Last update: 21 February 2024
General:
WinPIMCalc is a special version the popular WinRFCalc RF Calculator tool, a Windows based general purpose RF Calculator program package you can find on https://rfcalculator.com/
The extract of this PIM calculator from the WinRFCalc software led to the foundation of WinPIMCalc. Making use of a special license code, WinRFCalc changes its behavior to WinPIMCalc.
In WinRFCalc the number of TX and RX channels is limited to two TX and two RX (PIM analysis) channels and therefor offering a limited capability in Multi RX channel PIM analysis.
Requests from telecom markets for multichannel PIM and (active)Inter-modulation calculation software which is able to handle ate least 16 transmit frequencies up to C-band for future 5G and 6G extensions is now reality with the upcoming release of WinPIMCalc24.
To have the best possible interpretation of passive non-linear effects in the vicinity of base stations and non-linear effects found in multichannel broadband tunnel repeater systems, WinPIMCalc24 shows the user all the calculation results in a spectrum analyzer like format.
A main sweep showing all frequencies, with zoomed spectral displays makes this tool one of the best available at present in the market.
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Bandwidth:
Signal generation done with a 2^34 sampling-rate and is offering a NyQuist bandwidth of 8.5 GHz, sufficient for the analysis of non-linear effects with multiple transmit signals up to and including C-band. On the transmit side, frequencies can be defined between 250 and 4000 MHz, while the PIM/IM analysis bands can be set up to the NyQuist frequency.
The PIM/IM analysis bands can be set to a frequency span of 9 to 27 MHz with an RF resolution bandwidth of 35 kHz, sufficient for most of the current available telecom systems.
RF Random walk:
PIM/IM Calculations with fixed frequencies do not really make sense because in the real world signals are modulated producing broadband IM signals with a varying frequency. To take this effect also into consideration and present the corresponding results, each carrier is not only defined with its central frequency, but also a 'random walk' is one of the parameters that can be set causing a random frequency change of the carrier(s) which in turns has a variation on the produced inter-modulation frequencies.
In order to see the effect of these continuous changing PIM products in the defined PIM analysis frequency spans, a spectrum analyzer like max-hold function is embedded in each window so that the overall PIM performance in the defined spans is saved in the max-hold trace.
Just start the simulator and look afterwards what the effect of the non-linearities are in each defined frequency span.
In the YouTube movie below, you can see how the simulator is working.
21-Feb-2024 : more info follows soon
How the get WinPIMCalc?
Go to the WinRFCalc download webpage where you can download the installer. Run the installer on your device, and request the start code. After inserting the start code, the program will initially run as WinRFCalc with a full capability in a 30 days trial mode. In the trial-mode, you can see and experience how the 2 channels RX channel software looks and works.
Through the WinRFCalc main window menu items 'License' and 'Buy License', you can select a license for WinPIMCalc including 4, 8, 12 or 16 RX channels for PIM analysis.