I'm new to the site and am still quite ignorant about electronics in general at the moment (haven't really done anything with it in at least a decade), so be gentle!
I got bitten by the electronics bug and wanted to get back into it, so I dusted off my copy of The Art of Electronics and got reading. Only a few pages in, I was frustrated by having to guess the answers to questions and whatnot, and when I checked for an answer guide online, I read what might be the most profound, yet obvious thing I've read in ages: why look for an answer key when you can just build the circuit yourself and see if you've got the right answer? To help see how the circuits were behaving, I wanted to get an oscilloscope.
Having watched several videos and read a bunch online, the general consensus seemed to be that (for people on a budget) it was better to get an old scope that was a proper piece of equipment than a cheap diy kit or USB scope. With that in mind, I found a working Tek 475 on craigslist, and bought it. I brought it home and immediately began fiddling with all the pretty switches and dials, and learning the ins and outs. It's amazing the stuff they crammed into such an old scope! It was tons of fun-- right up until the point where it stopped working.
The horizontal sweep quit completely, even though I still have a dot that moves vertically when I feed it a signal. Just when it was getting good!
I started looking through the repair and troubleshooting guides (signs point to the horizontal amp...?) and even tried to post on the TekScopes group site, but I think I lack the basic electronics knowledge to troubleshoot the problem myself. Honestly, that makes sense, since the whole reason I got the scope was so that I could learn these kinds of skills! Making it worse, my TekScopes post looks to be caught in new-post-needs-mod-approval purgatory. I've already spent enough money that I'm not comfortable shoveling more money into such a nascent hobby to buy a more expensive scope, and I don't think She Who Must Be Obeyed would tolerate it, anyways. The most I think I could spend is $100 or so.
As I see it, I have a few options:
1) Give up on this whole electronics thing before it's too late (Boo!)
2) Bang my head against trying to repair the Tek when I have no hope of understanding what I'm doing while trying to find a local person who can save me from my ignorance.
3) See if lightning strikes twice and try to get another second-hand scope and hope it lasts more than 30 minutes.
4) Buy a super cheap scope just to learn on until I feel I have a chance at understanding the repair advice people give me when I ask for it.
For cheap scopes, I mean one of the $50-$100 USB ones, or the $20-$30 diy kits (which also have the benefit of being another project to practice and learn on). I'm leaning towards this option, since it's the second cheapest after just giving up, and my requirements are extremely modest. To be clear, my end goal would still be to get the Tek working again, but this way I'll have something to play with in the mean time. If I DO go this route, what is the recommended scope? I think the dirt cheap electronics lab EEV video suggested the isolated Owon USB scope, but that's pushing the limit of what I want to spend...
So that's my very first post here. Any advice would be hugely appreciated!