Huuuuge lot of test gear, should I nab it?

[joshhunsaker]

http://medford.craigslist.org/ele/4545113336.html

I'm really leaning toward taking a chunk out of my savings account to pick this up.  I'm not sure what to do.  Looks like some fantastic pieces of kit in there and parts and components like you wouldn't believe.  Ugh.  I'm totally torn.  I need someone to talk me into it or out of it lol.

Talked to the guy on the phone already to get a general idea of his angle.  He's a nice enough guy.  He was totally adamant that it would take 2 people an entire day to move all this stuff into a huge trailer or moving truck.   

[Vgkid]

That is a huge amount of test gear, you could easily make your money back on the test gear alone, not familiar on the ham gear. You would need alot of space to store it though.

[joshhunsaker]

That is a huge amount of test gear, you could easily make your money back on the test gear alone, not familiar on the ham gear. You would need alot of space to store it though.

I could totally stash it both at my work and massive spare bedroom that's basically empty (tons of the pieces I would put into immediate use in my R&D lab).  There are some very interesting pieces in there.  And the antennas...!  Man, I'm still having trouble putting up that kind of cash though (not that it's not worth it, just I want to make sure I have a fair amount in savings all the time).

[gaijin]

If I was in the area I would already be there with a truck.

[dfnr2]

Josh,

At one time, perhaps up until about 10 years ago, about the golden age for buyers at internet auctions, for a lower price, this would be the start of a nice lab setup. However, today, you can take that $2900 and put together a very capable, very nice lab setup that will have exactly what you want in it, and will take up much no more space than you need.

I do love those Tek mainframe scopes--they are superbly engineered.  They are also obsolete.  I have two, and keep them in running condition, only out of love.  They take up too much space, and I never use them.  For those who argue that analog scopes are somehow less tricky or reveal more information than digital scopes, I would say that if you don't know how to look at the signal on a digital scope, then you probably aren't fit to interpret one on an analog scope either. 

I say don't do it.

Dave

[rstoer]

If I was in the area I would already be there with a truck.

Me too. Go for it!

[mikeselectricstuff]

If everything is pictured I'd give it a miss - a lot of it us very old, don't think it's a spectacular bargain

[AndyC_772]

It looks like quite a good way to take a lot of valuable empty space, and turn it into a millstone around your neck.

What would you actually do with all that stuff? Sell off a few items that are still vaguely useful on Ebay, and then what?

All my lab equipment, parts and projects between them occupy the space of one cupboard, a few drawers, a set of shelves, and a modest bench. That's it - and it's not just for hobbies, it's how I make a full time living. I just can't fathom how anyone could need, or really benefit from, that sheer amount of stuff, even if it was all new and useful.

I guess the clue is that the guy who owns it all has found no better option than to sell it all in one go to some other poor devil, who has too much storage space and not enough useful things to do with it.

[zapta]

One man's trash is another man's treasure. I prefer to buy things that I need and when I need them.

[free_electron]

In my opinion : junk. But, who am i ...
All old stuff for very old machines. Working state unknown....
You could sell some stuff off on ebay but most of it will fetch 50$. So 30 plugins. That fetches 1500$ not accounting time and shipping..
So you give 1500$ for a bu ch of old aluminum, coax wire and so e miscellaneous old instruments.

It's sort of a fair price for the volume, but you will end up with a lot of stuff that will collect dust for a long time.

Spend the 2900 dollar on new stuff. You can get a really nice scope, multimetr, power supply and soldering station for that. Far better investment than a truckload of scrap.

[Refrigerator]

So much test gear.....god...DAMN!

[nanofrog]

At one time, perhaps up until about 10 years ago, about the golden age for buyers at internet auctions, for a lower price, this would be the start of a nice lab setup. However, today, you can take that $2900 and put together a very capable, very nice lab setup that will have exactly what you want in it, and will take up much no more space than you need.

I say don't do it.

Excellent point IMHO.  $2900 can allow for one heck of a nice lab these days.

There's also the issue of how much physical storage space would be needed, and transportation to shift all of that stuff (seller mentioned a 48 ft. semi trailer to move all of it to it's current location). Just don't think the financial aspects work, particularly once these two factors are considered along with the purchase price.

[joshhunsaker]

It looks like quite a good way to take a lot of valuable empty space, and turn it into a millstone around your neck.

What would you actually do with all that stuff?

Well, that's actually the big part of the thing that colors this deal... with the R&D lab I run at work, I have a room completely chock full of gear and honestly it's not nearly enough.  We're going to be hiring more employees and people to handle quality control and extraneous development so having as much equipment as humanly possible can only become more and more useful as time goes on (for my position in the business).  Just the parts, ICs, passives and antennas alone would be invaluable for the design work I'm doing currently...

<sigh>

I can tell you, a massive amount of this stuff would immediately start getting daily use.  But I also totally get what people mean about how much $2900 will buy for a modern lab anyway going the piece-meal route through ebay (that's what I've been doing up to this point). Hmmmm 

I've already got a great rework station, a decent DSO, numerous multimeters, high-end measurement microphones, anemometers, accelerometers, lux meters, etc. etc.  But I need enough so people under me can be doing simultaneous development and research.

[RRobot]

Reading the sellers description, I get the impression this stuff has been picked over since 2010, leaving the bits people didn't want.

From what I can tell its basically a ton of obsolete, possibly non-working equipment, a small handful of very specialized equipment, also in unknown working order and a quite a pile of parts and rf connectors. It probably worth whats he's asking. But if there was much gold in them thar hills a large reseller would be buying it.

Its not something I would do unless collecting/selling old equipment was my hobby. It will take forever to sell that stuff.

[Alex Eisenhut]

This isn't so much "test gear" as much as a hoarder's life-long work.

Too many bits and pieces, not enough actual working stand-alone test gear.

It's all junk. Seriously. The logistics alone of moving so much crap should worry you.

2900$ and an afternoon on eBay will get you far more capable and small modern supported test gear and enough coin left over for a superb single malt.

At which point you email me to invite me for a sip...

[jucole]

i'd say  ;  you could easily buy lots of real nice stuff on Ebay with the same money;   also those tubes might contain just shift registers -  left over after he finished his 20ft led cube!  ;-)

[joshhunsaker]

Well, I talked him down to $2500...?? 

[nctnico]

It might be a nice lot of equipment to piece out and sell on Ebay. But the price has to be right. Around $500 or something like that to make another $500 in profit. I think you'll make more money by working the same amount of hours at Wall-mart.

[Electronics-Repairman]

Yep  think I'd buy and keep it as a ham some nice gear there, and the tower if it working OK worth a fortune, and I'll bet there's a yagi beam or two with it, if it's a mosley your in the money

[AndyC_772]

with the R&D lab I run at work, I have a room completely chock full of gear and honestly it's not nearly enough.  We're going to be hiring more employees and people to handle quality control and extraneous development so having as much equipment as humanly possible can only become more and more useful as time goes on

Well, OK, but I'm still reminded of a history teacher I had back at school... I swear he used to weigh homework rather than actually read it. Quantity was king.

If I were working in an R&D lab, I'd know what I was working on and would have clear, specific requirements for the gear that was needed to get the job done. It might not have to be new, but it would have to be well suited to the task at hand, and above all else, reliable and functional.

If my manager dumped a pile of obsolete gear on me which he'd bought as part of a job lot, and expected me to sort through it to pick out anything that might be useful, he'd get a short, clear and unambiguous answer - shortly followed by a new vacancy in his R&D dept.

[joshhunsaker]

If my manager dumped a pile of obsolete gear on me which he'd bought as part of a job lot, and expected me to sort through it to pick out anything that might be useful, he'd get a short, clear and unambiguous answer - shortly followed by a new vacancy in his R&D dept.

haha    Yeah I know exactly what you mean.  I had to build our R&D department from scratch within the past year and half.  There's very little formality in my area because everything that I've introduced the company to is so incredibly new and foreign to all the other employees.  I have a lot of freedom, but sometimes I have to work from shoestring budgets and buy my own gear because no-one else properly understands how important it is to have the right tool for a specific job.  A tremendous amount of my job is actually R&D in its most pure form, wherein I basically spend a ton of time doing ultra obscure kinds of tests and learning things like crazy until I stumble across some gem I can use for future development or to fix a major problem in our product lifecycles.

I can't say I'm a trained professional, and the people I work with are young and in it to learn and discover too.  Me foisting a huge lot of potentially not quite working equipment is less an experience of "wtf why can't we have nicer things" and more like "holy crap let's test everything and see if we can use it or cannibalize it".

I guess in a way that's why I love my current job so much.  The environment is radically different from anything else I've even heard of.

[nctnico]

I very sure the people you work with will have much more fun using more modern equipment. Good equipment gets the job done faster. In some occasions I even took my own equipment to my work for certain measurements just to show my boss how buying equipment is done properly 

[joshhunsaker]

I very sure the people you work with will have much more fun using more modern equipment. Good equipment gets the job done faster. In some occasions I even took my own equipment to my work for certain measurements just to show my boss how buying equipment is done properly 

I know, that's been one of the big frustrations.  At the end of the day I end up just having to tell myself that I'm still very lucky to have this job and it will be a springboard to better things in the future if nothing else...

[KJDS]

That lot? in a pro R&D environment?

You're aving a laugh.

I've no objection to having one old high speed tek scope about, if it's been taken care of and is working properly, great for high speed switch measurements, but most of what is there is junk, or outdated, or in need of repair or all three.

[EEVblog]

So this is for your company in a pro R&D lab?
In that case I'd give it a complete miss. Go buy what you specifically need, either new or 2nd hand if really needed.

[Bored@Work]

A tremendous amount of my job is actually R&D in its most pure form, wherein I basically spend a ton of time doing ultra obscure kinds of tests and learning things like crazy until I stumble across some gem I can use for future development or to fix a major problem in our product lifecycles.

Let me guess, you are in some free energy, overunit, Schumann healing wave R&D business? If yes, that equipment is absolutely for you. Go for it.

[joshhunsaker]

So this is for your company in a pro R&D lab?
In that case I'd give it a complete miss. Go buy what you specifically need, either new or 2nd hand if really needed.

Well, I wouldn't say it's quite a "pro" operation  .  I've put together a sort of "rag-tag" assortment of the best gear options I knew of at the time and the company would allow budgeting for.  I've had to kind of prove every step at the way that every purchase was explicitly worth it for a while (yes, some of the experience has been quite draining in a way).  But it's forced me to get very creative and learn how to repair things and extend my knowledge to areas that I had zero experience with.  I mean, at the end of the day I've been able to piece together a lot of really cool toys like a Solidoodle 3d printer, Earthworks M50 & 1021, lots of B&K gear, Rigol DS1102E, Goldstar 1ghz counter, Vichy VC8145 dmm and boatloads of good audio interfaces, which I've been happy about.

In a way, part of buying this kind of lot would be more for the effort of learning how everything works and expanding the limits of my understanding of digital and analog circuits required for any types of repairs that might be needed.  The compliment of parts would be extremely useful for some of the test jigs and automation systems I'm working on as well.  So, yes it's for the R&D but the R&D lab is kind of there for and because of me to being with.  The company benefits by anything I figure out.

Everyone here speaking against it I think is winning me out though.  I'm going to pass on it at this point.

Let me guess, you are in some free energy, overunit, Schumann healing wave R&D business? If yes, that equipment is absolutely for you. Go for it.

No, not in the slightest.  I oversee a number of consumer electronics product lines.  I'm not ignorant of the laws of thermodynamics lol.

[SL4P]

Offer $1000-$1500 - no negotiation.
His decision 48 hours no more chances.
Take it away. Win win situation.
You will incur costs - transport and storage & selling.
He obviously want out of it.
Or spend on newer gear without the stress.

[saturation]

He could consider calling SkyCraft, they specialize in this stuff and they are fairly close by.

http://www.skycraftsurplus.com/webuysurplus.aspx

One gem I see there is a Tek 284 Pulse Generator.  That is a rare bird.  Its a 1GHz 70 ps pulse generator that uses a tunnel diode, and it took me some time to find one.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TEKTRONIX-Type-284-Pulse-Generator-/321441980732?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item4ad76f613c

There's more about the 284 in the eevblog archives.

[aroby]

He could consider calling SkyCraft, they specialize in this stuff and they are fairly close by.

http://www.skycraftsurplus.com/webuysurplus.aspx

They're on the other side of the country!

[saturation]

My bad, I thought it was Jacksonville, Fl! 

He could consider calling SkyCraft, they specialize in this stuff and they are fairly close by.

http://www.skycraftsurplus.com/webuysurplus.aspx

They're on the other side of the country!

[vk6zgo]

Josh,

At one time, perhaps up until about 10 years ago, about the golden age for buyers at internet auctions, for a lower price, this would be the start of a nice lab setup. However, today, you can take that $2900 and put together a very capable, very nice lab setup that will have exactly what you want in it, and will take up much no more space than you need.

I do love those Tek mainframe scopes--they are superbly engineered.  They are also obsolete.  I have two, and keep them in running condition, only out of love.  They take up too much space, and I never use them.  For those who argue that analog scopes are somehow less tricky or reveal more information than digital scopes, I would say that if you don't know how to look at the signal on a digital scope, then you probably aren't fit to interpret one on an analog scope either. 

I say don't do it.

Dave

I've been using Oscilloscopes for over 40 years,& DSOs are definitely very different to analog 'scopes.
Analogs don't have aliasing problems,which still dog all but the best DSOs.
The big advantage of DSOs is their storage capability,but they give up a lot to give you that.

The only situation where a DSO was any more useful to me  than an analog was chasing signals in & out of my car's ECU------after the Mechanics had given up.

The  DSO was better,not because it was Digital,but that it  was portable!
It was an early Tek TH series ---old & all,I'd pick one of those up in a heartbeat,if they were cheap enough!

Why can't the OP get a group together, buy the stuff & share it out?

[MadTux]

The goodies are the Tek 7000 Plugins,7904 mainframe, the Tek 284, Tek AM 503 current probe and all the TM 5000 stuff and the HP8640B. That stuff alone is probably worth 2500$ on ebay.

BTW, what is that HP instrument on top in pic3? LCR meter?

BTW if anyone takes it and isn't interested in the Tek7000 calibration fixture and samplers, I'd take them for 50-70$ ea.

[G0HZU]

The whole advert is worded to butter up the gullible.
A lot of it isn't even guaranteed to exist...

At best you will be buying the decaying carcass of a failed business consisting of unsaleable or faulty crap that wouldn't be cost effective to sell any other way than to advertise it in a job lot.

At worst you may end up needing to do two trips because the clues are there...  There could be an awful lot of undocumented junk to remove as part of the 'contract of sale'

[TerraHertz]

Offer $1000-$1500 - no negotiation.
His decision 48 hours no more chances.
Take it away. Win win situation.
You will incur costs - transport and storage & selling.
He obviously want out of it.
Or spend on newer gear without the stress.

This.
There are some nice things there, but also a mountain of work and trouble. I like this sort of old gear, but even I wouldn't blow nearly $3K on carting away his junkyard, not even if I lived 10 minutes away.

If you wanted something to do in your retirement years and can't think of anything better, this might be attractive. Just going through that lot and cataloging what works, what can be fixed (and is worth fixing), and what is irreparable junk would take a year. At least.

You could point out to him that if he wants the stuff removed, ultimately it's possible he may have to pay someone to haul it away. Much as it will pain him to face that reality.

Though damn, I do need a flexible Tek 7000 extender...

[KedasProbe]

Looks more an offer for a business man than an equipment user, reselling all parts on ebay.
And taking the gamble that he will get return on investment, only a few very good devices could tip it over to a profit action.

So no for a user.

[cpuerror]

Maybe if I had a business that was specializing in repair of older military gear or special industrial applications I would consider it for a handful of test equipment and the old IC's that are otherwise unobtainable. The rest of it would just need to be dumped - the time in testing, selling, packing/shipping is not worth the price it would sell for.

Otherwise I wouldn't touch this thing with 10-ft HV probe.

[Wuerstchenhund]

The big advantage of DSOs is their storage capability

No. The big advantage of DSOs, aside from their storage capabilities, is their capability to analyze and process signal parameters.

With an analog scope, all you get is what you see. For many complex signals this simply isn't good enough.

[vk6zgo]

The big advantage of DSOs is their storage capability

No. The big advantage of DSOs, aside from their storage capabilities, is their capability to analyze and process signal parameters.

With an analog scope, all you get is what you see. For many complex signals this simply isn't good enough.

Ever try to look at an analog video field signal with any inexpensive DSO?
Many people use Oscilloscopes to track faults in equipment,where "processing of signal parameters"is not of high priority.
Being able to determine the electrical integrity of the signal is the important thing in that case.

[free_electron]

The big advantage of DSOs is their storage capability

No. The big advantage of DSOs, aside from their storage capabilities, is their capability to analyze and process signal parameters.

With an analog scope, all you get is what you see. For many complex signals this simply isn't good enough.

Ever try to look at an analog video field signal with any inexpensive DSO?
Many people use Oscilloscopes to track faults in equipment,where "processing of signal parameters"is not of high priority.
Being able to determine the electrical integrity of the signal is the important thing in that case.

An old 54645d or anyone of the megazooms can do that perfectly fine. You select pal or ntsc and can even dial in the exact line you want to see... Try that with analog junk. And these digital machines are 25 years old ! The screen refresh and acquisition refresh of these machines is fast enough they can update at the video framerate.

[HighVoltage]

These days, I have to proof Six-Sigma capabilities on almost all measurements that go to a customer.
To do this manually it can takes days.

With a new Agilent DSOX or MSOX it is done automatically within minutes!
Literately minutes!
And the reports are just awesome and the customer is happy.

These new generation scopes have given me so many new opportunities and time savings, sometimes
I can not even believe it.

So, I would not get in to the old stuff anymore

[joshhunsaker]

I tried calling the owner of the company to see if I could get him to jump on it as a business expense.  Hasn't gotten back to me.

Maybe if I had more in savings stashed away, it'd be fun to do just to get my hands on so much stuff.  I'm young and have puhlenty of time to dick around with obscure stuff like learning how to make use of all the obscure/unobtanium ICs in that pile. 

I've never been one who's worried much about space.  8 years ago I had a couple 40 unit racks crammed with pro-audio goodies and a mic locker of dozens of good mics.  It was positively obscene but I used every piece and loved every minute of it.  I've always been a bit of a gear whore I suppose.  I've probably owned 100 different pro-audio and consumer amplifiers alone in my life.  I got good enough at flipping audio gear while I lived in Reno to pay rent from it many months.  Medford's thrift scene is useless on the other hand.

[edavid]

Hager is a character, and I'm sure you'd enjoy meeting him, but I doubt this deal would end up making economic sense.  How much would a truck and fuel cost you?  Will you have to rent storage?  How good are you at selling things on eBay?

Are you in Medford?  In that case you should check it out in person.  I don't think there's a rush, he's been trying to get rid of this stuff for years.

[joshhunsaker]

Are you in Medford?  In that case you should check it out in person.  I don't think there's a rush, he's being trying to get rid of this stuff for years.

Yeah, I'm in Medford.  I may give him a call and mention that I can't immediately jump on this kind of deal but that could change if the owner of the company wants to spring for it.

[georges80]

Looks like 99% junk that the fellow has realised is beyond his ability (mentally or physically) to discard. The local landfill would charge him too much $$ to dump, so he's looking for someone else to clear it all out for him

I'm not a 'young' engineer - and can't think of any time in my many engineering years where I would get excited to spend some serious $$ loading a BIG truck full up with all that 'stuff' and then have to deal with sorting/selling/tossing 99% of it.

Reminds me of some of those Discovery shows with the 'pickers' visiting places out in the boonies for "treasures" and some of the pack rats they meet.

Rather than a truck to take the stuff away, the guy going there needs a D10 to create a big hole to push it all into

OP: if your 'boss' isn't excited in buying that 'treasure', it would seem to me he's very smart...

cheers,
george.

[joshhunsaker]

Well, I totally understand why a lot of experienced people here would absolutely advise against it.  I do.  But on the other hand there's plenty of respected engineers that I've polled on other forums that have advised to go for it.  I can see both the value and hassle in it as a package.  The parts that don't bother me at all (moving/storage/time spent) I can see would bother other people greatly.

I'm still new enough to this stuff that getting a bunch of equipment like this would be huge impetus to spend weekends upon weekends experimenting and familiarizing myself with stuff I'd otherwise never get to tangibly handle.  It might take someone else who gets upset just at the idea of having to sort through and test such a huge amount of equipment a number of months to sort through it all, but I can guarantee that I'd probably spend just a single 16 hour day non-stop testing everything very quickly.

There's also something about a room full or hardware that completely floors me.   I'm not minimalist by any means. 

[G0HZU]

But on the other hand there's plenty of respected engineers that I've polled on other forums that have advised to go for it.

Are you sure about that? They don't have my respect if they told you to buy it.
For a start they don't know how much stuff there is. There could be a huge pile of really useless junk included and it will become all yours. There's a thermometer that is described as 'working' and the rest is untested/faulty/may not exist.

Most of the stuff there is obsolete and a waste of space even if it's working. You'd have a better/easier/simpler future if you simply flushed the $2900 down the toilet and stayed away from this sale.

[joshhunsaker]

Most of the stuff there is obsolete and a waste of space even if it's working. You'd have a better/easier/simpler future if you simply flushed the $2900 down the toilet and stayed away from this sale.

My B&K 2215 meter certainly isn't "obsolete".  Neither is my 4230 pistonphone, 4366 accelerometer or ZR 0020 integrator.  On the contrary, those pieces saved me a few thousand dollars vs. new equipment and work fantastically.

I'm a little wary of anyone who touts the inestimable advantage of any "new" piece of equipment vs. an old piece of equipment just by virtue of the "obsolete" argument.  I know for a fact when comparing prices and value that's certainly not how it works with acoustical measurement gear (Orfield labs for instance still uses a 12 year old B&K front-end, doesn't seem to be a problem for them).  Show me a quality logic analyzer that offers as many channels of 100mhz analysis as my HP 1650A that doesn't suck for under $100 (how much I paid total for the HP) and i'll admit I've put my foot in my mouth.  Just the high-quality probe clips that came with it were worth the price.

You're forgetting the parts themselves.  I'm not sure how you can dictate that anything in that pile would be useless to me.  How do you know I won't end up building a rf anechoic chamber and making use of the massive antennas for immunity testing?  You're making a ton of assumptions.  If you had told me 5 years ago that I'd be working on the projects I'm currently working on I'd have looked at you blankly and told you you're insane.  But, here I am.

[PaulAm]

Hard to say, it might be worth it.  There's not a lot of money in equipment of that era, although it still has a following. I'd certainly bargain him down since all the work is on you.  It also would be useful to actually see what he has.  You don't want to bite on a few useable pieces on top of a load of trash.

If you're in business or a professional where time is money, you're likely to avoid older equipment if only because if it malfunctions when you need it, you're out $$$.  But for others, it can be a cost effective alternative.

I had a local guy on Craigslist offering a bunch of Tek spares (at least that's what he claimed, although the pics didn't quite support that).  When he claimed they were worth "thousands", I dropped it.  Maybe for $100 it might have been worth sorting through everything and cataloging it

[nctnico]

Most of the stuff there is obsolete and a waste of space even if it's working. You'd have a better/easier/simpler future if you simply flushed the $2900 down the toilet and stayed away from this sale.

My B&K 2215 meter certainly isn't "obsolete".  Neither is my 4230 pistonphone, 4366 accelerometer or ZR 0020 integrator.  On the contrary, those pieces saved me a few thousand dollars vs. new equipment and work fantastically.

I hear you... BUT... test equipment does age. Switches wear out, electrolytics go bad and many pieces of equipment use exotic parts as well. I got burned a few times with equipment which was impossible to repair.  Last year I bought a couple of HP power supplies from the early 80's. These needed all the electrolytics and front potmeters replaced. Good power supplies but they ended up costing twice as much because of the replacement parts. Not to mention the time spend.

As a rule of thumb I don't buy equipment which is over 15 years old (the HP supplies looked newer to me but I forgot how old I have become).

[G0HZU]

How do you know I won't end up building a rf anechoic chamber and making use of the massive antennas for immunity testing?

Not many people would use a huge/long/narrowband/uncalibrated ham radio (yagi) antenna for immunity testing in an anechoic chamber.

[joshhunsaker]

I hear you... BUT... test equipment does age. Switches wear out, electrolytics go bad and many pieces of equipment use exotic parts as well. I got burned a few times with equipment which was impossible to repair.  Last year I bought a couple of HP power supplies from the early 80's. These needed all the electrolytics and front potmeters replaced. Good power supplies but they ended up costing twice as much because of the replacement parts. Not to mention the time spend.

As a rule of thumb I don't buy equipment which is over 15 years old (the HP supplies looked newer to me but I forgot how old I have become).

You're spot on, my Wavetek 141 purchase didn't work out so well (have that detailed in another thread here)... but honestly that's been one of maybe 20 used older pieces of gear that are still running awesome I've acquired recently and have put up with way more abuse than a newer, more fragile equivalent piece of kit would.  Plus, I can still attempt a repair on the Wavetek.  I've got boatloads of reels of components (axial and SMD) and I'm quite handy with a solder iron at this point (no problem doing 0603's without any kind of magnification).  To me it's a great learning experience and a good excuse.

Honestly, in my experience... it's funny because I've had just as much new gear die and/or malfunction on me than very old stuff.  At least with the older equipment it's less of a surprise.

Not many people would use a huge/long/narrowband/uncalibrated ham radio (yagi) antenna for immunity testing in an anechoic chamber.

"Biconical (or "bicon") antennas are often used in electromagnetic interference (EMI) testing either for immunity testing, or emissions testing. While the bicon is very broadband, it exhibits poor efficiency at low frequencies, resulting in low field strengths when compared to the input power. Log periodic dipole arrays, Yagi-Uda antennas, and reverberation chambers have shown to achieve much higher field strengths for the power input than a simple biconical antenna in an anechoic chamber."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biconical_antenna

[G0HZU]

Log periodic dipole arrays, Yagi-Uda antennas, and reverberation chambers have shown to achieve much higher field strengths for the power input than a simple biconical antenna in an anechoic chamber.

Sure, they might use (a formally calibrated) yagi or log periodic antenna that has a few elements that is designed for relatively broadband use. But not many people will use a typical 10 element narrowband ham radio yagi for immunity testing. i.e. something 12 foot long optimised for a tiny bandwidth of maybe 144-148MHz.

[joshhunsaker]

Sure, they might use (a formally calibrated) yagi or log periodic amtenna that has a few elements that is designed for relatively broadband use. But not many people will use a typical 10 element narrowband ham radio yagi for immunity testing. i.e. something 12 foot long optimised for a tiny bandwidth of maybe 144-148MHz.

If the antennas are only yagi's or narrow-band then, sure... would end up being a bad example.  I dunno exactly what he has per say antenna-wise, I figured it might span a relatively good gamut, but maybe not.

[vk6zgo]

The big advantage of DSOs is their storage capability

No. The big advantage of DSOs, aside from their storage capabilities, is their capability to analyze and process signal parameters.

With an analog scope, all you get is what you see. For many complex signals this simply isn't good enough.

Ever try to look at an analog video field signal with any inexpensive DSO?
Many people use Oscilloscopes to track faults in equipment,where "processing of signal parameters"is not of high priority.
Being able to determine the electrical integrity of the signal is the important thing in that case.

An old 54645d or anyone of the megazooms can do that perfectly fine. You select pal or ntsc and can even dial in the exact line you want to see... Try that with analog junk. And these digital machines are 25 years old ! The screen refresh and acquisition refresh of these machines is fast enough they can update at the video framerate.

You didn't understand my comment.
Almost anything can look at a line rate signal,& it isn't all that hard to find an individual line with a 7000 series analog---a bit messy,but doable.

I've tried to look at the whole field at around 5mS/div with that generation of DSOs.
Their sample rate reduces so low that aliasing due to the presence of frequency components of up to 5MHz makes the display unusable.

OK,analog video is obsolete,but people still have to look at Mains hum on a pulse train from time to time.

[EEVblog]

Most of the stuff there is obsolete and a waste of space even if it's working. You'd have a better/easier/simpler future if you simply flushed the $2900 down the toilet and stayed away from this sale.

The thing here is what value (both technical & fun) you could get with $2900 in comparison.
I think that money would buy a ton of useful stuff on ebay, and you'd have IMO a good lot of fun searching for and bidding on dozens of items.
Rather than have it all served up to you in one big dumpster pile of who knows what.
You could get say 10 quality items of an average of $290 each, and that $290 goes a fair way in the 2nd hand market.

I for one wouldn't begrudge you for getting this, but I think more fun and better value is to be had elsewhere.

[vk6zgo]

If I remember rightly,this came up on QRZ.com a few years back,but got no takers.

Even WA6MHZ,the resident "packrat" didn't bite.
Of course,Pat already has a huge shed full of vintage gear at his own place.

It seems that the vendor still has the trailer part of the semi-trailer at his place---- if he threw it in as well, you could maybe get most of your $2900 back on that,& the Electronics would be a bonusl

[Wuerstchenhund]

Ever try to look at an analog video field signal with any inexpensive DSO?

Yes, actually I did, with a Siglent SDS1102CNL (probably as cheap as it gets). Not a problem.

Many people use Oscilloscopes to track faults in equipment,where "processing of signal parameters"is not of high priority.
Being able to determine the electrical integrity of the signal is the important thing in that case.

If you mean by 'determine the electrical integrity' that you're looking a a signal of limited complexity to determine if it's what it should be then yes, you can do that as well with a decent DSO.

[Wuerstchenhund]

Almost anything can look at a line rate signal,& it isn't all that hard to find an individual line with a 7000 series analog---a bit messy,but doable.

I've tried to look at the whole field at around 5mS/div with that generation of DSOs.
Their sample rate reduces so low that aliasing due to the presence of frequency components of up to 5MHz makes the display unusable.

When I did some work with video equipment a very long time ago, where we checked whole fields CCIR video with DSOs (we had some Philips PM3320A and later got some HP54510As), not much of a problem. We also had some analog Tek scopes but they were mostly sitting on the shelf waiting to sent away for annual calibration.

I'm also not sure what you're talking about re low sample rate as at that time high sample rate scopes were already available (the HP came out around 1991 and had 1GS/s). But CCIR video wasn't even a problem with the Philips which only had 250MS/s and came out around 1989 I think.

[nctnico]

I've tried to look at the whole field at around 5mS/div with that generation of DSOs.
Their sample rate reduces so low that aliasing due to the presence of frequency components of up to 5MHz makes the display unusable.

OK,analog video is obsolete,but people still have to look at Mains hum on a pulse train from time to time.

For that purpose a lot of DSOs have peak detect or a long memory compressed into one screen. You could have run into one which didn't have peak-detect (or didn't enable it) and/or long memory (or didn't enable it).

[vk6zgo]

A standard test in Television Broadcasting is to display one or more complete fields,& look for deformation of blanking over the full 20 (or more usually,40) mS.

Two things are normally checked:

(1) Hum at Mains rate,or twice Mains rate, (50Hz & 100 Hz in Australia).
(2) Clamp pulse breakthrough---Keyed clampers sometimes have problems with the pre & post equalising pulses of the Field Sync pulse.
This manifests itself as a "warping" of the blanking level.

Back in the early1990s HP & Tektronix would come to our TV Station,showing off their latest DSOs.
They would give us their "spiel",show us a few line rate signals,then we would ask them to repeat the above test.
They universally failed,because when they were displaying a signal 20 mS wide,their sample rate was reduced below the higher,& in some cases mid-frequency components of the video signal,causing aliasing problems.
They had to do this due to lack of memory in the instrument.
In the worst case,the sampling rate was lower in frequency than line rate.

I have seen quite a few screenshots of field rate video on  more modern inexpensive DSOs,in which it would be impossible to perform  test (1) or (2).

[vk6zgo]

I've tried to look at the whole field at around 5mS/div with that generation of DSOs.
Their sample rate reduces so low that aliasing due to the presence of frequency components of up to 5MHz makes the display unusable.

OK,analog video is obsolete,but people still have to look at Mains hum on a pulse train from time to time.

For that purpose a lot of DSOs have peak detect or a long memory compressed into one screen. You could have run into one which didn't have peak-detect (or didn't enable it) and/or long memory (or didn't enable it).

Maybe for hum,on a fixed amplitude pulse train,so I will give you that.

These tests were dynamic ones,done without interrupting the video signal,so video program material would be continuously changing the peak to peak amplitude of the signal.

We also looked for "Clamp pulse breakthrough"(see my previous posting).
It was commonplace to adjust clamping real time for minimum breakthrough,so I doubt these refinements would have helped.

I should have said that myself & several other TV Station Technical folk,as well as HP & Tek representatives tried,with the same result,so they should have known a way to make it work.
Remember,though, these were fairly early DSOs.

Now we have taken the thread thoroughly off topic,we will probably be chastised by the Moderators!

[jucole]

Show me a quality logic analyzer that offers as many channels of 100mhz analysis as my HP 1650A that doesn't suck for under $100

does my 1661AS count? :-)   no, but seriously I could have loads of fun on Ebay with the same money,  I could have bought that HP  18 times over and still have enough left over to buy my 6.5 digit solartron 7150, and have it calibrated.

[nctnico]

I've tried to look at the whole field at around 5mS/div with that generation of DSOs.
Their sample rate reduces so low that aliasing due to the presence of frequency components of up to 5MHz makes the display unusable.

OK,analog video is obsolete,but people still have to look at Mains hum on a pulse train from time to time.

For that purpose a lot of DSOs have peak detect or a long memory compressed into one screen. You could have run into one which didn't have peak-detect (or didn't enable it) and/or long memory (or didn't enable it).

Maybe for hum,on a fixed amplitude pulse train,so I will give you that.

These tests were dynamic ones,done without interrupting the video signal,so video program material would be continuously changing the peak to peak amplitude of the signal.

We also looked for "Clamp pulse breakthrough"(see my previous posting).
It was commonplace to adjust clamping real time for minimum breakthrough,so I doubt these refinements would have helped.

I should have said that myself & several other TV Station Technical folk,as well as HP & Tek representatives tried,with the same result,so they should have known a way to make it work.

IMHO a Tektronix TDS500 or TDS700 series scope (early 90's) should have no problem with your test. But these might have been outside the budget or the HP & Tek representatives may not have had full training. I've been to NZ once and the techs over there complained they never got good training for equipment they bought in Europe or the US.