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PMX40 RF Power Meter – INSTRUCTION MANUAL

1-2

1.2

Description

The PMX40 RF Power Meter provides design engineers and technicians the utility of traditional

benchtop instruments, the flexibility and performance of modern USB RF power sensors, and the

simplicity of a multi-touch display built with Boonton award-winning technology.

As a benchtop meter, the PMX40 provides a standalone solution for capturing, displaying, and analyzing

peak and average RF power in both the time and statistical domains through an intuitive, touch screen

display.

The PMX40 RF Power Meter utilizes up to four Boonton USB RF power sensors with industry-leading

performance and capabilities either independently or for synchronized multi-channel measurements of

CW, modulated, and pulsed signals.

Providing the ultimate flexibility, the PMX40 sensors can be disconnected and independently used as

standalone instruments.

1.3

Features

See PMX40 Datasheet for a brief description of key features.

1.4

Accessories

See PMX40 Datasheet for a complete list of accessories.

1.5

Optional Configurations

See PMX40 Datasheet for a complete list of optional configurations.

1.6

Specifications

See PMX40 Datasheet for the latest specifications.

Summary of Contents for PMX40

Page 1: ...PMX40 RF Power Meter INSTRUCTION MANUAL INSTRUCTION MANUAL PMX40 RF Power Meter 98408900A Rev 20210115 ...

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Page 3: ...bsidiary of the Wireless Telecom Group Inc Parsippany NJ USA All rights reserved P N 98408900A This manual covers the PMX40 RF Power Meter serial numbers 1001 and higher The PMX40 application software used in this product is licensed by Boonton Electronics a subsidiary of the Wireless Telecom Group Inc ...

Page 4: ...Y FROM LIVE CIRCUITS Operating personnel must not remove instrument covers Component replacement and internal adjustments must be made by qualified maintenance personnel Do not replace components with the power cable connected Under certain conditions dangerous voltages may exist even though the power cable was removed therefore always disconnect power and discharge circuits before touching them D...

Page 5: ...l source and USB host The CAUTION symbol denotes a hazard It calls attention to an operational procedure practice or instruction that if not followed could result in damage to or destruction of part or all of the instrument and accessories Do not proceed beyond a CAUTION symbol until its conditions are fully understood and met The NOTE symbol is used to mark information that should be read This in...

Page 6: ...ganization 3 1 3 2 Operating Controls Indicators and Connections 3 1 3 3 Touch Screen Display 3 4 3 4 Initialization 3 6 3 5 Making Measurements 3 8 3 5 1 Continuous Mode 3 8 3 5 2 Pulse Mode 3 9 3 5 3 Statistical Mode 3 10 4 Operation 4 1 4 1 Manual Operation 4 1 4 2 Control Menus 4 1 4 3 Parameter Data Entry and Selection 4 2 4 3 1 Numerical Data Entry 4 2 4 3 2 Parameter Pick List Selection 4 2...

Page 7: ... 1 5 1 5 1 2 Diode Detection 5 3 5 2 Pulse Definitions 5 4 5 2 1 Standard IEEE Pulse 5 5 5 3 Automatic Measurements 5 6 5 3 1 Automatic Measurement Criteria 5 6 5 3 2 Automatic Measurement Terms 5 6 5 3 3 Automatic Measurement Sequence 5 7 5 3 4 Average Power Over an Interval 5 10 5 4 Statistical Mode Automatic Measurements 5 11 5 5 Measurement Accuracy 5 13 6 Maintenance 6 1 6 1 Safety 6 1 6 2 Cl...

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Page 9: ...operation connecting power and signal cables and initial power up Section 3 Getting Started describes the controls and indicators and the initialization of operating parameters Several practice exercises are provided to familiarize yourself with essential setup and control procedures Section 4 Operation describes the display menus and procedures for operating the instrument locally from the front ...

Page 10: ...rough an intuitive touch screen display The PMX40 RF Power Meter utilizes up to four Boonton USB RF power sensors with industry leading performance and capabilities either independently or for synchronized multi channel measurements of CW modulated and pulsed signals Providing the ultimate flexibility the PMX40 sensors can be disconnected and independently used as standalone instruments 1 3 Featur...

Page 11: ...rom the illustration Note Save the packing material and container to ship the instrument if necessary If the original materials or suitable substitute are not available contact Boonton Electronics to purchase replacements Store materials in a dry environment Figure 2 1 Packaging Diagram Table 2 1 PMX40 RF Power Meter Packing List PMX40 RF Power Meter Line Cord Information Card describes where to d...

Page 12: ...he front or rear panel However the base PMX40 model only permits two sensors to be active at any one time With the PMX40 4CH option four sensors can be active at any one time Sensors become active when plugged into a USB port or immediately if already plugged in when the PMX40 powers up Trigger Most triggered applications can use the RF signal applied to the sensors for triggering For measurements...

Page 13: ...r supply will automatically adjust to voltages within this range 3 Press the upper half marked 1 of the power switch in the center of the power module on the rear panel it will enter standby mode 4 Press the ON STBY key marked with the international 0 1 on standby symbol on the front panel to turn the instrument on The cooling fan and display backlight should turn on 5 A bootup screen should appea...

Page 14: ...ive at any one time 6 On the front panel press the key to bring up the on screen menu From the Main menu use the touch screen or the and keys on the front panel to browse to System Reports Configuration and select Show A display similar to Figure 2 3 should appear Figure 2 3 System Configuration Report Display 7 Follow the steps in Section 3 4 to initialize the instrument ...

Page 15: ...lds in the standard graphic mode display Subsection 3 4 Initialization explains how to turn the instrument on for the first time connect a sensor set the instrument up for operation and initialize it to a known state See Table 3 3 for initialized parameters and their values Subsection 3 5 Making Measurements describes the different measurement modes of the PMX40 3 2 Operating Controls Indicators a...

Page 16: ...est source is used to verify basic performance of sensors used with the PMX40 4 Display Screen Color touch screen display for the measurement and trigger channels screen menus status messages text reports and help screens 5 Key Favorites key This function is not fully implemented at this time Enables the user to setup a customized menu to allow grouping frequently used menu items into one convenie...

Page 17: ...y also be accessed once the line cord is removed The instrument s power supply accepts 90 to 264 VAC so no line voltage selection switch is necessary Caution Replace fuse only with specified type and rating 1 0A T time delay type 250 VAC 13 HDMI HDMI receptacle for connecting an external monitor to mirror front panel display The image resolution will be 800 x 480 and will be stretched to fit the e...

Page 18: ...he PMX40 RF Power Meter Figure 3 3 shows the Graph Display mode of the instrument using the Pulse Measure mode with a menu exposed Figure 3 4 shows the same measure mode with the menus hidden The Text Display mode of the instrument provides a table view of measured parameters Parameters depend on the Measure mode selected See Section 4 4 for more information on the display format Figure 3 3 PMX40 ...

Page 19: ...sors can be active at any one time 4 Main Display This area will show a plot when in Graph Display mode or a table of parameters when in Text Display mode for the measurement mode selected 5 Menu Bar Select to show and to hide the on screen menus 6 Menu Path Used to navigate the menu structure Shows the menu that will be displayed when selected 7 Current Menu Home Displays the name of the current ...

Page 20: ...ee Figure 3 2 Press the On Standby key See Figure 3 1 After a self check the instrument will execute the application program There will be some momentary dialogs indicating application initialization and channel updating After the last dialog the main screen will be on the display Caution When selecting a sensor for an exercise or a measurement be sure you know the power range of the sensor Operat...

Page 21: ... Table 3 3 This table only shows the parameters that are affected by initialization Table 3 3 Initialized Parameters Parameter Default Measure Mode Select Graph Parameters Related to the Measure Menu Measurement Run Parameters Related to the Display Menu View Graph Parameters Related to the Channel Channel Menus Channel1 On Channel2 On Channel3 On 4 CH option Channel4 On 4 CH option Vertical Scale...

Page 22: ...he modulation and constant envelope modulation types such as FM can be considered a CW carrier for power measurement purposes 3 5 1 Continuous Mode Continuous mode is best for measuring repetitive signals Since this mode performs a continuous measurement it does not differentiate between the times a pulsed or periodic signal is off and the times it is on If you wish to make measurements that are s...

Page 23: ...g can be chosen to automatically set the trigger level based on the currently applied signal The timebase can be set from 5 ns div to 50 ms div The PMX40 graphical display has 10 horizontal and 8 vertical divisions Vertical units can be set in dBm Watts and dB Volts Setting vertical resolution does not affect the sensitivity of the instrument and is provided for ease of viewing Programmable marker...

Page 24: ...nt that can serve as a trigger for measurements CDMA or OFDM are common examples The PMX40 Statistical mode was designed to provide measurements for these types of signals Statistical mode is only available when using peak power sensors with the PMX40 It is the best choice for analyzing signals with a high crest factor that are noise like with random or infrequent peaks or are modulated in a rando...

Page 25: ...ession can be observed at rarely occurring peaks It is most often presented graphically using a log log format where the x axis represents the relative offset in dB from the average power level and the log scaled y axis is the percent probability that power will exceed the x axis value In a non statistical peak power measurement the peak to average ratio is the parameter that describes the headroo...

Page 26: ...need to inject special test signals This type of analysis is particularly suited to the situation in which the bit error rate BER or some other error rate measure is correlated with the percentage of time that the signal is corrupted If known short intervals of clipping are tolerable the CCDF can be used to determine optimum transmitter power output The CCDF is also used to evaluate various modula...

Page 27: ...ucture for Pulse mode operations is illustrated in Figure 4 1 Menus and parameters may be selected by using the front panel keys to browse and using the key to select the entry or by use of the touch screen The PMX40 RF Power Meter base model only permits two sensors to be active at any one time With the PMX40 4CH option four sensors can be active at any one time In the Menu Reference that follows...

Page 28: ...l keys or by touching them Selecting the numeric setting brings up an on screen numeric keypad similar to the one shown in Figure 4 2 Figure 4 2 Channel 1 Vertical Center Numeric Keypad 4 3 2 Parameter Pick List Selection Some parameters use a menu or pick list of settings to choose from The Trigger source setting seen in Figure 4 3 is an example of a pick list Use the arrow up and down icons to c...

Page 29: ...ing measurements Continuous and Statistical modes or arms its trigger and takes a measurement each time a trigger occurs Pulse Mode If set to Stop the measurement will begin or be armed if Start is selected under the Single Sweep setting Pulse Mode Only and will stop once the measurement criteria averaging has been satisfied Meas Clear Selecting Execute clears display traces data buffers and clear...

Page 30: ...t the range of signal excursions When Envelope display mode is On the trace is drawn as a wide line which is filled in between the minimum and maximum power readings A series of vertical pixels representing the range of signal excursions or envelope of the signal will be illuminated for each horizontal trace pixel Envelope display is only available for Peak Power sensors Key Beep Enables and disab...

Page 31: ...ears the statistical sample population and starts a new one Selecting Stop will stop accumulating samples and hold the result 4 4 5 MAIN Channel Channel Opens the settings menu for the selected channel Note The base PMX40 model only permits two sensors to be active at any one time With the PMX40 4CH option four sensors can be active at any one time MAIN Channel Channel Chan Enabled Toggles display...

Page 32: ...interleave ratio of that particular timebase At all times the average trace is the average of all samples for each pixel and the min max are the lowest and highest of that same block of samples for each pixel Units Select the channel units The trace may be shown in units of dBm Watts or Volts The Units selection determines the range of the scale values and also affects displayed text and measureme...

Page 33: ...dings are held for a short time and then decayed towards the average power at a rate proportional to the Averaging setting This is the best setting for most signals because the peak will always represent the peak power of the current signal and the resulting peak to average ratio will be correct shortly after any signal level changes dB Offset Sets a measurement offset in dB for the selected chann...

Page 34: ...off is used to disable the trigger for a specified amount of time after each trigger event The holdoff time starts immediately after each valid trigger edge and will not permit any new triggers until the time has expired When the holdoff time is up the trigger re arms and the next valid trigger event edge will cause a new sweep This feature is used to help synchronize the power meter with burst wa...

Page 35: ...al applied to the rear panel TRIG IN connector The trigger source can be any of the resource channels CH1 CH2 etc or the Ext ernal trigger input signal The Ind ependent trigger setting allows each connected sensor to trigger independently from its own RF input The external trigger is attached to the Trig In BNC connector on the rear of the PMX40 Power Meter and requires a TTL signal level minimum ...

Page 36: ...ns Pulse Units Controls whether the distal mesial and proximal thresholds are computed as voltage or power percentages of the top bottom amplitudes If Volts is selected the pulse transition thresholds are computed as voltage percentages and if Watts they are computed as power percentages Many pulse measurements call for 10 to 90 voltage which equates to 1 to 81 power for risetime and falltime meas...

Page 37: ...Pulse Gate setting is to exclude edge transition effects from the pulse power measurements 4 4 10 MAIN System The System menu displays the available system level features and functionality 4 4 11 MAIN System Sensor Data Sensor Info Provides information about the selected sensor in a pop up dialog like Figure 4 5 Figure 4 5 CH Information Dialog ...

Page 38: ...AutoIP protocol If DHCP AutoIP is disabled Off the instrument will use the IP Address and Subnet Mask values that have been set by the user IP Address Set the Internet Protocol IP address of the Ethernet adapter If DHCP AutoIP mode is enabled this menu is read only Subnet Mask Set the subnet mask for the Ethernet adapter If DHCP AutoIP mode is enabled this menu is read only MAC Address Displays th...

Page 39: ...ng the ON Standby button on the front panel 4 4 15 MAIN System Reports Configuration Select Show to display an About dialog with configuration information for the PMX40 Power Meter like that shown in Figure 2 3 Update Software Select Go to search the connected USB drive for the tar software update file and update or re install the version found If no valid file is found the dialog in Figure 4 6 ap...

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Page 41: ...iode detectors which respond to the voltage of the signal With careful calibration accurate measurements can be obtained over a wide range of input power levels Modulated Carrier Power The average power of a modulated carrier which has varying amplitude can be measured accurately by a CW type power meter with a thermoelectric detector but the lack of sensitivity will limit the range Diode detector...

Page 42: ...h a narrow sampling gate The video sample levels are accurately converted to power on an individual basis at up to a 100 MSa sec rate Since this power conversion is corrected based upon the sensor s linearity correction table these samples can be averaged to yield average power without restriction to the diode square law region In addition if the signal is repetitive the signal envelope can be rec...

Page 43: ...nse characteristic Additional potential error sources include detector mismatch signal harmonics and noise Detector Response The response of a single diode detector to a sinusoidal input is given by the diode equation 𝑖𝑖 𝐼𝐼𝑠𝑠 𝑒𝑒𝛼𝛼𝛼𝛼 1 where i diode current 𝑣𝑣 net voltage across the diode Is saturation current 𝛼𝛼 constant An ideal diode response curve is plotted in Figure 5 3 Figure 5 3 Ideal Diode...

Page 44: ...nt errors resulting from harmonics of the carrier frequency are level dependent and cannot be calibrated out In the square law region of the detector response Region A Figure 5 3 the signal and second harmonic combine on a root mean square basis The effects of harmonics on measurement accuracy in this region are relatively insignificant However in the linear region Region C Figure 5 3 the detector...

Page 45: ...e Terms and Definitions has been superseded by IEEE Std 181 2003 Many of the terms used below have been deprecated by the IEEE However these terms are widely used in the industry and familiar many For this reason they are retained Table 5 1 Pulse Terms TERM DEFINITION Base Line The two portions of a pulse waveform which represent the first nominal state from which a pulse departs and to which it u...

Page 46: ...easurements are made on repetitive signals that meet the following conditions Amplitude The difference between the top and bottom signal amplitudes must exceed 6 dB to calculate waveform timing parameters pulse width period duty cycle The top to bottom amplitude difference must exceed 13 dB to measure rise and fall time Timing In order to measure pulse repetition frequency and duty cycle there mus...

Page 47: ...maximum amplitude of the overshoot and the top line Avg Average Power The equivalent heating effect of a signal IEEETop Top Amplitude The amplitude of the top line see IEEE definitions IEEEBot Bottom Amplitude The amplitude of the base line see IEEE definitions Skew Skew The time between the mesial level of a pulse on one channel and a pulse on a second channel EdgeDly Edge Delay The time between ...

Page 48: ...am is generated for all samples in the lowest 12 8 dB range of sample values The range is subdivided into 64 power levels of 0 2 dB each The histogram is scanned to locate the power level with the maximum number of crossings This level is designated the baseline amplitude If two or more power value have equal counts the lowest is selected 8 The process follows a similar procedure to locate the top...

Page 49: ...izontal position in pixels at which the signal crosses the mesial value This is done to a resolution of 0 1 pixel or 1 5000 of the screen width Ordinarily the sample values do not fall precisely on the mesial line and it is necessary to interpolate between the two nearest samples to determine where the mesial crossing occurred This process is demonstrated in the example above Figure 5 6 Item dBm m...

Page 50: ...e time between mesial points e Pulse Repetition Reciprocal of Period Frequency f Duty Cycle Pulse Width Period g Off time Period Pulse Width h Peak Power Maximum sample value See Step 1 i Pulse Power Average power in the pulse between the mesial points j Overshoot Peak Power Top Amplitude k Average Power See Step 13 l Top Amplitude See Step 8 m Bottom Amplitude See Step 7 n Skew See Step 14 5 3 4 ...

Page 51: ... signal crossing starting from the left edge of the screen which passes through the mesial level The signal excursion must be at least 6 dB 5 4 Statistical Mode Automatic Measurements When operating in Statistical mode the PMX40 has a unique text format display that is available when the TEXT GRAPH system key is pressed A sample of the text display is shown in Figure 5 8 Figure 5 8 Statistical Mod...

Page 52: ...riable and measured value dependent variables where the movable cursor intersects the measurement trace The position or value measurement text for each dependent variable is displayed in the color of its channel The independent variable is white Note that the intersection of the movable cursors and the CCDF traces can be moved outside the visible display area This does not affect the measurements ...

Page 53: ... to decimate then the sample count will be halved each time the Terminal Count or Time is reached This should have very little visible effect on the CCDF values since the entire population is decimated uniformly If Terminal Action is set to restart then the sample count will be cleared to zero each time the Terminal Count or Time is reached 5 5 Measurement Accuracy The measurement accuracy of the ...

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Page 55: ...eaned with a commercial spray type window cleaner or a mild detergent and water solution Caution When cleaning the instrument do not allow cleaning fluid to enter the fan intake and exhaust vents Avoid using chemical cleaning agents that can damage painted or plastic surfaces 6 3 Inspection If the PMX40 malfunctions perform a visual inspection of the instrument Inspect for signs of damage caused b...

Page 56: ...ory including the Boonton Electronics Model PMX40 Application Software The Application Software will be updated from time to time to correct errors and add new features Users can upgrade their software by downloading it from the Boonton Electronics webpage www boonton com Copy the upgrade file s into the root directory on a USB drive and plug the drive into one of the instrument s USB ports front ...

Page 57: ... needed contact the Boonton Electronics Service Department for return authorization You will be provided with an RMA number and shipping instructions Customers outside the USA should contact the authorized Boonton distributor for your area Only the defective sensor should be returned to Boonton not the entire instrument The sensor must be returned in its original packing container If the original ...

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Page 59: ...PMX40 RF Power Meter INSTRUCTION MANUAL APPENDIX B 1 Appendix B End User License Agreement Available upon written request END PMX40 RF POWER METER INSTRUCTION MANUAL ...

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