HP54750A Time Domain Reflectometer Data Extraction

HP54750A Time Domain Reflectometer

VEE Program Overview

This document describes how to extract measured data from a Hewlett Packard 54750A Time Domain Reflectometer with the software Agilent VEE Pro 8.5 running on a PC. IHK has two reflectometers in room X2.33.

Download VEE project example:
HP54750A_TDR_Data_Extractor.vee.

Download MATLAB import and plot example:
HP54750A_import_and_plot.m.

1. Connecting to the Reflectometer

Install Agilent IO Libraries from the file »IOLibSuite_15_0_11221.zip«.
(NB: Older version of the libraries will not work with VEE 8.5).
Install Agilent VEE Pro 8.5 from the file »VEE_PRO_85_eval.zip«.
(NB: A license for IHK students can be obtained from Lars Maack at room X2.53).
Connect the reflectometer with your PC with the USB-GPIB cable permanently connected with the instrument. Your operating system might ask several times to install drivers for the USB-GPIB cable: accept all.
Download and start the VEE example program from the link above.

2. Running the Program and Saving Data

Make your preferred settings of the reflectometer and run a sweep using the buttons on the analyzer as usual.
If you want to change the name of the output text file click the »HP54750A_Measurement.txt« button in the »To File« object in VEE and enter a new name.
If the filename does not exist, the checkbox »Clear File At PreRun & Open« should not be checked. If the file already exists, select the checkbox to overwrite the content for each run - otherwise the data is appended to the existing file content.
When ready to save the data, click the »Start or resume the program (Ctrl+G)« in VEE.
Afterwards the data file can be found where you chose, or if you did not change the filename, the file is saved in the same folder as the VEE project file or sometimes in the default VEE programs folder (usually Documents/VEE_programs).
The data file can now be imported into MATLAB for further analysis. See link to example MATLAB file above.