I was looking to update the firmware from A.10.49.08 on an N5242A, but found it blinking hard to find where the firmware was on the Keysight website.
Google did not work - usually I find this the easiest way to find anything on the Keysight website. So I thought I'd go to the Keysight website. I don't think my steps below are too illogical, but got me nowhere useful.
- Going to the page on the N5242A N5242A PNA-X Microwave Network Analyzer, 26.5 GHz | Keysight (formerly Agilent’s Electronic Measurement)
- There's a tab for "Support" so I go there.
- There's a tab for "Drivers. Firmware and Software", so I go there
- There is a list of 7 items, one of which is "PNA firmware, manual, upgrade and support". That seems the most logical, although it does not say PNA-X, But I follow the link.
- That sends me here to a page that looks semi-promising, although there's no PNA-X mentioned. But it does have the title "PNA manual, firmware, upgrade, and support " The problem is, the latest version is shown as. 2014-09-01. I did not click download, thinking I did not want a 3-year old version.
- Had I actually clicked "Download" from the above page, it would have got me to the right place, but I quite reasonably thought it would download me a 2014 release.
See the screenshot below from my browser. I´ve highlighted the bits that show that the link has N5242A in it, but the latest software is dated 2014.
I did eventually find the PNA-X firmware on the na.support. bit of Keysight, at Keysight PNA Series: Firmware, Upgrades, and Support (Don't ask what route I took to get there, as I lost track).
I should have known the http://na.support.keysight.com/ bit of the site was better than the main www.keysight.com
I'm sure glad that http://na.support.keysight.com/ exists!
So basically, unless I'm being thick, taking a fairly logical approach to find the firmware, leads one to a page suggesting the latest release is in 2014, so one might not be too keen to press the big red "Download" button.
I can't tell you how many times we have tried to get this fixed! Many times it has been fixed, only to have it later revert to something nonsensical. From my point of view, most all existing PNA customers that go to our website are looking for firmware and this should be in big bold print near the top of the page. Unfortunately, I think the web designers are more focused on sales rather than support. That is why we have the na.support website; it is on a separate server that I control and it avoids all the issues with the normal keysight.com corporate system.
That "Release Date" is totally bogus and I have no idea where it comes from; it is meaningless, especially when you consider that clicking on the Download button does not actually download anything; instead it is a direct link to the PNA firmware page that you eventually got to. The description actually says: "All current and previous versions are available on the PNA Series Support Site. Click the Download button to access the site." At one time we had all this this working well, but then they revamped the entire website. I will try to get this fixed this yet again!
BTW, a Google search of "PNA Firmware" would have brought up the proper page as the #1 choice.
For most purposes, the terms PNA, PNA-X, and PNA-L all refer to the same family which all use the same firmware, so we just use the term "PNA" as the all encompassing family name.