Industrial Electronics

Automate RF testing with 4 channel USB attenuator

17 July 2024

A new 50 Ohm 4 channel USB attenuator has been engineered by JFW Industries to help automate radio frequency (RF) testing.

JFW model 50P-2089 SMA operates from 200 MHz to 6,000 MHz with attenuation range 0 dB to 95 dB by 1 dB steps. All four attenuators are individually controlled, and test software is provided with the USB attenuator.

USB test software features:

  • Test software manual available for download.
  • Auto-discovery of any JFW USB attenuators connected to the computer.
  • Control attenuator(s) using a slider bar, increment buttons or manually entering the attenuation value.Source: JFW IndustriesSource: JFW Industries
  • Set persistent device names for better organization of complex test scenarios.
  • Create test scripts that can control many attenuators.
  • Fade and handover commands can be executed in sequential or synchronous mode.
  • Saving and loading of scripts in JSON format.
  • Requires Microsoft Windows Vista or greater.
  • Requires Dot Net Framework 4.0 or greater.

If users prefer to control the USB attenuators using Python instead of the standard Windows-based test program, JFW does offer a Python library (jfwusb.py).

Python library features:

  • Auto-discovery of any JFW USB devices connected to the computer.
  • Set persistent device names for each attenuator.
  • Set/read attenuator by its device number.
  • Set/read attenuator by its serial number.
  • Set/read attenuator by its user defined name.
  • Set all attenuators to the same dB value, min dB value or max dB value.
To contact the author of this article, email GlobalSpecEditors@globalspec.com


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