| Products > Test Equipment |
| Looking at a HP54501A... |
| (1/3) > >> |
| ruku:
Hey all, I'm looking at scopes again. Drooling, dreaming, and hoping. Right now I've found a decent deal on an in-shape HP54501A. I'm interested to see if anyone has any experience with these, and what they think about it. I know I found someone with an 02A, which is the 400 MHz model. I'm not entirely sure I want to buy just a 100 MHz scope, since I'd like to try doing some 2 meter amateur radio circuits. For $225 as a first scope, what do you all think? Would you be content with an 8-bit A/D or would you want something else? Anyone have nightmare stories about the scope falling to pieces? |
| alm:
--- Quote from: ruku on July 07, 2011, 08:06:51 pm ---I'm not entirely sure I want to buy just a 100 MHz scope, since I'd like to try doing some 2 meter amateur radio circuits. --- End quote --- Why would you want to use a scope to look at a modulated signal? This is usually fairly useless, other test equipment like spectrum analyzers and power meters are used for this. --- Quote from: ruku on July 07, 2011, 08:06:51 pm ---For $225 as a first scope, what do you all think? Would you be content with an 8-bit A/D or would you want something else? --- End quote --- I'm not familiar with the scope and its vintage. How's the real time sampling rate? Memory depth? If it's an early DSO, the controls and responsiveness may not be great. 8-bit is standard, nothing wrong with that for a scope. Most don't get anywhere close to 8 effective bits anyway at higher frequencies. A scope is not a precision instrument with a large dynamic range. |
| vtl:
$225 is quite steep I think. This is an early digitizing scope with only 10M/S which is kind of limiting. You'd be probably limited to about 1MHz signals in single shot mode. Maybe you could consider the Rigol ds1052e which is quite popular here. |
| saturation:
For 2 meter band hams, I presume you need ~ 150 MHz accurately, alas that HP is outdated, as others have described, mostly particularly its low sampling rate. http://www.home.agilent.com/upload/cmc_upload/All/hp54501a.ih?&cc=US&lc=eng If you really need 150 MHz, you're only bet at that price range is a good used analog scope, or you'll have to move up to at minimum, at 3x your price range, a Rigol style DSO in the 100 MHz range, or in the $400 range, risk hacking a 1052e to 150 MHz. |
| EEVblog:
--- Quote from: vtl on July 08, 2011, 11:23:12 am ---$225 is quite steep I think. This is an early digitizing scope with only 10M/S which is kind of limiting. --- End quote --- I'd go one step further and say it's pretty much useless as a single shot scope. In which case an equivalent bandwidth analog would be a better option. But getting one for that price might be rather hard. Dave. |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |