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Chapter 3 37
Test Set Cal and SelfCal
Test Set Cal: An Overview
Determine the Test Set Ports to Be Used
To save time, calibrate the lowest number of ports necessary for your test setup. For
example, if your test setup requires the use of only 6 of the available twelve ports,
calibrate for 6 ports; there is no need to spend the time to calibrate all twelve ports.
The selection of the number of ports is necessary, in part, in order to perform the
minimum-through portion of the Test Set Cal. This portion occurs during the
calibration when measuring through standards for a transmission measurement (S
21
or S
12
) or measurements using 2-port calibration. Suppose that you have a 6-port
DUT and that you have selected the ports 1 to 6 to calibrate on your test set. A
traditional network analyzer calibration would require (in addition to connecting
opens, shorts, and loads to all connectors) that you connect a through standard
between every possible pairing of the 6 test set ports in order to measure all possible
transmission paths. This would mean 15 different connections of through standards,
each needing its own separate calibration file. The Test Set Cal simplifies this
process by only requiring a through-standard connection between 3 adjacent port
*
pairs of the 6 test set ports:
• Port 1 to Port 2
• Port 3 to Port 4
• Port 5 to Port 6
The analyzer calculates the remainder of the test set port combinations and saves the
data as only one calibration file. The test set calibration can be done in any
combination of the adjacent port pairs, [1, 2] and [5, 6] for example. This results in
significant calibration-time savings, which improves your measurement throughput.
Performing the Test Set Cal with a Mechanical
Calibration Kit
This section describes how to perform the Test Set Cal with a mechanical
calibration kit.
Step 1. Press [Channel Next] or [Channel Prev] to select the channel for which you want
to execute multi-port test set calibration.
Step 2. Press [Cal].
* Adjacent ports are those which share an internal through calibration stan-
dard. Adjacent ports are: [1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6], [7, 8], [9, 10], [11, 12].