oscilloscope and frequency counter

[Oracle]

This seems intresting.... I also searched and founded that some counter can also display the signal phase between two channel...

To be fair if you hunt around it your scope measurement menu you’ll probably find that it can measure the phase between two waveforms, so it’s probably not a reason way you might need a counter.

My scope don't have an option to measure the phase between signal, but it have a graticule, so possibly i can measure the phase between two waveform... but anyway i'm just wondering what application a frequency counter have, but as i see i'ts pretty limited of use: it's probably better have a good scope instead a counter, or a integrated counter on the oscilloscope. don't worth spend more than $1000 for that piece of equipment.

[jpb]

If you haven't looked at it already, you may like to look at this thread:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/frequency-counter-do-you-really-need-one/

Counters generally cost a fraction of the price of an oscilloscope (say 10% to 20%). A $1000 counter is expensive so would be one that could measure frequencies well into the GHz and have psec time resolution perhaps. Most counters that you might want to get would be in the range $70 to $300 new and less on e-bay.

The choice is not scope or counter but scope alone or scope and counter.

Most modern digital scopes have a hardware counter built-in but this will be 5 or 6 digits, only do frequency not counting or period and so on and will only be as accurate as the scope timebase which is probably 25ppm. Adding a separate counter will give you more digits, other functions and much greater accuracy (especially if you can use an external reference frequency source) but none of this is really needed unless you do RF. Personally I got one because I wanted to do things such as adjust my 10MHz source to be 10MHz to 10 rather than 6 digits - more for the fun of it than for any dire need.

[rolycat]

Even if your scope doesn't have a hardware frequency counter, other test gear may do the job for you.

Many multimeters have a basic frequency setting up to a few hundred KHz, and some function generators also have external frequency measurement. For example, the Rigol DG1022 can measure frequencies up to 200 MHz. It has a 10 MHz reference input and can also calculate period, pulse width and duty cycle.