The inherent noise of the RF signal analyzers affects signals measured near the noise floor. To reduce the noise components, enable noise correction in the SFP to calculate and subtract the average noise from a measured signal. When you enable noise correction, the SFP performs the following steps to reduce the noise.

  1. Enables input isolation to disconnect the input signal.
  2. Measures the noise floor by averaging the spectrum data acquired with the input disconnected.
  3. Disables input isolation to the reconnected input signal.
  4. Performs the ACP measurement, subtracting the stored noise floor measurement.
  5. Returns the final compensated measurement results.

Once enabled, the SFP calculates the noise and stores it internally. On subsequent runs, it uses the same value for noise unless the configuration changes. For example, if noise correction is enabled and a device setting, such as RBW, changes, the SFP automatically recalculates the noise.