HP 8594E Spectrum Analyzer. At last I own a decent Spec An.

[T3sl4co1l]

Nice!  I got an 8590W some years ago, for... I don't even remember what, probably around 500 USD?  Contemporary to yours, quite useful indeed.

Tim

[tkamiya]

If they had their way, all error messages will be "fatal error:  Err: 1-800-new-scpe"

At my place of employment, my boss wanted an error message that everyone will instantly know it's fake.  This is a diagnostic  program to fake a message.  "Error:  Flux capacitor empty"

Except, he didn't count for cultural factor.  We still got calls from non-English speaking countries.  Our QA is India.  They didn't think it was funny at all.

[kirill_ka]

But that's not very direct. Why not "CAL DATA LOST. Replace battery"  The machine knows when it's lost the cal data (presumably via a block checksum fail) because it switches to using a default set of cal data. But does it give you a simple, to the point warning about that? Apparently not.

I don't think that particular message was thoughtfully made hard to understand. Programmers usually think in terms of their code. So you normally end up with "error: loop cnt > MAX_LOOP_CNT" instead of "error: input frequency exceeds 1GHz". QA will pass on messages which are not too extreme.

[0culus]

But that's not very direct. Why not "CAL DATA LOST. Replace battery"  The machine knows when it's lost the cal data (presumably via a block checksum fail) because it switches to using a default set of cal data. But does it give you a simple, to the point warning about that? Apparently not.

I don't think that particular message was thoughtfully made hard to understand. Programmers usually think in terms of their code. So you normally end up with "error: loop cnt > MAX_LOOP_CNT" instead of "error: input frequency exceeds 1GHz". QA will pass on messages which are not too extreme.

Can confirm from experience. And the more sinister problem is that even the programmer probably won't have the foggiest about what they meant by the message in 6 months.

Relevant:

https://i.redd.it/btd5aebzr5h01.jpg

[TerraHertz]

An update and question.
No progress yet on repairing the 8594E, due to other time demands.
But the missing User Guide issue has been resolved. A rather long story, with the ebay seller's performance being the worst I've ever seen. It's all online here:

  http://everist.org/NobLog/20190223_full_spectrum.htm
  http://everist.org/NobLog/20190223_full_spectrum.htm#sum        Brief summary
  http://everist.org/NobLog/20190223_full_spectrum.htm#refund    Getting a refund (sort of)

My question:
There's still the question of what ebay feedback I give this seller, for the original purchase and the manual 're-buy'. I'm torn between 'giving a cheat and liar what they deserve', and 'sympathy for a possibly struggling business having a hard time.'  I find it hard to imagine such behavior from anyone unless they were desperately scraping for income.

What do you think? I'd be happy to hear opinions.

I'm inclined to give them two negatives, but maybe I'm just pissed off about something others would consider minor? Who thinks their partial refund amount is reasonable, as opposed to a minimal token gesture?

[tkamiya]

How about sticking with facts?  "Liar" is an opinion.  "... was missing" is a fact. 

If there is a problem, I let the seller(s) know.  If they correct it, it's fine.  If they don't, it's a problem.  My review will usually reflect that. There has been exactly one seller who didn't correct the problem after few hundred purchases.  Ignored me for quite sometime and then lied.  That's deliberate.  That's the time to give bad reviews.

[TerraHertz]

How about sticking with facts?  "Liar" is an opinion.  "... was missing" is a fact. 

You clearly didn't read the message exchange. Or even the summary. "Liar" is a fact too, in this case. They continued to claim they didn't have and could not find any such  manual, even after I'd pointed out that they had 4 of that exact manual for sale in another listing. Eventually I bought one of them, and now have it here, so there's no use saying that listing was in error. They knew they had them, they knew I knew they did, yet they still claimed to not have any. I don't think there's a more suitable word other than 'liar'. Or maybe 'insane.'

This is why I documented it all in such detail. Because it's just not believable if I merely described their behavior in general terms.
I've been in similarly hard to believe situations before, more than once, so these days archive everything from the beginning, just in case it turns out to be necessary to publish.

If there is a problem, I let the seller(s) know.  If they correct it, it's fine.  If they don't, it's a problem.  My review will usually reflect that. There has been exactly one seller who didn't correct the problem after few hundred purchases.  Ignored me for quite sometime and then lied.  That's deliberate.  That's the time to give bad reviews.

Yes yes. You're just assuming I'm exaggerating, but no. Read the (tedious) event series. I think I was extremely patient with their bullsh*t. The only reason I don't give them TWO negatives right away, is even I can hardly believe it. Can't help thinking there may be some unknown circumstance, like they are having a breakdown, or on the verge of business failure, or just nuts.

Meanwhile, finally the anti-static setup is complete.

[scopeman]

I hope you have a few 100K 1.2W to 1meg resistor in series with your ground.

[Neo2199]

Hi, not sure if you still would like to continue the repair, but hopefully yes.
I have just got a hands on HP 8594E. The SA has a dent from some mechanical fall, but otherwise in very good shape. I have replaced calibration battery with luckily calibration constants present. I have also replaced mains X2 and Y2 RIFA filter capacitors to prevent future explosions. So far so good. My SA is behaving much better than yours, but both FREQ and GAIN calibrations fail. The 300Mhz calibration signal is visible on the screen, but only under some amplitude settings. After some deeper investigation, measurements, consultation with internet and manuals. Here is where the problem is now.
I am pretty confident that after that fix, my SA is good to go, hopefully. I would not be surprised if one of your issues is deteriorated piece of rubber. My case it was just one rubber ring, so only one relay at one state was compromised. Now I am waiting for new set of o-rings.
Hope this helps.

[K7SJB]

What is CLIP?

[bingo600]

What is CLIP?

I think it means Component Level Info ??  Paper / Package or

The CLIP will show component level info , Ie. schematics etc.
Instead of just block diagrams.

/Bingo

[MarkL]

What is CLIP?

CLIP is an HP/Agilent term and stands for Component-Level Information Packet.

It's available for some old models of test gear, and contains parts manifest, PCB layouts, and schematics.  They were produced mostly in the HP days, and much more rarely during Agilent.  I haven't seen any issued by Keysight.