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HP8970 Companion

 

I've written an open source Linux program to control the Hewlett Packard 8970 Noise Figure Meter.

It can create plots of noise figure and gain from the acquired HP8970 data.

Now available on Github

I describe it here on YouTube

RPMs for Fedora Linux are available at

?

Michael

?
 

Hello Michael,

Thank you very much for your effort to build this nice software.
It comes very handy when you need to use the 8970.

Any chance you can build also a Debian/Ubuntu package?

73,
Razvan

On 17/09/2024 04:07, vk2bea via groups.io wrote:
I've written an open source Linux program to control the Hewlett Packard
8970 Noise Figure Meter.

It can create plots of noise figure and gain from the acquired HP8970 data.

Now available on Github
<
VK2BEA/HP8970-Companion>

I describe it here on YouTube youtube.com/watch?v=AWXNZeE0VKs <
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWXNZeE0VKs>

RPMs for Fedora Linux are available at//copr.fedorainfracloud.org/copr
<>

Michael
 

?
Hi Michael,
really nice program, with some advantages over KE5FX program.
Unfortunately it is for Linux ;-)
Probably someone can port it to Windows?
?
73 Ernst
 

Recent versions of windows - Win10 Pro/Win 11 Pro that support Hyper-V could in theory be used to run Linux side by side with your existing system.
?
You¡¯d need SR-IOV capable hardware, and either a PCIe to PCI adapter(Startech makes one that I¡¯ve had good results with in windows systems) plus an NI PCI-GPIB plus a hacked up bracket, or an NI PCIe GPIB card and the special micro 25 pin to 488 cable. With either of those, you¡¯d assign the PCIe bridge chip to the Linux virtual machine with discrete device assignment, meaning it¡¯s no longer available to windows programs.
?
It would be easier and probably cheaper to use an old PC with a PCI slot and just run Linux for such programs.
?
While I can¡¯t speak for the authors, in general, if a program isn¡¯t built in something like Python, unless it is built using windows libraries that are intended to be cross platform, it is unlikely to be ported to windows. It¡¯s not that it can¡¯t be done¡­it¡¯s just that adds a lot of work for an author that wasn¡¯t motivated from the beginning to do it that way. A fork as a windows version is certainly possible, but then you probably will not see updates unless you do them yourself, or attract a user community.
?
Perhaps I¡¯m a bit jaded¡­about 15 years ago, some people were working on a high performance ADC board, made the design decision to use an Atmel microcontroller that cost a half a dollar more than an XMOS chip that included a right to use a windows usb audio class 2 driver. Ultimately, they probably ate up a year figuring out the USB stack. The worst of it was that the microcontroller didn¡¯t have enough buffer to run a hacked usb stack that would transport data in a way windows could use.
 

Hello Michael,
I have a HP8970 at home in my radio shack (M0XPA) and I use it for my experiments and preparing LNA and down converters for contests and field days.

I watched your video and the 8970 Companion is a very nice piece of software, which adds tremendously to the usability and recording of measurements.
My compliments to you.

Now I would really love to use your program.......

I don't have any linux experiences nor use it., so now I need some advice.

How do I get this to run on a dell notebook? (win7)

Is there a way to trick MS to live in a Linux environment?

I do have drivers for MS for my GPIB bus....I use the GPIB toolkit (KE1FX) to plot my HP spectrum analyzer, which works well.

Is there anywhere (Link?) that describes what I need and to install to have the 8970 Companion to work?

Cheers

Peter
M0XPA

PS: I am out of my comfort zone when it comes to Linux and programming. More a HW person.




On Tue, 17 Sept 2024 at 03:07, vk2bea via <vk2bea=[email protected]> wrote:

I've written an open source Linux program to control the Hewlett Packard 8970 Noise Figure Meter.

It can create plots of noise figure and gain from the acquired HP8970 data.

Now available on Github

I describe it here on YouTube

RPMs for Fedora Linux are available at

?

Michael

?
 

It *should* compile on Debian using autotools. ...see the github page on the commands to do this.
    $ ./autogen.sh
    $ cd build/
    $ ../configure
    $ make all
    $ sudo make install
I'll check the build later on a RPi (Debian..ish). I have had issues with other software I've written where the GTK library versions on Debian are a year or more behind Fedora.
I'll probably try and do a flatpak (which will run on any distro) but I'm not sure I can do this given it links to the GPIB driver that is a kernel module (and probably cannot be a flatpak).
?
Michael
 

On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 06:35 AM, Peter Hekman wrote:
I don't have any linux experiences nor use it., so now I need some advice.
?
How do I get this to run on a dell notebook? (win7)
?
Is there a way to trick MS to live in a Linux environment?
?
I have a laptop that has windows as the OS on the in-built SSD but boots Linux from an external USB-C drive. (ie. Linux for the price of a 2TB external drive)
The program communicates with the 8970 via GPIB, so there is a tight coupling between the GPIB driver & library. This is probably the most difficult part of easily porting to Windows.
I have Fedora Linux running on a Raspberry PI 4, and that might be an inexpensive option.
Michael
 

Hello Michael,

Thanks for reply, I will try to compile it first. That is not an issue
for me but in case there will be updates I usually prefer to use dpkg
and install the new package on top.

As for GTK+ I think they are pretty much the same.

I looked at the libgtk-3-0 library in both Fedora and Debian and the
versions are the following:

Fedora:
Fedora Rawhide 3.24.43-2.fc41
Fedora 41 3.24.43-2.fc41
Fedora 40 3.24.43-1.fc40
Fedora 39 3.24.43-1.fc39

Debian:
Stable 3.24.38-2~deb12u2
Unstable 3.24.41-1

If you want to make a common package maybe the "appimage" is the best
way. Not sure if this is possible due to linux-gpib dependency.

73,
Razvan

On 17/09/2024 16:34, vk2bea via groups.io wrote:
It *should* compile on Debian using autotools. ...see the github page on
the commands to do this.

|$ ./autogen.sh $ cd build/ $ ../configure $ make all $ sudo make install|

I'll check the build later on a RPi (Debian..ish). I have had issues
with other software I've written where the GTK library versions on
Debian are a year or more behind Fedora.
I'll probably try and do a flatpak (which will run on any distro) but
I'm not sure I can do this given it links to the GPIB driver that is a
kernel module (and probably cannot be a flatpak).
Michael
 

On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 08:55 AM, Razvan Popescu wrote:
I looked at the libgtk-3-0 library
I'm using GTK4 so there may be a difference.
? gtk4-demo --version
gtk4-demo 4.14.5
?
Yes, I understand about updates. Fedora has the COPR repositories that a developer can maintain independent of Fedora itself which is nice. Perhaps Ubuntu has something similar. Id be happy if someone familiar with the Ubuntu ecosystem wants to take on this.
 

There is a way to install linux-gpib on a Raspberry Pi, running one of the debian derivatives.

That is documented in the project files describing how to make a LAN connected GPIB controler out of a Pi.

Including schematics of the needed hardware etc.

Sadly, I've misplaced the link to that website.? :-(

It is also entirely possible to run Linux as a "guest" on Windows, using Virtual box.? (Sharing a desktop if needed too in "seamless" mode.)

I was doing that over 8 years ago, Mint 15 guest, on Win'7 with an AMD CPU.? It all worked very well indeed, slick & stable.

Likewise, running Windows as a guest in a VM under Linux is commonly done, but you need a Windows install disk, or .iso file of.
(Limited lifetime VM "appliances can be had from MS too, for short-term use.)

You just need plenty of RAM & Drive space, a CPU that supports virtualisation is good to have, but not essential.? (But the more CPU grunt the better.)

Either way, user applications on the two OS's can communicate via virtual LAN connections.? Or not, as you need.

Or, you can "Dual Boot" the PC.? At boot time, you choose one OS or the other, but then it's only the one OS running.? (Linux can usually "see into" the dormant Windows partition, but not the other way around.)

There are lots of options.

Dave 'KBV.
 

On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 11:59 AM, Dave_G0WBX wrote:
There is a way to install linux-gpib on a Raspberry Pi, running one of the debian derivatives.
?
That is documented in the project files describing how to make a LAN connected GPIB controler out of a Pi.
?

?
I wrote a script to do this. It's available here.
I think I need to update a line or two? it because the GPIB project switched from SVN to GIT
?
Michael
 

On Tue, Sep 17, 2024 at 12:28 PM, vk2bea wrote:
I think I need to update a line or two? it because the GPIB project switched from SVN to GIT
I updated it and the script pulls, compiles and installs on Raspberry PI OS (a flavor of Debian)

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