varying of the carrier frequency is called carrier stepping To enable carrier stepping the Carrier stepping on box must be checked The Frequency range is the full range of adjacent frequencies which will be tried as carrier frequencies The frequency increment is how much the carrier frequency changes from one carrier frequency to the next At least one of the standard types must be checked in the Candidate Types area Because LTE has multiple parameters that are needed to specify it pressing the LTE Parameters button brings up a dialog which allows those parameters to be set At present only the uplink part of LTE is available for searching The Time Limits section allows the entire input file to be searched or just a section of time from that file Pressing the Apply button accepts the values in the dialog and sets Standard search as the current search type Closing the window ignores the values in the dialog 41 Waveform Search Waveform search allows for Waveform Search searches for particular signals that have been saved in a file Input File The Input File list at the top is 0 000 Hz used to control which of the input Confidence Limit 39 000 files t
55. ults to a file name gt SearchResult Waveform Save file lt file Save waveform search results to a name gt file SearchResult Standard Save file lt file Save standard search results to a name gt file SearchResult Pruning Save file lt file Save pruned carrier search results name gt to a file 58 Appendices Appendix A Agilent Matlab File Format The data exported from Spectro X in Agilent Matlab format is compatible with the 89600 VSA software The variable sizes and names were chosen for compatibility with that product The table below gives the variables created when a file is opened in Matlab Y Nx1 single complex Real part I Imag part Q N is the number of input points 59 Appendix B Matlab File Format The data exported from Spectro X in Matlab format is designed to make it easy to import the data and apply custom post processing The table below gives the variables created when a file is opened in Matlab SampleRate 1x1 Sample rate in samples sec NumSamples 1x1 The number of samples NumSamplesx1 single complex Real part I Imag part Q 60
56. um dBm 20 00 Scale minimum dBm 80 00 Accept Cancel Summary Toolbar Along the left edge of the window is a toolbar with various tools which can be applied to the scrolling time domain plots These tools determine what action will be taken when a mouse click or a click and drag operation occurs in a plot 33 Persistence Toolbar buttons Value Tool Displays the location of the cursor in the status bar Place a Marker Allows placement of a marker with a mouse click A mouse click on a marker brings up 2 Marker Properties the Marker Properties dialog Play with Time Limits Initiates a playback with limits in time Move an Existing Moves the location of a marker Marker 34 Plot Markers As described in the section on playback 3D and 2D plots lli Prot Markers Spectro X 4 has the ability to Markers Math place markers on all plots Ve Time Frequency Once placed the markers are 1 4k 5167msec 283 1788 MHz displayed in the plot markers 2 a 4189msec 499 524 MHz window Plot markers in Spectro X are location markers as opposed to trace markers Location markers mark a location on a Delete Al plot with respect to the horizontal and vertical axes The three principal dimensions of plots used to display data in Spectro X are time frequency and power A plot marker placed on a plot has the same two dimensions as the horizontal and vertical axes of the plot that it was placed on The plot mark
57. ut file to be searched or just a section of time from the current input file One option for the calculation is how rigorous the normalization should be By checking the Rigorous normalization box the most complete method for calculating the confidence will be used However because that method can be up to five times slower leaving the box unchecked will use a faster approximate method The result of this approximate method could be confidence numbers which are too small If the confidence results seem odd then the more rigorous method should be used 42 Pressing the Apply button accepts the values in the dialog and sets Waveform search as the current search type Closing the window ignores the values in the dialog 43 Pulse Search Pulse search allows for searches of input data Puke Search which consists of a series of power pulses Input File 4 The Input File list at the top is used to control which of the input files the pulse search will be eee 0 000 applied to Time Limits A pulse is defined as a transition in power in the Automatically choose time limits time domain from a low level to a higher level Start 0 000 psec The Power Level defines this transition point It is analogous to a trigger level on an Stop 1 000 sec oscilloscope I Compute pulse frequencies The Time Limits section allows the entire input file to be searched or just a section of time Apply from the
58. ute scale The scales in the spectrograms shown here 90 E are absolute scales The frequency scale is ooo E controlled by two Time Oign2 E 00 00 0 001056 playback parameters the Start frequency and the stop frequency These parameters can be found gt on the individual file tabs 468 75 500 00 531 25 468 75 500 00 531 25 Frequency MHz Frequency MHz of the Playback Control Real time 00 00 0 002084 Freq 505 329457 MHz File time 0 002083824 sec Rel freq 5 329457 MHz streamir dialog The start and stop frequencies set the minimum and maximum limits of the plot The vertical scale is time relative to a time origin The time origin comes from the input file The time origin value displayed on the plot is the time of the data being displayed at the bottom of the plot It should be noted that the time scale has the earlier value at the bottom and the later value at the top This was chosen so that this plot would agree with all the other plots in the system in that minimum horizontal scale minimum vertical scale location on the plot is in the lower left corner Some spectrogram implementations that the user may encounter in other equipment put minimum time at the top of the plot The time scale of the plot is controlled by the time step increment This parameter can be found on the Common tab of the Playback Control dialog The time step increment controls the amount of time that is stepped from the creation of
59. y a filter check box and list can be used to apply various lowpass filters to the data The output sample rate passband and stopband are useful to understand the effect of the chosen settings The Processing items can be used for IQ demodulation of a signal on a carrier during export of the data The processing steps are performed as frequency shift then decimation then filtering To begin an export click the Start Export button To stop an export operation click the Stop Export button To cancel without exporting click the Close button Export IQ Data Filters The filters which can optionally be applied during export of the data are implemented as digital FIR filters The passband has less than 0 001 dB ripple while the stopband has at least 80 dB of attenuation The stopband begins at a frequency which is 2x the highest frequency in the passband All of the filters are lowpass filters Because the filters are applied to both I and Q the plots below show them in both negative and positive frequencies in order to show their effects on frequencies both below and above the center frequency Plotting the filter transfer function like this makes them appear to be bandpass filters but they are actually lowpass filters The plots below show the magnitude of the filter transfer function versus a frequency scale related to the sample rate A close up view of the corner of the passband is also shown Export IQ Data F
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