frequency measurement resolution

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OldIron
Newbie
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Joined: Thu May 22, 2014 7:04 am

frequency measurement resolution

Post by OldIron »

Hello,

I have recently purchased PicoScope 5242B. Its 60 MHz bandwidth is quite reasonable for my measurements.

Definitely very useful scope and function-rich software working in tandem.

However, I’m not quite happy with the frequency resolution of the frequency measurement with Picoscope 6 (PS6) (v.6.12.9.2917).

I tested the resolution of the frequency measurement of the PC oscilloscope, using external DDS-based signal generator, and frequency counter, both with 0.1 Hz resolution.
PS6 settings: fs = 1MHz, 1Msamples, 1÷10 ms/div (doesn’t matter), whole trace measurement.
I used signal with frequency: 1001.0Hz, 1001.1Hz, 1001.2Hz, ... 1001.4Hz.
The external instruments showed these values, however PS6 always displayed 1001Hz in the frequency measurement line.
I expected, that having processed a million of samples, PS6 would have given better frequency resolution.

I would appreciate any comments on my results and following questions:
- Does the PS6 software measure frequency with 4-digit resolution (or measures more
precisely, but rounds the result to 4 digits, as in the internal signal generator frequency)?
- Is there any software-defined difference in the frequency measurement resolution
of various scopes of the 5000 series?

Regards,
Old Iron

alan
Site Admin
Site Admin
Posts: 195
Joined: Thu May 25, 2006 8:02 am

Re: frequency measurement resolution

Post by alan »

Hi,

Try the DeepMeasure feature - it displays to more significant digits.
https://www.picotech.com/library/oscill ... eepmeasure

Martyn
Site Admin
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Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2011 8:15 am
Location: St. Neots

Re: frequency measurement resolution

Post by Martyn »

Deep Measure is available in PicoScope 6.13.2. Beta
Martyn
Technical Support Manager

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