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Measurement Basics
R&S
®
FSW-K40
34
User Manual 1173.9286.02 ─ 15
If a trace is frozen ("View" mode), the instrument settings, apart from level range and
reference level, can be changed without impact on the displayed trace. The fact that
the displayed trace no longer matches the current instrument setting is indicated by the
icon on the tab label.
If the level range or reference level is changed, the R&S
FSW automatically adapts the
trace data to the changed display range. This allows an amplitude zoom to be made
after the measurement in order to show details of the trace.
Trace averaging algorithm
In "Average" trace mode, the sweep count determines how many traces are averaged.
The more traces are averaged, the smoother the trace is likely to become.
The algorithm for averaging traces depends on the sweep mode and sweep count.
●
sweep count = 0 (default)
In continuous sweep mode, a continuous average is calculated for 10 sweeps,
according to the following formula:
10
*
9
MeasValue
Trace
Trace
old
Figure 4-10: Equation 1
Due to the weighting between the current trace and the average trace, past values
have practically no influence on the displayed trace after about ten sweeps. With
this setting, signal noise is effectively reduced without need for restarting the aver-
aging process after a change of the signal.
●
sweep count = 1
The currently measured trace is displayed and stored in the trace memory. No
averaging is performed.
●
sweep count > 1
For both "Single Sweep" mode and "Continuous Sweep" mode, averaging takes
place over the selected number of sweeps. In this case the displayed trace is
determined during averaging according to the following formula:
1
1
)
(
1
n
i
n
i
n
MeasValue
T
n
Trace
Figure 4-11: Equation 2
where n is the number of the current sweep (n = 2 ... Sweep Count).
No averaging is carried out for the first sweep but the measured value is stored in
the trace memory. With increasing n, the displayed trace is increasingly smoothed
since there are more individual sweeps for averaging.
After the selected number of sweeps the average trace is saved in the trace mem-
ory. Until this number of sweeps is reached, a preliminary average is displayed.
When the averaging length defined by the "Sweep Count" is attained, averaging is
continued in continuous sweep mode or for "Continue Single Sweep" according to
the following formula:
Analyzing Several Traces - Trace Mode