Where can I find Labview drivers for the RSA 3308A Spectrum Analyzer

Question

I need to use Tektronix's Spectrum Analyzer RSA 3308A as a LabView environment
instrument for my school project, I would like to know if there are available
drivers, if no drivers are available which are the implied software/software
requirements to achieve this goal.

Answer 1

NI doesn't have a driver and I couldn't find one on Tek's web site. That seemed kind of strange to me so you might want to contact Tek directly and see if they have something. If that comes up blank, you have several options. LabVIEW has the Instrument I/O Assistant (on the Instrument I/O palette), that will alllow you to create a series of writes and reads to an instrument and parse results. The assistant lacks flexibility but if your needs are fairly simple, it might be all you need. Of course, you'll need to be familiar with the instrument's command syntax. A step up the assistant is to use a series of VISA Read and Write commands. These would commands similar to what you would use with the assistant - tailored specifically for your application. You gain some flexibility because you can easily vary the command parameters with LabVIEW variables. At the top of the complexity ladder is developing a full blown instrument driver yourself. NI has some great tools to make this easier than it has ever been before. The guidelines and links to the tools can be found here. Lastly, you can request that NI develop a driver here. There is no guarantee the they will develop it as they base that decision on things like how many requests they get for a particular instrument.