[Amps] Oscilloscope Purchase

[Jerry Kaidor]

What I remember from my instrument shop days ( back in the late 70's ) was
that Tektronix scopes worked better, but HP were easier to work on. 
Typical construction for a Tek scope ( 475 etc ) was four big circuit
boards, one on each side.  Getting a board off was a pain.  HP, OTOH
had vertical boards that plugged into a horizontal backplane, and you
could pop them up on extender boards.

  The really old Tek equipment had unique terminal strips made of ceramic
with silver notches.  You had to solder them with silver bearing solder
-
ordinary solder would leach the silver out of the notches which would come
apart.  I still have a roll of silver solder from those days.

                              - Jerry Kaidor, KF6VB ( jerry at tr2.com )

   Carl KM1H wrote:
>
>> Anything Tek from the older 465/475 to newer model analog scopes and
>> into
>> digital.
>>
>> High end analog scopes are now bargains as they are being dumped.
>> $50-100
>> can buy quite a lot. Just make sure it is functioning to spec before
>> purchasing; also check for a calibration sticker.
>>
>> The higher the frequency the more expensive the probes altho our Chinese
>> "friends" are producing some very good ones.
>
>   All scopes of all brands with sufficient bandwidth (HF response) will
> work, but almost everything
> other than HP, Tek, R&S exhibit excessive vertical amplifier DC drift (the
> trace moves up and down
> as it warms up and throughout the day) which will eventually drive you
> nutz.
> The Tektronix units were extremely popular and are not rare in any way.
> Most of these older units
> would be repaired with a parts donor.
>
> --
>    Ron Youvan - rmyouvan at gmail.com
>
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