• S. Stark, A.M. Porcellato
  INFN/LNL, Legnaro

Recently we developed a novel measurement apparatus that simplify the tests of superconducting cavities. A few commercial electronic boards, mounted in a devoted chassis and controlled by a PC, operate most of the functions usually carried out by standard RF instrumentation. The set up allows the measurements of resonators in the 80-700 MHz frequency range and we used it to characterize resonators both in the ALPI vault and in off-line tests. Upgraded control program carries out all the typical procedures, related to the cavity measurements in classical VCO-PLL system. It allows to adjust and to measure the RF forward power, to find and update the cavity resonant frequency, to calibrate the pick-up signal, to monitor the transmitted power, to adjust the coupler position. The implemented automatic procedures permit to measure the cavity decay time, to trace the Q-curve, to perform CW and pulse RF conditioning, to calibrate cables and measurement instruments. The same software applies to the other two measurement systems routinely used at Legnaro to test resonators up to 6 GHz frequency.