Palstar ZM-30, Owner'S Manual

Page 1: ...ZM 30 Digital Antenna Analyzer Owner s Manual Firmware Level Version 6 0 ...

Page 2: ...2 Palstar Incorporated 9676 N Looney Rd Piqua OH 45356 USA Customer Service and Sales Telephone 1 800 773 7931 Fax 1 937 773 8003 Email info palstar com ...

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Page 6: ... s signal is delivered to the antenna system through a reflectometer consisting of an absorptive SWR bridge using diode detectors and compensated buffer amplifiers The data provided by the reflectometer are digitized and used by the microcontroller to compute SWR and impedance values for each frequency sampled The microcontroller retains the frequency and corresponding results throughout the measu...

Page 7: ...de easy connection to the antenna system being measured The jacks for external power and serial port connection to the PC are all located at the top end of the instrument and the power pushbutton is located on the front panel A convenient and power control feature prolongs battery life by automatically powering the unit down after a user settable period of inactivity Similarly the LCD backlight au...

Page 8: ... displays SWR and complex impedance at selected frequencies Audible tone indicates resonance lower tone indicates lower SWR May be enabled disabled Serial port connects to PC for field upgradable software Battery operated for convenient field use or can use external 9 16V for bench operation Other uses of the ZM30 Measure antenna bandwidth Measure feedpoint impedance Measure ground loss Measure co...

Page 9: ...f 14 pre set bands or enter specific parameters for a custom set band to use for the scan operation 1 10 MHz 10 20 MHz 20 30 MHz 1 30 MHz 160m 80m 60m 40m 30m 20m 18m 15m 12m 10m Custom Band SCAN Pressing this control initiates a scan of the frequencies selected in the BAND function Scan exits to Impedance mode showing the resonant point in the antenna system Power Control Push hold to turn unit o...

Page 10: ...erated and displayed is 10 00000 MHz and with no antenna or load connected to the RF output jack the open circuit SWR and impedance will likely indicate as shown below See Impedance Mode for detailed description of this display and mode operation 9 2 User Interface Pushbuttons The user interface consists of four pushbuttons one for each instrument function as described in the next section and a ro...

Page 11: ...s displayed Upon entry to the Impedance mode you will see the following typical display SWR 10 345 00 2 1 49 j 23 The top line indicates the frequency The first number on the second line is the SWR In this case it indicates 2 1 1 The middle value is Resistance the real part of Impedance In this case it is 49 ohms The rightmost value is the Reactance or the reactive part of Impedance In this case i...

Page 12: ... second Capacitance pF Then the capacitance display screen is shown as illustrated below when a 120 pF capacitor is connected to the RF output jack 10 000 00 C 126 4 pF The top line indicates the frequency The second line is the computed value for the load connected to the output jack Capacitance values that may be displayed must fall within the measurement range of the instrument Keeping in mind ...

Page 13: ...able step sizes are 100 kHz 10 kHz 1 kHz default and 100 Hz Enable Tones This function provides an audible tone whose pitch corresponds to the SWR being measured when in Impedance mode This feature is useful in eyes free conditions or by the visually impaired Tone varies with changes in SWR again even when the dial is not being moved Facilitates changing antenna while listening to lower SWR Disabl...

Page 14: ...ignal to be as accurate as possible compared to the reference Once the best setting is achieved pressing the Dial will save the frequency correction factor to nonvolatile memory and the ZM 30 frequency display will forevermore reflect that same accuracy throughout its operational range Update Software This function is used when upgrading the ZM 30 software in the field Whenever newer or improved c...

Page 15: ...e actual impedance allows gauging just how much loss Adjust Antenna Tuners The analyzer can be used to adjust an antenna tuner for a perfect match without the need to transmit a strong signal from the station rig The analyzer uses only milliwatts of power lessening the possibility of causing interference See Figure 5 Capacitor Measurement There are several ways to measure capacitance with the ZM 3...

Page 16: ...frequency in MHz and C is the capacitance in picofarads Measure Inductor Q The Q of an RF inductor can be measured with a very simple setup First measure the inductive reactance XL of the inductor and record this value Now connect it to the Analyzer as shown below in Figure 3 Capacitor C must be chosen to resonate with L at the frequency where you want to measure the inductor s Q The Inductor and ...

Page 17: ...that loss in transmission lines attenuates RF sent through them When the line is connected to the analyzer and the far end is short or open circuited there is a theoretically infinite SWR If the feedline had zero loss this would be the case However since any real line has some loss both the forward and reflected power are attenuated and a finite SWR is measured For most good quality new coaxial fe...

Page 18: ...ng sure the far end is still short circuited and repeat until resonance is achieved at the desired frequency For a quarter wave stub the above procedure can be used except of course that the length is different and that the far end needs to be open circuited Transmission Line Velocity Factor Velocity factor of a transmission line can be measured using techniques similar to the ones used for measur...

Page 19: ...L C C 25330 F2 L C in pF L in uH F in MHz Sweep frequency to find minimum SWR point at Fc Then find freqs where SWR 2 1 below and above Figure 7 Antenna Bandwidth To antenna Fc SWR 2 1 1 1 BW L 25330 F2 C Figure 8 Determining Feedline Characteristic Impedance Set pot to max 1K ohm Adjust pot slightly lower Tune ZM 30 from 7 21 MHz Note variations in R and X Relatively constant no yes Pot setting i...

Page 20: ...and Scan Setup On Off Rotary Encoder Tuning 24 position rotation smooth operation LED Busy 2 line x 16 character LCD display with optional backlight under software control configured in Setup menus Backlight may be configured to turn off after user set period of inactivity If enabled backlight turns on again with any of the controls are touched Power Control Power applied by press and hold of On O...

Page 21: ...website located at www palstar com zm30 Save the S19 file to a known location on your PC like in your desktop folder The S19 file is the file with the s19 extension to its filename This is a text representation of the binary image to be loaded onto the ZM 30 2 Connect your ZM 30 to the PC using a standard straight through male female DB9 type serial cable Do not use a null modem cable that swaps p...

Page 22: ...d but these parameters also must be synchronized with the newly loaded software and it s good to ensure you are calibrated with the software currently loaded on your instrument IN CASE OF SOFTWARE LOADING PROBLEMS The normal indication of new software being successfully sent to the ZM 30 is seeing line after line of nicely formatted text data being displayed to the PC terminal screen as indicated ...

Page 23: ...down the File Send File menu d Navigate to where you saved the s19 file e Once in the folder that contains zm30vXXX s19 file select that file and click the Open button Be careful to only load S19 files If you mistakenly select any other file extension it is very likely that you ll mess up the bootstrap loader program f See line after line of ASCII data displayed in short one second bursts This wil...

Page 24: ...e a non metallic tool to carefully adjust the small trimpot located on the circuit board between the Band and Scan Stop buttons 3rd and 4th buttons in the row As you adjust this pot the numbers will change and you will find a setting that meets the requirements of first three numbers being between C0 and C8 and last number being between 00 and 09 If you are not able to achieve these channel settin...

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Page 36: ...36 Notes ...

Page 37: ...37 Notes ...