Hello all!

I have a NanoVNA V2 Plus4 running firmware version 20220814.

I am using my NanoVNA to collect data for an antenna that is located in a different room, away from my PC. I am using the internal batteries to power the NanoVNA. I set up my measurement and then select "Pause Sweep" to temporarily store the data on screen.

I want to save the stored sweep data to my PC for later review (preferably in touchstone s1p or s2p format).

I have found that if I connect the NanoVNA to my PC with USB, and then launch the vna-qt software, the NanoVNA triggers a new sweep when it enters USB mode. The paused sweep data is overwritten and lost. Is there any way to change this behavior or another way to save stored sweep data to my PC?

Thanks in advance for any replies,
Jeff W6OHM

Jeff, better folks than me will reply, but for now, do take a photo of your
nanovna screen with yr mobile phone. i doo thast here often.
Albert. Ei7II.

Good question! That is the same problem I have that prevents me from
using the NanoVNA as much as I would like to. I either have to lug a
laptop around or I cannot save a useful file.

I'm interested in this also.

73 Tom

On 7/17/2023 3:10 PM, Jeff Keyzer wrote:
> Hello all!
>
> I have a NanoVNA V2 Plus4 running firmware version 20220814.
>
> I am using my NanoVNA to collect data for an antenna that is located
> in a different room, away from my PC. I am using the internal
> batteries to power the NanoVNA. I set up my measurement and then
> select "Pause Sweep" to temporarily store the data on screen.
>
> I want to save the stored sweep data to my PC for later review
> (preferably in touchstone s1p or s2p format).
>
> I have found that if I connect the NanoVNA to my PC with USB, and then
> launch the vna-qt software, the NanoVNA triggers a new sweep when it
> enters USB mode. The paused sweep data is overwritten and lost. Is
> there any way to change this behavior or another way to save stored
> sweep data to my PC?
>
> Thanks in advance for any replies,
> Jeff W6OHM
>

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Albert,



Thanks for the suggestion! I actually did this just the other night!



Ideally I’d like to save the trace data to the PC so that I can make my own charts in Excel (to compare return loss for several antennas, for example).



A note for others, I have also tried to save paused sweep data with the NanoVNA-Saver application and I am having the same problem. When I launch the software and connect to the VNA with USB, a new sweep is triggered and the stored (paused) sweep data is overwritten (lost).



Jeff

On 7/18/23 3:42 PM, Jeff Keyzer wrote:
> Albert,
>
> Thanks for the suggestion! I actually did this just the other night!
>
> Ideally I’d like to save the trace data to the PC so that I can make my
> own charts in Excel (to compare return loss for several antennas, for
> example).
>
> A note for others, I have also tried to save paused sweep data with the
> NanoVNA-Saver application and I am having the same problem. When I
> launch the software and connect to the VNA with USB, a new sweep is
> triggered and the stored (paused) sweep data is overwritten (lost).
>
> Jeff


I suspect that's because NanoVNA-Saver does a sort of "reset" when it
first connects to the NanoVNA to make sure the "state" of the NanoVNA
matches what NanoVNA-Saver thinks it is.

It's not really designed to be disconnected and reconnected between
measurements.

>
> *From:* NanoVNAV2@groups.io <NanoVNAV2@groups.io> *On Behalf Of *Albert
> Kleyn
> *Sent:* Tuesday, July 18, 2023 12:38 AM
> *To:* NanoVNAV2@groups.io
> *Subject:* Re: [nanovnav2] NanoVNA V2 Plus4 - how to save paused sweep
> data to PC?
>
> Jeff, better folks than me will reply, but for now, do take a photo of
> your nanovna screen with yr mobile phone. i doo thast here often.
>
> Albert. Ei7II.
>
>

I am in process of learning and "reverse engineering" of  nanoVNASaver.
It is a slow going, mainly due to lack of
"this piece of code does this " description.
I have not looked into how "sweep results" are saved , but "their" terminology
calls for receiving "touchstone" files from nanoVNA hardware.
I am not sure if these files are easy to convert to "plain text" so other
software application , such as Excel, can use them.
It would probably be easy to "store them " in nanoVNASaver application
and be able to retrieve them later.

Touchstone files are simple text files easily brought into Excel. They are
the standard for S Parameters. The name comes from the first PC based
program for two port linear analysis. I actually bought the first copy
sold.

On Sun, Jul 23, 2023 at 2:29 AM Anne Ranch <anneranch2442@gmail.com> wrote:

> I am in process of learning and "reverse engineering" of nanoVNASaver.
> It is a slow going, mainly due to lack of
> "this piece of code does this " description.
> I have not looked into how "sweep results" are saved , but "their"
> terminology
> calls for receiving "touchstone" files from nanoVNA hardware.
> I am not sure if these files are easy to convert to "plain text" so other
> software application , such as Excel, can use them.
> It would probably be easy to "store them " in nanoVNASaver application
> and be able to retrieve them later.
>
>
>

On 7/22/23 8:43 PM, Anne Ranch wrote:
> I am in process of learning and "reverse engineering" of  nanoVNASaver.
> It is a slow going, mainly due to lack of
> "this piece of code does this " description.
> I have not looked into how "sweep results" are saved , but "their"
> terminology
> calls for receiving "touchstone" files from nanoVNA hardware.


As far as I know, the NanoVNA doesn't send .s1p files. You send the
DATA command, and the NanoVNA returns a list of real and imaginary
numbers. The FREQ command returns the frequencies. And since
NanoVNA-Saver also works with the NanoVNA2, which uses a different
communication protocol, that's all buried in stuff in the Hardware
subdirectory, where there's a .py module

In the NanoVNA-saver that's stored in some sort of data structure -
which accommodates the fact that you might have multiple sweeps from the
NanoVNA to make a longer sweep (in terms of number of points)

It only gets turned into a .sNp file when written (or read) (module
touchstone.py)


> I am not sure if these files are easy to convert to "plain text" so other
> software application , such as Excel, can use them.

Standard .snp files are pretty easy to process in excel. But you have to
allow for some things - Excel doesn't know about comment lines, nor does
it natively understand that .snp files can have different numbers of
columns, as well as the complex numbers being polar or cartesian form.

Some samples below:

!Created with skrf (http://scikit-rf.org).
# MHz S RI R 50.0
!freq ReS11 ImS11
0.05 1.003932833 -0.000515787
1.0495 1.004017233 -0.000562437

!Created with skrf (http://scikit-rf.org).
# MHz S RI R 50.0
!freq ReS11 ImS11
1.0 1.34e-05 1.6248e-05
5.495 1.368e-06 -2.966e-06
9.99 -8.74e-06 -9.398e-06

!Keysight Technologies N9918A: A.09.60
!Date: Tuesday, 12 September 2017 06:29:33
!TimeZone: (UTC+08:00) Kuala Lumpur, Singapore!Model: N9918A
!Serial: MY56072895
!GPS Latitude:
!GPS Longitude:
!GPS TimeStamp: 0001-01-01 00:00:00Z
!GPS Seconds Since Last Read: 0
!CHECKSUM:0735875951
!Correction: S11(Rdy)
!S1P File: Measurement: S11:
# Hz S DB R 50
2000000000 -7.69906349253626 -127.007747322
2002000000 -7.58262480958366 -160.082175612232
2004000000 -7.58442628711511 167.240544358852
2

> It would probably be easy to "store them " in nanoVNASaver application
> and be able to retrieve them later.
>

Hello Jim,
I appreciate your reply, but , I am nowhere near to take a look at the
issues of retrieving these files.
I did manage to add another "group box" to the main nanoVNASaver
window and decided it would be easier to have QtDesigner to do the
dirty work instead of me muddling through the code. Now I cannot get
the PyCharrn ( IDE) and QtDesigner to play together and nobody wants
to touch it because it is python /PyCharm/ QtDesigner combination.
Cheers

On Sun, Jul 23, 2023 at 12:00 PM Jim Lux <jimlux@earthlink.net> wrote:

>
> On 7/22/23 8:43 PM, Anne Ranch wrote:
> > I am in process of learning and "reverse engineering" of nanoVNASaver.
> > It is a slow going, mainly due to lack of
> > "this piece of code does this " description.
> > I have not looked into how "sweep results" are saved , but "their"
> > terminology
> > calls for receiving "touchstone" files from nanoVNA hardware.
>
>
> As far as I know, the NanoVNA doesn't send .s1p files. You send the
> DATA command, and the NanoVNA returns a list of real and imaginary
> numbers. The FREQ command returns the frequencies. And since
> NanoVNA-Saver also works with the NanoVNA2, which uses a different
> communication protocol, that's all buried in stuff in the Hardware
> subdirectory, where there's a .py module
>
> In the NanoVNA-saver that's stored in some sort of data structure -
> which accommodates the fact that you might have multiple sweeps from the
> NanoVNA to make a longer sweep (in terms of number of points)
>
> It only gets turned into a .sNp file when written (or read) (module
> touchstone.py)
>
>
> > I am not sure if these files are easy to convert to "plain text" so other
> > software application , such as Excel, can use them.
>
> Standard .snp files are pretty easy to process in excel. But you have to
> allow for some things - Excel doesn't know about comment lines, nor does
> it natively understand that .snp files can have different numbers of
> columns, as well as the complex numbers being polar or cartesian form.
>
> Some samples below:
>
> !Created with skrf (http://scikit-rf.org).
> # MHz S RI R 50.0
> !freq ReS11 ImS11
> 0.05 1.003932833 -0.000515787
> 1.0495 1.004017233 -0.000562437
>
> !Created with skrf (http://scikit-rf.org).
> # MHz S RI R 50.0
> !freq ReS11 ImS11
> 1.0 1.34e-05 1.6248e-05
> 5.495 1.368e-06 -2.966e-06
> 9.99 -8.74e-06 -9.398e-06
>
> !Keysight Technologies N9918A: A.09.60
> !Date: Tuesday, 12 September 2017 06:29:33
> !TimeZone: (UTC+08:00) Kuala Lumpur, Singapore!Model: N9918A
> !Serial: MY56072895
> !GPS Latitude:
> !GPS Longitude:
> !GPS TimeStamp: 0001-01-01 00:00:00Z
> !GPS Seconds Since Last Read: 0
> !CHECKSUM:0735875951
> !Correction: S11(Rdy)
> !S1P File: Measurement: S11:
> # Hz S DB R 50
> 2000000000 -7.69906349253626 -127.007747322
> 2002000000 -7.58262480958366 -160.082175612232
> 2004000000 -7.58442628711511 167.240544358852
> 2
>
>
> > It would probably be easy to "store them " in nanoVNASaver application
> > and be able to retrieve them later.
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>

Not possible get data from paused sweep

For external connection V2 always made sweep and send measured at this moment data.