Last updated: December 3, 2008
The primary use of measurement timeouts is to regain control of the test set's GPIB in cases where the bus could potentially "hang."
The time normally required for a measurement to complete may vary greatly depending on the individual measurement, its settings, it's multiple measurement count value, and so forth. Because of this, you may need to set the timeout longer than the default for measurements where a large number of multiple measurements are requested or where measurement triggers may be infrequent.
Be careful when setting a timeout that is shorter than the default. It is possible to specify a timeout that is so short the measurement does not even have a chance to begin. Measurement timeouts should always be at least several seconds long.
Timeout units default to S (seconds). The seconds suffix is an optional part of the command. If you want MS (milliseconds), US (microseconds) or NS (nanoseconds), you must specify these units in the suffix.
| Default Timeout Time | Default Timeout State | Integrity Indicator Value | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | |||
| 10 seconds | 2 | ||
| OFF | 2 | ||
| Fast Bit Error Rate * | 10 seconds | OFF | |
| Output RF Spectrum | 10 seconds | OFF | |
| Phase and Frequency Error | 10 seconds | 2 | |
| Power versus Time | 10 seconds | OFF | 2 |
| 10 seconds | OFF | 2 | |
| 10 seconds | OFF | 2 |
The measurements in the table marked with an * apply to GSM only.
The following program causes a timeout to occur on an attempted transmit power measurement. The integrity indicator should return a 2 (the measurement timeout indicator).
10 !Existing conditions: A call is not connected. 20 OUTPUT 714;"SETUP:TXPOWER:TIMEOUT:TIME 5;STATE ON" !Sets a timeout value 30 !of 5 seconds 40 OUTPUT 714;"INITIATE:TXPOWER" !Initiates a single TX power measurement. 50 OUTPUT 714;"FETCH:TXPOWER?" !Queries the TX Power measurement result. 60 ENTER 714;Integrity,Tx_pwr_result 70 PRINT "Integrity indicator was ";Integrity 80 IF Integrity=2 THEN !Integrity Indicator 2 indicates TX power timed-out. 90 PRINT "Measurement timed out" 100 ELSE 110 PRINT "Measurement did not time out, TX power measurement result was ";Tx_pwr_result 120 END IF 130 END
In this example, if the transmit power measurement takes longer than 5 seconds to complete, the FETCh command retrieves an integrity value of 2. The test set's GPIB is then available to accept more commands.