Manual

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Installation

This section provides information on how to install the required python packages.

Note: Python v2.7.x is the required version for PyRF, not v3.x or higher.

Windows Setup

1. Set-up Python v2.7

2. Install Dependencies

These installation steps make use of pip software to install required libraries. Open a command prompt window and type pip, if a help menu appears, pip is already in your system. If pip has not yet been installed, follow these instructions:

  • Download get-pip.py (right mouse click and save)

  • Open a command prompt window, navigate to get-pip.py and run:

    python get-pip.py
    
  • Now use pip to install the dependencies by typing into the command prompt window:

    pip install numpy scipy pyside==1.2.2 pyqtgraph twisted zope.interface setuptools pywin32
    pip install netifaces
    
Notes:
  • pySide v1.2.2 is needed, not the latest
  • When installing netifaces, MS Visual C++ 9.0 is required, follow the recommended instruction, such as error: Microsoft Visual C++ 9.0 is required. Get it from http://aka.ms/vcpython27
  • To install qtreactor, choose one of the following option:
  • If you have git, run:

    pip install -e git://github.com/pyrf/qtreactor.git#egg=qtreactor
    
  • Otherwise, download qtreactor-pyrf-1.0 to your computer, unzip and then go into the extracted folder in a command prompt window and type:

    python setup.py install
    

Continue with PyRF Installation below.

Linux Setup

These instructions are tested on Debian/Ubuntu system, equivalent apt-get command might be needed for your system.

  • Install python2.7 package if not already available in your system

  • Install required libraries (sudo privilege might be needed):

    apt-get install pip
    pip install numpy scipy pyside==1.2.2 pyqtgraph twisted netifaces zope.interface setuptools
    pip install -e git://github.com/pyrf/qtreactor.git#egg=qtreactor
    
  • Or install dependencies from source:

    apt-get install qt-sdk python-dev cmake libblas-dev libatlas-dev liblapack-dev gfortran
    export BLAS=/usr/lib/libblas/libblas.so
    export ATLAS=/usr/lib/atlas-base/libatlas.so
    export LAPACK=/usr/lib/lapack/liblapack.so
    pip install -r requirements.txt
    pip install pyside==1.2.2
    

Continue with PyRF Installation below.

PyRF Installation

  • Download the development version by either:
  • Navigate to pyrf directory (cd pyrf), run:

    python setup.py install
    

PyRF API for ThinkRF RTSA Products

pyrf.devices.thinkrf.WSA is the class that provides access to ThinkRF Real-Time Spectrum Analyzers (RTSA, also formerly known as WSA) devices. Its methods closely match the SCPI Command Set described in the product’s Programmer’s Guide (available on ThinkRF Resources).

There are simple examples illustrating usage of this API under the examples directory included with the source code directory. Some are mentioned in the Examples section of this document .

This API may be used in a blocking mode (the default) or in an asynchronous mode with using the Twisted python library.

In blocking mode, all methods that read from the device will wait to receive a response before returning.

In asynchronous mode, all methods will send their commands to the device and then immediately return a Twisted Deferred object. If you need to wait for the response or completion of this command, you can attach a callback to the Deferred object and the Twisted reactor will call it when ready. You may choose to use Twisted’s inlineCallbacks function decorator to write Twisted code that resembles synchronous code by yielding the Deferred objects returned from the API.

To use the asynchronous, when a WSA instance of a device (ex. dut = WSA()) is created, you must pass a pyrf.connectors.twisted_async.TwistedConnector instance as the connector parameter, as shown in discovery.py / twisted_discovery.py