Any HP 8903 audio analyzer owners?

[pmillett]

I've written some test software for the HP 8903 audio analyzer that does swept measurements and plots. You can see some samples here:

http://www.pmillett.com/307a_pushpull_amp.htm

I figured since I went to the trouble of writing these, it would be nice to share them.

A runtime-only version of HP VEE is available for free download from Agilent. I have saved runtime versions of my programs. So now I'm looking for somebody who has an 8903 (connected to a GPIB card in a PC) who'd like to test it. I don't want to mess with my test system that has the full version of VEE installed... I'm afraid I'll break something!

You might be restricted to National Instruments or HP GPIB cards - not sure if VEE can talk to any others. And you do have to have the GPIB card driver installed.

Any volunteers?

Pete

 

[korneluk]

I've written some test software for the HP 8903 audio analyzer that does swept measurements and plots. You can see some samples here:

http://www.pmillett.com/307a_pushpull_amp.htm

I figured since I went to the trouble of writing these, it would be nice to share them.

A runtime-only version of HP VEE is available for free download from Agilent. I have saved runtime versions of my programs. So now I'm looking for somebody who has an 8903 (connected to a GPIB card in a PC) who'd like to test it. I don't want to mess with my test system that has the full version of VEE installed... I'm afraid I'll break something!

You might be restricted to National Instruments or HP GPIB cards - not sure if VEE can talk to any others. And you do have to have the GPIB card driver installed.

Any volunteers?

Pete

Pete,

I have an 8903 and a GPIB card - will be glad to be a volunteer / Beta tester. You can PM me offline if you wish.

-- josé k.

 

[Zero Cool]

I WANT a 8903 does that count for anything???....No? ok...

 

[Tubelab_com]

I have the requisite 8903A. I don't have a GPIB card yet, but I will be looking for one. I would be interested in trying some of your programs.

 

[dleverton]

Hi Pete
I too have a 8903, and am beginning to write software for it. I would love to see what you have and share what I come up with.
Thanks
Doug

 

[pmillett]

Doug -

I'm traveling for a week, but when I get home I can send you some stuff to try out. If you don't hear from me, shoot me an email.

Pete

 

[tomchr]

I've landed myself an 8903A on FleaBay recently. It shows Error 18 at start-up (dead counter or malfunction in source tuning) so I'll have some fun fixing it before calibrating and using it.

I'm thinking along the same lines of developing some scripts to do sweeps. And I have a handful of other GPIB instruments to talk to anyway. I was thinking to use the interfaces by Prologix. Probably the GPIB-Ethernet variety. That would be a fairly slick solution. The NI compatible GPIB cards tend to be quite expensive.

~Tom

 

[jackinnj]

Owners of HP8903a/b's can trade them in to Agilent for a $2,400 credit toward the purchase of am U8903a -- this has cleaned up the market for 8903's -- the offer is good through November 1, 2009.

FWIW, I use the Prologix GPIB-USB converter with my HP3577a.

 

[Conrad Hoffman]

I use an 8903B and Prologix box. The other GPIB solutions are too rich for me. I've written some test software for the Prologix that works well, though I still need to do some debugging on the graph scaling. I seem to work on it about once every 6-12 months, so it's time again!

 

[jackinnj]

You can always dump into Excel --

I should learn to be more patient with 2D graphics --

 

[AR2]

Hi guys,
I was just wondering about the balanced feature of 8903B's generator. When ground is floated on my 8903 I have no signal on Low. Only if High out is grounded I am having signal coming out on Low. Do you know if that is how it should be or yours 8903 acts differently. I would think to have a signal on both High and Low with opposite phase, but that somehow is not the case on my unit.