Scripts for talking to Anritsu MS2721A over ethernet with pyVisa and vxi11

1. Connect your spectrum analyzer to a local area network (LAN) and use ifconfig (or ipconfig on Windows) to find your LAN DNS, subnet mask, and gateway.
2. Setup the Anritsu MS2721A with a static IP address by going through Shift->System->Ethernet Config->Manual IP

e.g. IP 169.254.24.65 Gateway 0.0.0.0 Subnet 255.255.0.0

3. Install the linux device drivers from NI to use the VISA device drivers for a TCP/IP connection. Install pyVisa as well

4. Setup a new VISA resource by running visaconf on the command line and adding a new resouce with the following options: a. Some useful alias name (e.g. Anritsu_MS2721A) b. Your static ip address that you entered on the spectrum analyzer (e.g. 169.254.24.65) c. Check VXI-11 Protocol

5. Test you connection in the ipython interactive shell:

[radio@toucan anritsu_sa]$ ipython Python 3.6.5 |Anaconda, Inc.| (default, Apr 29 2018, 16:14:56) Type 'copyright', 'credits' or 'license' for more information IPython 6.4.0 -- An enhanced Interactive Python. Type '?' for help.

In [1]: import visa

In [2]: rm = visa.ResourceManager()

In [3]: print(rm.list_resources()) ('GPIB0::23::INSTR', 'ASRL1::INSTR', 'ASRL2::INSTR', 'ASRL3::INSTR', 'ASRL4::INSTR', 'TCPIP0::169.254.24.65::INSTR')

In [4]: devname = "TCPIP0::169.254.24.65::INSTR"

In [5]: sa = rm.get_instrument(devname)

In [6]: test = sa.write("*IDN?\n")

In [7]: test = sa.read()

In [8]: print(test) "Anritsu,MS2721A/25/27,551039,1.71"