EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: kc8ard on March 01, 2018, 07:28:27 pm
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Hello, I got this old frequency counter not too long ago. I've never seen anything like it nor do I have a manual for it. It seems to mostly work except for the third to last digit while connected to my gpsdo. It looks kinda neat as i've never seen any counters with a built in CRT. Any pointers?
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I have no idea but those Nixies are beautiful.
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I actually have three different systron donner counters of this generation. This one is just the most unusual. The other one I have goes to 1ghz and I dont know about the third one yet. it's a model 6153. I haven't powered on that one. I tried contacting Paul from Mr Carlson's channel to see if he would be interested in having this one, if it was interesting enough to do a video on it, but I haven't gotten a reply yet.
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I don't think there is anything wrong with it, it just needs a bit of tweaking/calibration to get the internal reference oscillator on the right frequency.
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I have no idea but those Nixies are beautiful.
+1 for the Nixie tubes
Here is a link to a manual for another model made by Systron Donner:
http://bama.edebris.com/manuals/systrondonner/6053 (http://bama.edebris.com/manuals/systrondonner/6053)
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Send it in to Dave. I am sure he'd love to open it up. I will contribute $20 toward the postage as I would love to see the video.
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Yeah, i haven't touched the oven, but that digit is stuck. I might take out one of the driver ic's from the other counter and see if it helps. I'll warm it up for a little while and see if it changes. When i powered it on, the first digit was stuck too, but is now working.
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Here's a couple more pictures of the innards. I'll throw it on the 8640b sometime tonight. Unfortunately, i dont have anything that goes up to 18ghz to test the full range of this beast.
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Yeah, i haven't touched the oven, but that digit is stuck.
Ah, couldn't guess that from the picture :)
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Originally I was thinking about Mr Carlson since he's done a few vids with nixie frequency counters and in general deals with stuff of this vintage or older. If not, i'll be happy to send it to Dave. :D
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Here's a couple more pictures of the innards.
Wow, I wonder who ever thought it was a good idea to stick random wires in random dip sockets ???
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I think they're actually soldered and sleeved into dip plugs.
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They're plugs. There are two latches, one on each side to keep them in place.
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My guess is that on frequency up to 200 Mhz it will work as a regular counter as you found out. For Ghz signals you have to select a harmonic of the 10 Mhz oscillator to mix with the input signal to get a Lissajous pattern on the scope tube (1EP11 ??). For instance, if you input 1 Ghz and select the 100th harmonic of 10 Mhz you may get a 1:1 pattern, a circle on the scope. If the 1 Ghz input is 123 Mhz high the nixies will display the difference in frequency and you add the harmonic frequency to the nixie reading to get the actual frequency.
This is just a wild-ass guess but if you have a high frequency generator you may be able to see if this actually works.
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Unfortunately i'm limited to about 500mhz form my 8640b. I need to buy something that at least goes to 1.3Ghz one of these days.
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Actually the lower range of 200 Mhz to 3 Ghz could be checked with the 8640B
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Hello, I got this old frequency counter not too long ago. I've never seen anything like it nor do I have a manual for it. It seems to mostly work except for the third to last digit while connected to my gpsdo. It looks kinda neat as i've never seen any counters with a built in CRT. Any pointers?
Interesting. I've only seen one of those before. It was listed on eBay last year or something? Not sure if you got it there.
My guess is that on frequency up to 200 Mhz it will work as a regular counter as you found out. For Ghz signals you have to select a harmonic of the 10 Mhz oscillator to mix with the input signal to get a Lissajous pattern on the scope tube (1EP11 ??). For instance, if you input 1 Ghz and select the 100th harmonic of 10 Mhz you may get a 1:1 pattern, a circle on the scope. If the 1 Ghz input is 123 Mhz high the nixies will display the difference in frequency and you add the harmonic frequency to the nixie reading to get the actual frequency.
This is just a wild-ass guess but if you have a high frequency generator you may be able to see if this actually works.
That makes sense. kc8ard, does the scope work?
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My guess is that on frequency up to 200 Mhz it will work as a regular counter as you found out. For Ghz signals you have to select a harmonic of the 10 Mhz oscillator to mix with the input signal to get a Lissajous pattern on the scope tube (1EP11 ??). For instance, if you input 1 Ghz and select the 100th harmonic of 10 Mhz you may get a 1:1 pattern, a circle on the scope. If the 1 Ghz input is 123 Mhz high the nixies will display the difference in frequency and you add the harmonic frequency to the nixie reading to get the actual frequency.
This is just a wild-ass guess but if you have a high frequency generator you may be able to see if this actually works.
I had an HP 540B Transfer Oscillator (used with a 524B counter) many years ago, this is exactly how it worked.
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I'm a bit confused. I put a 500mhz sig in and when the counter is on automatic, I get a lissajous waveworm in the display and the counter is just about on minus the stuck nixie and a few hz, though it still needs to be calibrated. When i take it off auto i'm not able to correctly tune it. The reference oscillator is a 1mhz ocxo. it's not the modern 10mhz standard. I'll have to play with it a bit more when I get some extra time.
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The first digit decided to stay at 4 again. Now the third digit from the last is working again, partially. With no signal, it's stuck at 4 still.
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Other than that errant leading 4 it looks like the second image with the circle on the scope is showing a 500.0671 Mhz signal.
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Other than that errant leading 4 it looks like the second image with the circle on the scope is showing a 500.0671 Mhz signal.
the 6 digit is also errant.
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Hello, I got this old frequency counter not too long ago. I've never seen anything like it nor do I have a manual for it. It seems to mostly work except for the third to last digit while connected to my gpsdo. It looks kinda neat as i've never seen any counters with a built in CRT. Any pointers?
Interesting. I've only seen one of those before. It was listed on eBay last year or something? Not sure if you got it there.
Sorry, i missed this question. What happened was that i fixed my landlord's Marantz amp, so he gave me a frequency counter, a 1Ghz systron donner.. He wanted me to check out the other two. This is one of the other two. He's had them in his basement for a few years and had an electronics scrap contract with the FAA. This one actually came out of Oberlin Center, which happened to be the regional air traffic control hub that primarily conducted the communications during the 9/11 attack. I'm possibly thinking of buying this one off of him and giving it to a youtuber, because i think it might make an interesting video. If not,I'll give it back to him and it'll probably go on sale.
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thats awesome brotha, thank you for sharing. I learned a new trick...circles everywhere now.
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Sorry, i missed this question. What happened was that i fixed my landlord's Marantz amp, so he gave me a frequency counter, a 1Ghz systron donner.. He wanted me to check out the other two. This is one of the other two. He's had them in his basement for a few years and had an electronics scrap contract with the FAA. This one actually came out of Oberlin Center, which happened to be the regional air traffic control hub that primarily conducted the communications during the 9/11 attack. I'm possibly thinking of buying this one off of him and giving it to a youtuber, because i think it might make an interesting video. If not,I'll give it back to him and it'll probably go on sale.
Very cool. Thanks for the backstory. Hope you get them back up and running. They're interesting counters.