RSA306B" without buying the SignalVue software

SignalVu-PC base software comes with the RSA306B and doesn't cost any extra - add on analysis licenses for protocols do cost extra.

The RSA306B cannot operate without SignalVu-PC as the SCPI programming interface merely controls the SignalVu-PC software. On its own, it is not a SCPI or VISA instrument - it is more like a software defined radio that digitises signals very quickly. If you don't use SignalVu-PC, then your only option is the RSA API which will give you raw samples to play with (at something like 224MB/s) but not many other features.

Thanks for your note.

I thought that using the RSA API option I could build my customized app that can detect and classify some RF signals, do you know any cheap option to do that?
and what do you think is the benefit of realizing such kind of spectrums, if we couldn't program it?

To be honest, I have no idea what you're asking here.

As I said before, SignalVu-PC is required for the VISA interface to be realised, if you want to use VISA.

You can use the RSA API to grab raw data from the unit - any specific analysis is then the responsibility of your code. This is NOT VISA based and is a separate API and is the only reason you can access the RSA without SignalVu-PC. You won't be saving any money by going this route and will need to do some more of the heavy lifting yourself.

A high level overview is given of the differences in interfaces here:

https://d347awuzx0kdse.cloudfront.net/vicomaus/content-file/programming_appnote_37w-61459_vicom.pdf

If you're after the raw data for your own analysis, you could go either way. I used SignalVu-PC's IF recorder to record .r3a files containing a stream of 16-bit real values which can then be analysed using other tools (e.g. GNU Radio, MATLAB) with some difficulty (it's not fast to deal with such large files). But if you do this, you're essentially turning the RSA into a rather expensive SDR.

- Gough

The RSA API reference is here - these are the functions available to you without SignalVu-PC.

https://download.tek.com/manual/RSA300-500-600-Series-Spectrum-Analyzers-API-Programming-Reference-REV-A-077103104.pdf

Tek does provide some examples here too:

https://github.com/tektronix/RSA_API

It seems this is the V2 API (newer than when I last looked) so there are a few more standard analysis functions available, but I'm not sure it is that well maintained (last update to examples and API is 4 years ago).

https://www.tek.com/en/support/software/application/rsa-application-programming-interface-api-64-bit-windows

It is nice to see they did get around to making a Linux API too ... this didn't exist when I last looked either ...

https://www.tek.com/en/support/software/application/rsa-application-programming-interface--api-for-64bit-linux--v100014

- Gough

The RSA API reference is here - these are the functions available to you without SignalVu-PC.

https://download.tek.com/manual/RSA300-500-600-Series-Spectrum-Analyzers-API-Programming-Reference-REV-A-077103104.pdf

Tek does provide some examples here too:

https://github.com/tektronix/RSA_API

It seems this is the V2 API (newer than when I last looked) so there are a few more standard analysis functions available, but I'm not sure it is that well maintained (last update to examples and API is 4 years ago).

https://www.tek.com/en/support/software/application/rsa-application-programming-interface-api-64-bit-windows

It is nice to see they did get around to making a Linux API too ... this didn't exist when I last looked either ...

https://www.tek.com/en/support/software/application/rsa-application-programming-interface--api-for-64bit-linux--v100014

- Gough

Thanks a lot