Configuration File

[pacopete]

I only joined this Forum yesterday and posted this message in the wrong place. I will try again.

I write the Antennas column for RadCom, the RSGB magazine. A couple of years ago I bought an AIM 4170 to illustrate measurements that could be done on antennas and transmission line etc. I consider it the best bit of kit ever to have been produced for these measurements.
When making comparison graphs the colour of the overlay can often be not the best for printing production. This can be fixed in the configuration file and different CFG files can be produced for different printing requirements.
When I try to edit a CFG file it saves it as a TEX file because the edit is done in Notebook. How do I turn a TEX file back to a CFG file?

Peter Dodd, G3LDO

[Bob]

Hi Peter.

The config file is a plain text file but the extension is different. After editing the file, if your text editor wants to save it with the .txt extension, just rename it using the standard windows procedure for renaming a file and change the extension to .cfg. Windows will warn that the file may not work right if its extension is changed, but that's ok.

Notepad thinks files have the .txt extension by default, but when you go to save it, there is an option in the file naming dialog box to select "All Files". This will allow you to save the file with any extension you want, in this case .cfg.

Also you can edit the config file directly from the AIM program. Click "Help" -> "Edit config file". After editing, close the AIM program and restart it to load the new config parameters.

To help with selecting colors, there is a file called colors.exe that is included with some versions of the AIM zip package. If you don't see it in you AIM folder, you can get it here:
www.w5big.com/colors.zip Unzip it and it's ready to run.

-- Bob

[pacopete]

Thanks Bob. Thanks for the config file info.

Yes I do have colors.exe but I haven't figured out how to use it yet.

My 4170 unit is serial 780 and I have updated the SW a few times. It runs well on all XP computers including a small Archos 10 notebook

[pacopete]

Hi Bob

I found color.exe simple - it just gives you the colour numbers to plug into the config file.
Thanks for the advice on editing the config file via the HELP heading - this works much better for me than using the Notebook editor.

I have assigned 000,000,000 (black) to the cursor but it still wants to use a very pale green.
Can the cursor colour be changed?

[Bob]

I'm sorry, the cursor color cannot be changed.
If you want to print graphs, you can set your printer for grayscale only.
The graph styles are also helpful to distinguish traces printed in black and white.

- Bob

[pacopete]

OK Bob, thanks.
The cursor colour is not that important.
I was aware of the graph styles but prefer to use colour because RadCom is now a full colour magazine and the use of colour traces shows just how good the AIM 4170 display is.

Peter, G3LDO