Boonton 4540 Peak Power Meter Quick Start

4540 Series

RF Power Meters

Quick Start Guide

V 1.02

PN: 98406000A

4540 Power Meter

Quick Start Guide

CONTENT

SAFETY SUMMARY 3

LIMITED WARRANTY 4

4540 GETTING STARTED 5

CONTROLLING THE 4540 POWER METER 6

REAR PANEL 12

4540 OPERATION 15

INITIALIZATION 15 CALIBRATION 16 UPDATING FIRMWARE 18 MENU TREES 19

POWER MEASUREMENTS 28 MODULATED MODE 28

PULSE MODE 30

STATISTICAL MODE 32

4540 SPECIFICATIONS 34

ORDERING INFORMATION 35

4540 SENSORS 37 PEAK 37 CW 38 SENSOR COMPATIBILITY 39

GLOSSARY 40

CONTACT 42

4540 Power Meter

Quick Start Guide

SAFETY SUMMARY

The following general safety precautions must be observed during all phases of operation and maintenance of the Boonton 4540 RF Power Meter. Failure to comply with these precautions or with specific warnings elsewhere in this manual violates safety standards of design, manufacture, and intended use of the instruments. Boonton Electronics Corporation assumes no liability for the customer’s failure to comply with these requirements.

INSTRUMENT MUST BE GROUNDED

To minimize shock hazard, the instrument chassis and cabinet must be connected to an electrical ground. The instrument is equipped with a three conductor, three prong AC power cable. The power cable must either be plugged into an approved three-contact electrical outlet or used with a threecontact to a two-contact adapter with the (green) grounding wire firmly connected to an electrical ground at the power outlet.

DO NOT OPERATE THE INSTRUMENT IN AN EXPLOSIVE ATMOSPHERE

Do not operate the instrument in the presence of flammable gases or fumes.

KEEP AWAY FROM LIVE CIRCUITS

Operating personnel must not remove instrument covers. Component replacement and internal adjustments must be made by qualified maintenance personnel only. Never replace components or operate the instrument with the covers removed and the power cable connected. Even with the power cable removed, dangerous voltages may be present. Always remove all jewelry (rings, watches, etc.) and discharge circuits before touching them. Never attempt internal service or adjustment of the 4540 unless another person, capable of rendering first aid and resuscitation, is present.

DO NOT SUBSTITUTE PARTS OR MODIFY INSTRUMENT

Do not substitute parts or perform any unauthorized modification of the instrument. Return the instrument to Boonton Electronics for repair to insure that the warranty and safety features are maintained.

4540 Power Meter

Quick Start Guide

LIMITED WARRANTY

Boonton Electronics warrants its products to the original Purchaser to be free from defects in material and workmanship and to operate within applicable specifications for a period of one year from date of shipment for instruments, probes, power sensors and accessories. Boonton Electronics further warrants that its instruments will perform within all current specifications under normal use and service for one year from date of shipment. These warranties do not cover active devices that have given normal service, sealed assemblies which have been opened, or any item which has been repaired or altered without Boonton’s authorization.

Boonton’s warranties are limited to either the repair or replacement, at Boonton’s option, of any product found to be defective under the terms of these warranties. There will be no charge for parts and labor during the warranty period. The Purchaser shall prepay inbound shipping charges to Boonton or its designated service facility and shall return the product in its original or an equivalent shipping container. Boonton or its designated service facility shall pay shipping charges to return the product to the Purchaser for domestic shipping addresses. For addresses outside the United States, the Purchaser is responsible for pre-paying all shipping charges, duties and taxes (both inbound and outbound). THE FOREGOING WARRANTIES ARE IN LIEU OF ALL OTHER WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Boonton will not be liable for any incidental damages or for any consequential damages, as defined in Section 2-715 of the Uniform Commercial Code, in connection with products covered by the foregoing warranties.

4540 Power Meter

Quick Start Guide

4540 GETTING STARTED

Congratulations and thank you for choosing Boonton. Your new 4540 Power Meter ranks among the most powerful instruments in its class. Our new family of Boonton CW and Peak Power Meters currently consists of the single channel 4541 and the dual-channel 4542. For simplification both instruments are referred to in this manual as 4540.

4540 Front Panel

The Boonton 4540 Series Power Meter is the instrument of choice for capturing, displaying and analyzing RF power in both the time and statistical domains. Applications include pulsed RF signals such as radar, TDMA and GSM, pseudorandom or noise-like signals such as CDMA, WLAN and WiMAX.

The 4540 Series is available as a single or dual channel RF Power Meter that can measure modulated or CW signals using peak and average Boonton Power sensors.

The 4540 Series has three operating modes: Pulse, Statistical, and Modulated/CW. Features include:

• High Bandwidth Wide Dynamic Range Sensors

• Intuitive User Interface

• 4” color LCD display

• 200 psec. time resolution

• Statistical analysis including CCDF

• Text view of 2x 15 time and power measurements parameters simultaneously

• GPIB, USB and LAN standard

4540 Power Meter

Quick Start Guide

CONTROLLING THE 4540

On / Standby

Pressing the On/Standby key switches the power meter between on and standby modes. When in standby, some circuitry remains powered to reduce drain on the battery used to maintain the instrument’s realtime clock. The instrument’s current operating state is automatically saved before entering standby.

Control Keys

Control keys allow maneuvering through the menus of the 4540. All keys are multi functional and provide functionality depending on the current status of the instrument. An additional <Fn> key is not necessary, since the system will automatically assume the wanted function.

Esc / Stop / Local

Aborts any operation in progress when in Menu Mode or Zero/Cal Mode. Pressing Esc / Stop / Local while the instrument is running causes the process to stop. Pressing it when already stopped will clear the screen and reset all measurement values. Pressing Esc / Stop / Local when the instrument is in remote mode (the GPIB, LAN or USB has control of the instrument and keyboard entry is disabled) will return it to local mode (the instrument is under keyboard control) unless the local lockout command, LLO, has been issued by the controller.

Pressing the Esc / Stop / Local key performs ONE of the following prioritized operations, depending upon the current instrument state. The list is evaluated from the top, and once a condition is met, its action is taken and the rest of the list is ignored.

• Enters Local control mode if the instrument is in Remote control mode (unless the Local Lockout remote command has been sent)

• Aborts a sensor Cal, Zero or Autocal operation that is in progress

• Clears error message and queue if any errors are present (red error message

text shown)

• Aborts display of report screen or error dialog being shown

• Aborts any numeric input or menu pick list entry that is in progress

• Deselects any selected menu button

• Stops measurement acquisition if running

• Clears acquired measurement if acquisition is already stopped

4540 Power Meter

Quick Start Guide

Menu / Menu Off

Places the instrument in Menu Mode to allow navigation of the menu structure. Menu soft keys appear at the right side of the screen. Pressing and holding Menu / Menu Off while already in Menu Mode switches the menu display off and provides larger screen area for measurements, thus allowing larger display in text mode and higher resolution in graph mode.

Graph / Text

Pressing Graph / Text places the instrument in Graph Mode to display the current measurement waveforms (traces) in a graphical format. Pressing Graph / Text while in Graph Mode toggles to numeric/text display of the measurement.

Cal / Zero

Places the instrument in Sensor Zero/Calibration Mode and displays a menu to allow automatic sensor offset and gain adjustments using the built-in 50MHz calibrator or an external calibrator, as well as to permit control of the internal or external calibrator.

• Pressing the Cal / Zero key displays the sensor calibration menu for the most recently active calibration channel, or the first active channel. If no channels are active, the menu defaults to Channel 1.

• Pressing the key again will display the menu for the next active channel, if any.

A channel is considered “active” if it is installed in the instrument and a sensor is connected. The calibration menu contains soft keys for sensor Zero, Fixed cal or Autocal, as well as submenus to permit selection and control of the built-in or external RF calibrator

Enter / Run

Activates a menu selection or completes update of a parameter in Menu Mode or Zero/Cal Mode. Pressing Enter/Run while stopped in measurement mode will start (or restart) the measurement process.

Pressing the Enter / Run key performs ONE of the following prioritized operations, depending upon the current instrument state. The list is evaluated from the top, and once a condition is met, its action is taken and the rest of the list is ignored.

• Completes a numeric or menu pick list entry that is in progress

• Starts measurement acquisition if stopped

• Clears and restarts measurement acquisition if already running

4540 Power Meter

Quick Start Guide

Measurement Channels

4541 consists of one, 4542 of two measurement channels. Both systems are optionally available with the sensor and calibrator connectors located on the rear panel. Such a configuration can be beneficial for rack mount ATE applications The measurement channels provide an RF range from 1 MHz to 110 GHz and offer a dynamic range of -55 dBm to +20 dBm for Peak Power measurements and -70 dBm to +44 dBm for CW Power measurements. Actual measurements are dependent on the sensors used. Both channels support a variety of Boonton Power Sensors. A comprehensive list is provided in chapter 4540 Sensors (page 35-37). Sensors connected to the 4540 are automatically detected.

Do not connect other components or power sensors of other manufacturers to the measurement inputs. Damage will occur.

Calibrator Output

All 4540 series Peak Power Meters provide a build-in 50 MHz, -60 dBm to +20 dBm,

0.1 dB step calibrator. The calibrator allows automatic sweeping as well as manual setting of output values. It is used to automatically calibrate sensor offset and linearity, and can also be used as a general purpose calibration signal source.

Display

The quarter VGA display of the 4540 has a resolution of 320x240 pixels. It provides a detailed reading especially when in Graph Mode. The display of the soft keys functions can be switched on or off during measurements. Switching off or hiding the soft key functions increases the display area for waveforms by another 25%. A VGA monitor can be connected via the VGA connector found on the rear panel of the 4540. The full screen content will be displayed with a 320 x 240 resolution.

4540 Power Meter

Quick Start Guide

Soft keys

The five Menu Soft Keys are used to navigate the menu hierarchy and to view or modify instrument settings. These keys are active only when the menu is displayed. Each key has a corresponding “menu box”, that changes depending upon which menu is visible. Pressing the soft key may perform any one of several operations, depending on the particular menu. In some cases, the pressing the key will cause that menu item to become “active” – the menu box will appear to be pressed in.

• Action: causes an action to be initiated, for example “AutoCal Start”. The menu box flashes briefly when pressed and the selected action occurs.

• Submenu: navigates down one level in the menu tree to a submenu of the current menu. The current path down into the menu hierarchy is shown in the Path display at the top of the screen.

• Toggle: pressing the key will toggle a value between two or more fixed values, for example “On” or “Off”. The menu box flashes briefly when pressed, and the selected item will toggle to the next value.

• Picklist: pressing the key will display a pop-up box showing a list of values that may be selected for the menu parameter. The ▲ and ▼ (up and down arrow) keys may be used to move the selector between values. Pressing Enter accepts the selection, and Esc aborts.

• Numeric Entry: pressing the key selects the menu item for entry. The menu box appears depressed and numeric entry is now active for that item. The ▲ and ▼ keys can be used to increment or decrement the current value, or the numeric keypad can be used to enter a new value directly. Pressing the menu softkey again will deselect the menu item. See the “numeric entry” section below for more details.

4540 Power Meter

Quick Start Guide

Up and Down Arrow Keys

Pressing the ▲ or ▼ key performs ONE of the following prioritized operations, depending upon the current instrument state. The list is evaluated from the top, and once a condition is met, its action is taken and the rest of the list is ignored.

• Increments or decrements a numeric entry menu parameter, either by a default value, or by one digit place when in digit editing mode.

• Scrolls the selector up and down a menu picklist

• Scrolls through available display “pages” or a the displayed table of

measurements and parameters in text mode

• Scroll between the first-level submenus in the menu hierarchy. For example, if the Trigger menu is selected, pressing ▼will move directly to the Time menu, which is adjacent to the Trigger menu in the tree. This eliminates the need to return to the top of the tree and select the Time menu from there.

Left and Right Arrow Keys

Pressing the ◄ or ► key performs ONE of the following prioritized operations, depending upon the current instrument state. The list is evaluated from the top, and once a condition is met, its action is taken and the rest of the list is ignored.

• When menu containing a numeric parameter is selected, the ◄ and ► keys may be used to highlight a particular digit to edit.

• The ◄ key serves as a “Previous” key during menu operation, and will navigate back to the next higher menu in the hierarchy unless the user is in digit editing numeric entry mode

4540 Power Meter

Quick Start Guide

Numeric Entry

There are three ways to modify the value of a selected numeric menu item.

• Default Increment/Decrement – Pressing the ▲ or ▼ keys will increment or decrement the parameter by a default value. In most cases, this default is fixed. At other times, it may depend upon the current state instrument state, such as the display or time base settings. If the key is held, the increment/decrement will auto repeat slowly, then at an increasing rate. The display and trace is updated each time the value changes, so it is possible to view the effects of changing the parameter in real time without needing to press Enter.

• Single-digit Increment/Decrement – this mode allows the parameter’s value to be incremented or decremented by a selectable amount by highlighting the desired digit. The mode is entered by pressing the ◄ key, which will display a cursor under the rightmost (least significant) digit. Pressing ◄ or ► moves the digit cursor, and pressing ▲ or ▼will increment or decrement the highlighted digit by one. Pressing ◄ beyond the leftmost digit will add leading zeroes to permit the number to become larger. Again, the display is updated each time the value changes, so the changes will be visible in real time – there is no need to press Enter each time.

• Direct Entry – The numeric keypad can be used to directly enter numbers. Key in the desired number and press Enter to input a new value in the current or default units. When parameters need to be entered in different units or with unit prefixes (such as milliseconds or microseconds), entries are completed by pressing the soft keys showing the desired units rather than the Enter key.

4540 Rear (Interface) Panel

4540 Power Meter

Quick Start Guide

Main Power Switch

The 4540 accepts any AC power from 90 to 264 V (47 to 63 Hz). No voltage switching is required. Power consumption is maximal 70 VA. Switching the power on sets the 4540 into Standby-Mode. To start the instrument, press also the green [On] button at the front panel. The fuse is a 1.0 A T type.

Never use different fuses than specified. Damage may occur.

Fan

The 4540 Power Meters is an instrument designed for performance. While the power consumption is minimized, the components of the instrument generate heat that needs to be removed. The 4540 fan is pushing cold air into the system. The heated air leaves at the air vents right and left side of the 4540.

Never interrupt the air stream by placing other articles too close to the fan or the vents. Always keep 15 cm/ 4 inches free space for the fan and 5 cm / 2 inches for each side vent.

4540 Power Meter

Quick Start Guide

Rear Panel Measurement and Calibrator Connectors (Optional)

The 4540 can be ordered with measurement channel(s) and/or the calibrator output mounted on the rear panel. This is usually handy when the instrument is integrated in systems like ATE.

Communication interfaces.

4540 comes standard with LAN (Ethernet), USB and GPIB interface. All interfaces can be used to remote control the instrument. When either GPIB, LAN or USB assume control of

the instrument, the keyboard entry is automatically disabled. A remote sign will be shown at the lower right side of the screen during remote operation.

Pressing Esc / Stop / Local when the instrument is

in remote mode will return it to local mode (the instrument is under keyboard control).

LAN allows DHCP or fixed (IP / Subnet) setting mode.

USB is compatible to V 1.1 and 2.0

GPIB interface supports AH1, SH1, T6, LE0, SR1, RL1, PP0, DC1, DT1, C0, and

E1.

LAN, USB and GPIB ports are also used for 4540 firmware updates.

+ 29 hidden pages

Boonton 4540 Peak Power Meter Quick Start

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual