Products > Test Equipment
Looking for used frequency counter recommendations
bdunham7:
--- Quote from: unimorpheus on September 29, 2023, 03:59:05 pm ---What counter makes and models should I be looking out for on eBay if I wanted an oven controlled time base, at least 8-10 digit precision and high signal sensitivity? Budget maybe up to about 2K max so I know I'm looking for something older but well built. Thanks.
--- End quote ---
I have an HP5316B with options 003 and 004 (prescaler and OCXO) that is rated for 15mV sensitivity out to 650MHz. It is 8 digit but can be pushed to 9 using longer gate times and letting it overflow. The main input channel is 1M and works well out beyond its rating to 160MHz or so in overflow, although probably at a somewhat reduced sensitivity. The prescaler input is 50R and works from 50MHz up to 1.3GHz. IDK if those specs work for you.
You can find them on eBay for a few hundred dollars, so you'll want to buy the nicest one you can find if you go this route. If you want the Option 003/Channel C prescaler, it has to be installed already. If you want Option 004/OCXO, you can easily make your own using a board designed by a fellow EEVBlogger--this is what I did. Or you can use an external reference.
4thDoctorWhoFan:
I like my HP 5386A. It works great and has up to 11 digit resolution. I use it with a external 10Mhz reference and could not ask for anything more.
unimorpheus:
Thank you all for the suggestions. I ended up going a much cheaper route as show in the pic just to get this done. A cheap Chinese GPSDO reference and MMIC amp was all I needed, for this job anyway. Still want to upgrade the counter but this does give me a lot more to consider. I think there is a lot of retired gear coming out of telcom that can be repurposed and give us amateurs / hobbyist much more capability than we could have ever hoped for.
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