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TELE-audiovision International — The World‘s Leading Digital TV Industry Publication
— 03-04/2015
—
TELE-audiovision.comwith long-term analysis. The
results can either be saved
right to the meter’s internal
memory or onto an external
storage medium in the CSV
file format. As an alternative,
you may opt to save the table
as a bitmap file.
When we tried to save a
table in bitmap format that
was larger than the screen
we were pleasantly surprised
to find that the Spaun Sparos
711 automatically scrolls the
table and then saves an im-
age that is made up of the en-
tire chart. So no matter which
way you save your table, you
can be sure never to miss a
thing – great stuff!
We are truly amazed by
such an open concept, since it
allows users to fully custom-
ise their measurement proto-
cols and to set up automatic
sequences for many small
steps in the process. MS Of-
fice templates, for example,
work just fine for creating
those pre-defined routines.
What’s more, measurement
results can easily be archived
permanently this way without
having to worry about unusu-
al file formats that might be
of no use a few years down
the road.
The Spaun Sparos 711 runs
through the measurement
protocols in almost perfect
fashion. All you need to do is
select the desired transpond-
er list in the main menu and
then call up MEASUREMENT
MAP.
In an instant, the meter will
begin to measure all tran-
sponders on the list and will
enter all results into a table
– just like it should be. But
it wouldn’t be Spaun if there
weren’t more to it: For ex-
ample, the transponder list
can be a mixed bag with dif-
ferent modulations and still
work perfectly. This comes
in handy if, for instance, a
coax cable carries DVB-C
transponders in the 50 to
900 MHz range and DVB-S/
S2 transponders in the 950 to
2150 MHz range at the same
time. The Spaun Sparos 711
will happily work through one
signal after the other in such
a scenario.
Measured results cannot
only be shown in a table, but
also as a bar diagram, which
includes the frequently used
TILT function that allows you
to perfectly fine-tune a sig-
nal amplifier, among other
things. The Spaun Sparos
711 displays a bar for each
transponder, the colour of
which depends on the signal
level. Red bars indicate sig-
nals that fall below the mini-
mum threshold, orange bars
exceed the upper threshold
level and green bars stand for
transponders whose signal
level is between the two limit
values and therefore in the
optimum range. The thresh-
old levels are pre-set by the
manufacturer and cannot be
edited by users, but Spaun
has selected very meaning-
ful thresholds for individual
modulations that make a lot
of sense.
Working with the measure-
ment protocol function is ex-
tremely user-friendly and fol-
lows a self-explanatory logic
that allows users to achieve
perfect results even without
consulting the manual first.
And there’s another bonus
function that should not be
missed: Users can initiate
a search that only looks for
pre-defined modulations. All
found transponders are again
entered into a list and once
the search is completed they
are measured in a loop. Of
course a transponder list that
has been created this way can
be used for future test runs at
any time, and whenever it is
called up the corresponding