Agilent Technologies 87075C Determine the Test Set Ports to Be Used, Test Set Cal and SelfCal

Test Set Cal and SelfCal

Test Set Cal: An Overview

Determine the Test Set Ports to Be Used

To save time, calibrate the lowest number of ports necessary for your test setup. For example, if your test setup requires the use of only 6 of the available twelve ports, calibrate for 6 ports; there is no need to spend the time to calibrate all twelve ports.

The selection of the number of ports is necessary, in part, in order to perform the minimum-through portion of the Test Set Cal. This portion occurs during the calibration when measuring through standards for a transmission measurement (S21 or S12) or measurements using 2-port calibration. Suppose that you have a 6-port DUT and that you have selected the ports 1 to 6 to calibrate on your test set. A traditional network analyzer calibration would require (in addition to connecting opens, shorts, and loads to all connectors) that you connect a through standard between every possible pairing of the 6 test set ports in order to measure all possible transmission paths. This would mean 15 different connections of through standards, each needing its own separate calibration file. The Test Set Cal simplifies this process by only requiring a through-standard connection between 3 adjacent port* pairs of the 6 test set ports:

•Port 1 to Port 2

•Port 3 to Port 4

•Port 5 to Port 6

The analyzer calculates the remainder of the test set port combinations and saves the data as only one calibration file. The test set calibration can be done in any combination of the adjacent port pairs, [1, 2] and [5, 6] for example. This results in significant calibration-time savings, which improves your measurement throughput.

Performing the Test Set Cal with a Mechanical Calibration Kit

This section describes how to perform the Test Set Cal with a mechanical calibration kit.

Step 1. Press [Channel Next] or [Channel Prev] to select the channel for which you want to execute multi-port test set calibration.

Step 2. Press [Cal].

*Adjacent ports are those which share an internal through calibration stan- dard. Adjacent ports are: [1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6], [7, 8], [9, 10], [11, 12].

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