Readme.txt ----- Hagtronics Network Analyzer Operating Instructions


NOTE: Trouble shooting information is at the end of this file.


Installing:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Due to many versions of "Windows (tm)" out in the world at the
present, and the difficulty I had trying to get Visual Basic's(tm)
install program to work across all platforms. I decided to go
to a manual install procedure. Please forgive me! {:-(

    Zip File Instructions: If you recieved the files as a file 
    called analyzer.zip, copy the file to a floppy disk then
    unzip it using the command line "pkunzip -d analyzer".
    Note: The '-d' is very important to keep the directories straight.

    This will extract the proper files in the proper directories. 
    Then follow the procedure below. This assumes that you have
    PKUNZIP on your system path somewhere. If you do not have
    PKUNZIP, see the ARRL BBS or web site at www.arrl.org.


Backup Procedure:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Note: Generally this series of steps should never be required
    but just to be extra safe, you may wish to back up the
    following list of files from the c:\windows\system directory
    before proceeding with the install. By backing up these files
    you are assured that if anything goes wrong after the Analyzer
    install, that you can safely recover.

    The files that Analyzer needs to put in the C:\Windows\System
    directory are:

                ANIBUTON.VBX
                LEDDISP.VBX
                MSCOMM.VBX
                MSMASKED.VBX
                SPIN.VBX
                THREED.VBX
                VBINI.VBX	
                VBRUN300.DLL (This file may not be visable on WIN95
                Select View->Options->View and make all files Visable to see it)

        If your system does not contain one or more of these files
        before the install, don't worry. Just back up the ones that
        you have to a floppy.


Install Procedure:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Note: If you get an overwrite warning message during any of 
    the copy commands that you are about to do, please ONLY 
    OVERWRITE files where the "Replace With" file from the 
    floppy is newer than the file on your hard disk.

    Note: Under NT4.0 or Win95 set the options -> view menu to 
    "Show All Files", you can restore the setting after you are
    done installing the program. Otherwise you may not copy the
    file a:\system\vbrun300.dll to c:\windows\system.

	
       1) Make a directory on your hard disk called Analyzer. This is
       where the program will be installed.

       2) Open the Analyzer folder on the install floppy and copy
       the contents to the analyzer directory you just created.

       3) Open the windows folder on the install floppy and copy those files to
       the proper windows folder on your hard disk.

       4) open the system folder on the floppy and copy those files
       to your Windows/System directory on your hard disk.

       5) You may wish to make a folder or program group with the 
       Analyzer.exe file to make running the program easier in the
       future.


Running The Set_Port Utility
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A utility has been included to help you configure the Network Analyzer	
on your computer. Attach the analyzer to the RS232 port that you wish to
use. Make sure that the Network Analyzer is ON. Run Set_Port from the 
copy on your hard drive (c:\Analyzer directory). The first step this
program does is find all valid RS232 ports that it can. A list is 
displayed, and you are given an option of trying to setup the Network
Analyzer automatically or quitting. Select Setup, the program then tries
to open all the valid ports it found in the first step and locate the
Analyzer by writing commands to it and looking for the proper response.
If the Analyzer is found, the program then tries to open the file 
Analyzer.ini, this file must be located in your Windows directory (see
install instructions above). If the Analyzer.ini file is opened properly
the line "Com_port =" is set to the port the network analyzer was just
found on. 

If all was sucessful (read the messages provided by Set_Port) the Analyzer
is now properly configured to run.

Note: Since this program opens RS232 Ports and writes information to them, there
is a slight chance that another device connected to a port may be initilized
improperly and may not function as intended later. Any problems may be fixed by 
restarting your computer. Any problems caused by the Set_Port problem will
not happen with the Analyzer program, as program only looks at the Com port
it was configured for (from the file \Windows\Analyzer.ini).


Manually Setting The Network Analyzer Port
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note: This is how to edit the Analyzer.ini file manually, use the procedure
above (set_port) unless there is some real need to manually edit the ini file.

The default COM port is COM 1, if your hardware is not connected to COM 1
then you may edit the Analyzer.ini file manually to set the proper COM 
port. Run the notepad, open the Analyzer.ini file in the windows
directory and look for the Com_Port = line, then set the number after
the equals sign to the proper COM port for your computer. Save the file
and exit notepad. After this is done, restart Analyzer.exe and try to do a
sweep again.


Running Analyzer.exe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Run Analyzer.exe, the initial screen shows a black background with the
build information displayed.

No graph is displayed until a sweep is done.

The various menu commands are described below,


Main Form Menu Commands
=======================
     File - This menu allows you to,

          Print - Print the current graph screen

          Exit - Exit the Analyzer program

     Sweep - Select this item to start a frequency sweep
             (More about sweeps below)

     Manual Mode - This brings up an interactive screen for single
                   frequency operation of the Network analyzer.

     Cursor - After a sweep is done this command enables and places
              cursors on the screen. The red cursor is moved by pressing
              the left and right arrow keys (Actually pressing AND releasing
              the key moves the selected cursor).
              The green cursor is moved by holding the shift key and pressing
              the left or right arrow keys.
              The cursor information is displayed in a window at the lower
              right corner of the screen. This screen may be moved by dragging it
              to a different location.

              The cursor window displays the frequency and amplitude data for the
              red (R), green (G) and delta between red and green (D) cursors.
              Turn cursors off by selecting the cursor command again.

     View - After a sweep is done this command enables and allows the following
            things to be done,
			
     Area - Zooms to a area of the graph, Select this command, position
            the mouse at the upper leftcorner of the area to be viewed.
            hold down the left mouse button and drag the mouse to the 
            lower right of the area to be viewed. When the bounding box
            covers the proper area, release the mouse button. The display
            now will zoom into the selected area.

     Fit - This undoes a 'view area' and fits all the data to the whole 
           screen again.	

     Refresh - This redraws the current screen. Useful if some other 
               program trashes the display memory.

     About - This displays an about box for the Analyzer program.


Sweep Mode
==========
     When this menu item is selected, another window pops up for setting the
     sweep parameters.

     Set the desired start and stop frequencies and number of points to for the 
     sweep.		

     Pushing the "Setup" button will bring up a setup screen that allows the 
     probe attenuation factors to be set. This screen also allows the maximum and
     minimum source to be set for the sweep. Press "OK" when done here.

     Back at the "Sweep Setup" screen press "Start Sweep" button when the 
     sweep parameters have been set.

     The sweep now starts, the black LCD window displays the sweep progress.

     At any time during the sweep, the "Stop Sweep" button may be pressed to
     stop the sweep (This is useful if you notice bad data during a long sweep). To 
     restart the sweep select the sweep menu item again.

     When the sweep ends the setup screen closes automatically and a graph of the 
     data is displayed. The View and Cursor menu items are now active.


Manual Mode
===========
     Picking the manual menu item allows complete manual control of the hardware.
     A single frequency may be set by clicking on the spin buttons. When the
     frequency is changed, the frequency display turns red. A red indication shows  
     that the
     hardware has not been updated to the new frequency yet. To update the           
     hardware, press the Set rocker switch. Doing so will send the proper code to
     the hardware, setting the frequency. The display will turn black again to 
     signify that the frequency is current.

     The source amplitude may be set at any time. The source attenuator is updated
     as soon as an option button is selected.

     The receiver settings may be altered for X1 or X10 probes and auto scaling
     or manual setting of the receiver attenuators. By turing off the Autoscale On 
     check box the receiver attenuators will be settable by you. You may set the 
     attenuators on or off as desired. Setting Autoscale ON will re-enable automatic
     selection of the receiver attenuators. 

     Leaving the autoscale on is the recommended setting. Use the manual settings
     for calibration or troubleshooting.

     The output window is updated every second as the A/D's are read. The results
     are displayed for each channel and the dB ratio of both channels is also shown.


Troubleshooting
===============

     If windows is not in the directory C:\Windows, you may need to copy the
     file "Analyzer.ini" manually. This is done by copying "Analyzer.ini" file from 
     the floppy disk to the directory where windows is installed on your computer.

     The program may appear to hang for up to 30 seconds or so when the Sweep or 
     Manual
     menu items are selected and the hardware is not responding. Wait for the error
     message. Then determine the cause of the error,

          * The hardware is not plugged into the computers COM port or is not turned
	  ON.

          * FYI: If the network analyzer is talking to the PC the red "Data" LED will
          be blinking as measurement results are sent back to the PC.  

          * If you get an error that the Analyzer.ini file is missing or corrupt, 
          copy the file from the master disk to the windows directory, and run the
          Set_Port program again (with the analyzer connected and ON). 
          This should solve the error.

          * If you can't resolve the problem, end the program.
          Unplug the Analyzer from the RS232 port and turn it off
          for 15 seconds. Then turn the analyzer ON and reconnect it to the RS232 port.
          Try and run the Set_Port program again to be sure that the network analyzer 
          is running properly. If the problem persists, restart your computer and reset
          the analyzer by unplugging it and cycling power as above.

          * If you continually get errors, you may need to change the RS232 delay. This
          parameter is in the Analyzer.ini file. Increasing the delay tells the program
          to wait for more time before trying to read the data back from the RS232 port.
          You may need to set this parameter on very slow computers, i.e. < 486 DX models.
          Also computers that use 8250 UART's may need the delay adjusted. If you have
          no RS232 problems leave the delay at 0 for maximum performance.
          Don't go overboard with this number, as it will slow down the operation of the
          program during sweeps. You won't notice any delay during manual operation. On
          Pentium computers this parameter has not been needed, so look for the error 
          elsewhere (i.e. like the RS232 wiring). Start by setting the delay to 1, this 
          enables the delay function and allows the computer time to service the RS232 port.
          Increase RS232 delay in 1 mS increments (steps of 1), until the problem goes away.
          Note: Always lok for all other problems first, no computers to date have needed
          any more delay that 1mS.

          * I have noticed a few SVGA modes on some display boards that fail to display the
          grid completely (i.e. the graph border is not present). If this happens switch to
          640x480 mode. Also printing may be better with 640x480 mode. Different resolutions 
          may crop the graph when printed depending on the printer/display resolution 
          selected.

          * Printing: Printing is done by doing a screen dump to the printer. In higher
          resolution modes the graph may be chopped off. This is caused by more Pixels
          being on the screen, and the printer driver cutting some off. A general cure
          is to run in 640x480 mode. I have not found a printer that would not work in
          this mode (yet!). Likewise, if the printer plot is too small, you might try
          to run at higher than 640x480 resolution to put more pixels on the screen.

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