[Amps] Advice on instruments for ham use

[Bill L. Fuqua]

     Tektronix used to make the very best analog scopes. It is ashame that they don’t make one now. I recall looking at demos before purchasing a large number of scopes. And the Tek scopes always were best. The other scopes had subtle problem in their electron optics that Tektronix solved years ago in their CRTs.  When you had a straight horizontal line and shifted it to the top or bottom of the display it would bow up or down.  Another  thing was, Tek’s input amplifiers were almost blast proof  that continued into their early digital scopes.  
   We were looking into some 300MHz digital scopes one time and the Tek scopes had their usual wide range of input voltages along with 1 Mohm input resistance. HP met the frequency requirements but only had an input range of 10 volts or so. Not only that, the horizontal input had a completely different input impedance so that you could not use the same probe for both vertical and horizontal inputs. 

73
Bill wa4lav 

-----Original Message-----
From: G3rzp at aol.com
To: k7fm at teleport.com, Amps at contesting.com
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 16:20:47 EST
Subject: Re: [Amps] Advice on instruments for ham use

 
In a message dated 25/11/2004 15:11:08 GMT Standard Time, k7fm at teleport.com  
writes:

That is  a joy to use.  If you have a lot of spare change around, buy 
yourself a  nice spectrum analyzer for Christmas


Spectrum analysers can also lie like personnel managers. They also tell you  
things that you'd rather not know. But I agree with Colin, it's a very good  
thing to have.  My XYL agreed that it was a good thing to have, so she  didn't 
object at all to me buying one. Personally, I'm a believer in HP spec.  ans. 
and Tek scopes. Never seen a Tek spec. an. that I was impressed with.  For HF 
work, there's a Marconi Instruments one which isn't bad, either. It has  the 
advantage of a built in tracking generator.
 
The HP 141 series are basically repairable, except for the mixer on the  
22GHz version. Even there, it may be possible to bodge something.
 
Mean as I am on spending on amateur radio, good test gear seems always  
justifiable to me. I even bought me a universal component bridge this year.  But I 
think it's likely to be some time before I get a digital scope -  unless one 
comes along VERY cheap.
 
73
 
Peter G3RZP
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