Operation of the NRT-8000 Compact OSA – New Ridge Technologies

When the app opens click on the desired NRT-8000 device and then the CONNECT button at the bottom of the pop up window.

If you want to change devices you can get back to this window by clicking the NRT Logo (the Connections & Preferences) icon in the upper left corner of the main window.

The app will then connect to the desired device. On the first time the app is run or if the app does not find the appropriate calibration, a drop down window will open prompting you load the missing cal file. The best way to make sure you have the latest cal file is to download from the internet. 8000_man3

On the main window there are 5 buttons on the left and 5 on the right, (L-1 to L-5 and R-1 to R-5)

Measurement related buttons on Right:

R1 toggles between spectrum and ITU channel measurements.
R2 f(λ) analysis functions opens pop up window to set parameters for Peak Search and OSNR analyses
R3 Scan spectrum – Press the play button for single scan. The box at the low right of the window will turn orange when connecting or scanning, and turn green then the scan is complete and the unit is ready.
R4 Repeat scan The box at the low right of the window will turn orange when scanning. Click R-4 again to exit repeat scan mode.
R5 File options – save, open and share files in 3 formats .nrt (binary), .csv, and .png

Configuration/Set-Up buttons on Left:

L1 Home – Resets x-y display to setting (L5) values.
L2 Zoom in
L3 Zoom out
L4 Crop tool. Press crop icon, select a rectangle of interest on the spectrum, and re-click to crop tool to zoom into the set rectangle.
L5 Settings:

(a) X max, min and units,
(b) Y max, min and units,
(c) Resolution,
(d) Scan averaging (akin to sensitivity on Yokogawa) This requires repeat scan R4,
(e) X and Y scale offset,
(f) data logging. This requires repeat scan R4,
(g) OSNR calibration – used to try to match OSNR calculations to a reference OSA. (This feature is used especially to match OSNRs to a golden standard unit.)

The active scan setting are shown in the blue bar at the bottom of the window.

Graph, Markers and Cursors:

The x scale units can be toggled nm and THz by clicking on the displayed axis unit. The y scale units can be toggled dBm and THz by clicking on the displayed axis unit.

Horizontal and vertical marker lines are placed by clicking and holding on the associated edge of the graph frame and dragging the blue line that appears to the desired location. Each marker line displays its position value. By clicking on the displayed location number for each marker line, you can modify the position of the line by typing in the exact value. The differences between the horizontal and vertical marker pairs are shown on a double arrow lines connecting the two markers.

Double clicking (or tapping) zooms into the rectangle formed by the set markers. And double clicking again zooms back out.

Single clicking near the line places a cursor on the scanned trace, displaying the x and y values. This cursor can be dragged or the desired x-value can be entered to reset the cursor position.

All markers and cursors are cleared by clicking the encircled-X in the upped left corner of the graph.

And thats pretty much it.