Measurements

RF Measurements

Channel Power Measurement

The Channel Power (CP) measurement is similar to a power meter. It shows the total power from a transmitter, but the measurement is more accurate than a power meter as it is frequency selective and can be made on lower amplitude signals.

The channel power measurement is made by integrating the power reading from multiple pixels on the display and making various corrections to this result.

The measurement is made by setting the span to be somewhat larger than the channel width of interest. Markers are used to indicate the channel width and the power from all of the display points within the markers are integrated to obtain the channel power. RMS detection is used to ensure accurate readings for digital modulation with any amplitude statistics. A correction is then applied to account for the noise bandwidth of the RBW filter, along with the channel bandwidth and the number of data points.

The following is the equation used to calculate the Channel Power:

Where:

CP = Channel Power in dBm CHBW = Channel bandwidth in kHz

RBW = Resolution bandwidth used for measurement in kHz

kn = RBW filter noise bandwidth correction factor kn = NBW/RBW

N = Number of data points within the channel

Pi = Level represented by data point i of the trace in dBm

MS278XB OM

5-31

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Image 187
Anritsu Series MS278XB operation manual Channel Power Measurement