Green to electronics OP wanted on forst scope purchase /InstekGDS-806S

[radiogeek97]

Hi folks
   I have always been a handy guy and am into commercial 2-way and ham radios I found dave on youtoube and have gotten the electronics bug    

I have been slowly outfitting my "lab" and ran across a dso on my local craigslist here is a link to the unit:
http://www.tequipment.net/InstekGDS-806S.html

The unit is Monocrome and is about 3 years old according to the owner, it comes with manual and one probe he bought it new $450ish and was asking 250$  i got him down to $175.00 usd he is about a 3 hour round trip for me but NOT knowing anything about this type of equipment i am not sure to buy or not.

the only other problem is that I have no test equipment to speak of (function gen) to test this thing we will be meeting just off the highway for the purchase I have an inverter to power the unit up with but not much else.
any info on the Brand Good or bad, the price, and if it is a good brand/price How to test it on the fly would be appreciated.
thanks in advance
john

[Wuerstchenhund]

I have been slowly outfitting my "lab" and ran across a dso on my local craigslist here is a link to the unit:
http://www.tequipment.net/InstekGDS-806S.html

The unit is Monocrome and is about 3 years old according to the owner, it comes with manual and one probe he bought it new $450ish and was asking 250$  i got him down to $175.00 usd he is about a 3 hour round trip for me but NOT knowing anything about this type of equipment i am not sure to buy or not.

Well, it's 60MHz 100MSa/s only, which isn't great by any standards. It's could be ok for a starter scope but you'll probably hit its limits very quickly, so I'd rather invest a bit more and get a more 'future proof' scope, i.e. a Tektronix TDS 500/600/700. It costs a bit more but in the long run you'll be glad that you didn't waste $175 on something which you very likely will replace soon after anyways.

[Hydrawerk]

IMHO this scope Instek GDS-806S can be quite long lasting and durable. We have them at school... But i do not like this scope... Its performance is crap. It was introduced in 2004. It even has no USB port for flash disc. On the contrary, I like the old Agilent /HP scopes of the 54600 or 54620 series. They are even older, but they are pleasant to use.

125k Long Memory

Haha, check this table from user manual below... The memory is not always 125kpoints.
You can buy a GW Instek, but a newer one! This is 9 years old design... But it was obsolete even when it was new in 2004...