I figured that this was a good a place as any to share my grief, I came across a Tektronix 1503C time domain reflectometer (TDR) on EBay, local pickup with a buy now for $250 and bidding started at $150, the sellers history was in good order with about 50 transactions so I put a bid in a few hours before the end and got it as there were no other bids.
I sent the seller my details and a couple of days later he rang and we arranged a mutually agreeable time to finalise the deal, we spent about an hour on the phone talking and both had worked in similar fields at different times.
On the day I went over to his location and he had the TDR set up on the bench it all looked good and I ran through a couple of diagnostic tests and it passed with flying colours, he threw in a few connectors and adaptors and I paid him cash and went on my merry way.
I got it home and set it up on the bench with a variety of both spooled and boxed cables and it was well within original specification, initial testing was over an hour and it worked flawlessly, I shut it all down to have dinner after which I intended to continue testing and making comparative tests against our existing TDRs but unfortunately it refused to boot up and I've spent many hours studying the service manual and probing test points and voltages, I've rang him a couple of times without response not so much for a refund which I don't think I'm entitled to anyhow but simply to share my pain.
The unit was sold as used, working and fully operational and technically this was all true for a little over an hour, I must admit that I have had a pretty good run in the past buying gear and was probably overdue for a rude awakening, anyhow this thing is wearing out it's welcome on my bench so this one goes in the bad luck bin I'm afraid unless someone needs some spare parts or some teardown pictures, it's a big heavy unit and would cost a packet to send to anyone including Dave.
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