The 4530 Series RF Power Meter is a new generation of instruments. It allows high-resolution power measurement ofa wide range of CW and modulated RF signals over a dynamic range of up to 90dB depending on sensor. The powermeter is available configured as the single-channel Model 4531, or as the dual-channel Model 4532. For the remainderof this manual, the series designation of 4530 will be used to indicate either model, except when otherwise stated. The 4530 is really several instruments in one, and can function as a CW Power Meter, a Peak Power Meter, a StatisticalPower Analyzer, and an RF Voltmeter. It accepts the full series of Boonton RF power and voltage sensors, whichincludes coaxial dual-diode sensors and thermal sensors. Sensor data and calibration information is automaticallydownloaded from the sensor or “smart adapter” whenever a new sensor is connected, eliminating the need to manuallyenter calibration factors. When used as a CW power meter, the 4530 provides seamless measurement performance due to the extremely widedynamic range of its input stage. Thermal and peak power sensors require no range switching under any conditions,and even CW diode sensors spanning a 90dB dynamic range require only two widely overlapping ranges. This meansthat practically any measurement can be performed without the interruptions and non-linearities associated with therange changes of conventional power meters. , wide For modulated signals, the 4530 can make accurate average and peak power measurements with modulation band-widths as high as 20MHz, making it ideal for high-speed digitally modulated carriers such as CDMA, W-CDMA, GSM,TDMA, HDTV and UMT. Periodic and pulse waveforms can be displayed in graphical format, and a host of automaticmeasurements are available which characterize the time and power profiles of the pulse. Effective sampling rates up to50MSa/sec and user programmable cursors allow instantaneous power measurements at precise time delays from thepulse edge or an external trigger as well as time gated or power gated peak and average power. For spread-spectrum or randomly modulated signals such as CDMA, the 4530’s powerful statistical analysis modeallows full profiling of the power probability at all signal levels. Sustained acquisition rates in excess of one millionreadings per second along with rangeless operation insure that a representative population can be acquired andanalyzed in minimum time. By analyzing the probability of occurrence of power levels approaching the absolute peakpower, it is possible to characterize the occasional power peaks that result in amplifier compression and data errors.Because of the random and very infrequent nature of these events, they are next to impossible to spot with theconventional techniques used in other universal power meters. In addition, the instrument’s extremely wide videobandwidth insures that even the fastest peaks will be accurately measured. The 4530’s powerful dual-processor architecture permits advanced measurement capabilities with unprecedentedspeed and performance. A high-speed, floating-point digital signal processor (DSP) performs the measurements. Itgathers and processes the power samples from the sensors, performs time-stamping, linearity correction, gain adjust-ment and filtering, all in fractions of a microsecond. The processed measurements are then passed to a dedicated,32-bit I/O processor that monitors the keyboard, updates the LCD display and responds to RS-232 and GPIB requestsfor formatted measurements. This design eliminates the speed tradeoffs between measurement data input (acquisition)and output (over the GPIB) that are so common among other power meters. Instrument operating firmware is stored in flash memory that may be field reprogrammed with any PC via the onboardRS-232 port. Free firmware upgrades permit the easy addition of new features or capabilities that may become availablein the future. Visit the Boonton website at WWW.BOONTON.COM for upgrade information and to download thelatest firmware version. FEATURES Multi-mode capabilityUtilizes CW sensors, Peak Power sensors and Voltage probes with automatic sens-ing and setup for each type. Measures conventional CW power and voltage,power versus time for pulse analysis, and statistical power distributions for spreadspectrum signals. Text and GraphicsThe backlit LCD display shows numerical results as well as graphical results for allmeasurements. Measurements are displayed using a large, easy-to-read numericalformat, or in graph mode with a fast-updating, oscilloscope-like trace. Dual Independent Channels ChannelsModel 4532 is equipped with two identical independent measurement channelswith the capability to display two pulse measurements, two statistical measure-ments or two CW measurements at the same time. Remote ProgrammingAll functions except power on/off can be controlled by a GPIB interface or via anRS-232 serial connection. The programming language follows the SCPI model withadded non-SCPI commands for special applications.