### IF

The intermediate frequency in a dual sideband spectrum

#### Description:

This attribute specifies the (topocentric) intermediate frequency in a dual sideband spectrum. Its sole use is to determine the local oscillator (LO) frequency (the frequency which marks the boundary between the lower and upper sidebands). The LO frequency is equal to the sum of the centre frequency and the intermediate frequency. Here, the " centre frequency" is the topocentric frequency in Hz corresponding to the current value of the DSBCentre attribute. The value of the IF attribute may be positive or negative: a positive value results in the LO frequency being above the central frequency, whilst a negative IF value results in the LO frequency being below the central frequency. The sign of the IF attribute value determines the default value for the SideBand attribute.

When setting a new value for this attribute, the units in which the frequency value is supplied may be indicated by appending a suitable string to the end of the formatted value. If the units are not specified, then the supplied value is assumed to be in units of GHz. For instance, the following strings all result in an IF of 4 GHz being used: " 4.0" , " 4.0 GHz" , " 4.0E9 Hz" , etc.

When getting the value of this attribute, the returned value is always in units of GHz. The default value for this attribute is 4 GHz.

Type:
Floating point.

#### Applicability

##### DSBSpecFrame
All DSBSpecFrames have this attribute.