The defintions for many HP/Agilent calibration kits can be found on the web at
These can be copied to a floppy and uploaded to my 8720D VNA quite
quicky. I have a need to be able to write the calkit defintions back
to a floppy, so someone else can put them into their VNA. But when I
write them, it saves the instrument state too. I imagine that could
potentially cause a problem if someone had a different VNA.
Hence can I write just the calkit definitions to disk, but not write
the instrument state at the same time?
Does anyone know the format of the binary files containing the calkit
definitions? Although
has definitions for
kits in a text file for easy reading, what you have to download is a
binary. If I knew the file format for the calkit definitions, I could
write a program to generate just the calkit definitions.
BTW, I'd caution anyone to rely too much on the information about what
VNAs support what cal kits on that page. What calkits are in the
firmware of VNAs depends very much on the firmware version. To give
just three examples,
1) According to that page, the 85032B 'N' calibration kit is supposed
to be in the firmware for an 872xD, but the newer 85032F is
unsupported. In my 8720D, the 85032F is in the firmware, but the older
85032B is not.
2) According to that page, the 85033E 3.5 mm calibration kit is not
supported in the 872xD. In fact it is the firmware of my 8720D, which
is quite nice, as I have that kit
3) That page has a file one can download to enable the 872xD to work
with the 85038A 7-16 calibration kit. In fact the 85038A, is the
firmware of my 8720D, so there is no need to download any file. (Not
that I have that kit anyway)
I think in total I have found about 7 differences between what is listed at
and what I actually find in the firmware of my i8720D. Hence before
selecting a calkit based on information at
check your
firmware, as a lot of the information seems to be wrong. This is
because kits were added and dropped with changes in firmware. Since I
have the latest firmware in my 8720D, the newer calibration kits were
added, but unfortunately some of the older ones were removed.
Dave.
