Using AWG (Opt UND) on Agilent ESG E4433B

[Gandalf_Sr]

I have an Agilent E4433B ESG-D w Opt 100 1E5 200 UND which I picked up a while back for a good price - I replaced the backlight CFL tube and the display is great now.

I can output any frequency I want e.g. 4GHz (Max Freq) and see a 4GHz peak on my SA but the modulation aspects are proving harder to achieve.  I'd like to be able to set up simple modulation like AM and FM as well as define a simple waveform in the AWG.

I've looked at the UG for opt UND (see attached file) and on p196 (4-6) it starts to describe waveform generation and then moves into all kinds of I-Q descriptions; I understand the basic principle of I-Q modulation but can anyone help out overcoming the learning hump do do simple things like output an FM modulated signal or a square wave?

Is any PC software available that makes this simpler? If yes, how do I get the waveforms onto the SG?

Is there other documentation available that would help me understand how to use this beast?

Thanks in advance.

[EE-digger]

Thanks a lot for taking away HOURS of my new scope playtime 

I have an E4432B with Bluetooth and other options.  Not sure it has the UND.  While I haven't done this myself (yet), have a look a few pages before your reference, where 4-5 discusses the stored segment lengths.  Also look in the remote section 2-72 for loading waveform files.  Also search for the word "length" and it leads to many relevant items such as waveform lengths from the internal editor (looks like you have only discrete lengths available). 

In various references, such as the 2-72 area, I'm not clear if "file name" refers to an operating system file on your PC.  The program samples and Table 2-2 which describe them step by step may help.

I think this section will get your waveform into the ESG.  You could probably generate a waveform to test within Excel, save it as .txt and tweak it with a text editor to give the proper delimiters.

I seem to recall briefly using an ESG Excel add-in from Agilent (Intuilink system ??) some years back but don't recall what it was capable of.  Their Intuilink examples for DMMs for instance, provided a strip chart application within Excel.

If you still have your nice scope, you could output an ARB file from a scope channel capture, then possibly tweak that file until it's just the necessary content, etc.  Sorry but I don't recall the format of the scope ARB file.

Don't be afraid to play via SCPI.  That's my $0.02 and I hope someone else has a $1.00 to spare.

[EE-digger]

Would you mind sharing the PN and source of your CCFL tube.  My display is not too bad but bright would be nice, along with inverse video.

I also realize I got off track with getting ARB waveforms in while that's not what you wanted.

There are also some other sample files and app notes such as this sample Bluetooth waveform:

https://www.keysight.com/main/software.jspx?ckey=1000000908%3Aepsg%3Asud&lc=eng&cc=US&nid=-11143.0.00&id=1000000908%3Aepsg%3Asud

This may be very close to what you want:

https://www.testunlimited.com/pdf/an/5966-1010E.pdf

[Gandalf_Sr]

Hi EEdigger

I haven't looked at the stuff you've linked to yet but I found my post on how I replaced the CCFL tube on my E4433B, it's here

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/hp-agilent-e4433b-esg-d-series-signal-generator-250khz-4-0ghz/msg804926/#msg804926

Thanks

[colorado.rob]

Does anyone know what the max speed of the serial port interface is?  Will it be a lot slower than GPIB for loading waveforms?