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Oscilloscope Dilemma
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jonpaul:
advise a cheap and simple vintage analog CRT scope,

Hameg in EU can be found for 5..100€ 10..100 MHz have several in Paris


Best scopes are Tektronix 465/475/B, 22xx series and 2465B, 2467B.

100..500$

Suggest that you join groups.io forums tektronix, Tektronix2 and instruments FS.WTB

The Chinese scopes have many potential pitfalls and a digital scope is not a substitute for the classic analog scope CRT

Just the ramblings of an old retired EE

Jon

In US the ham radio flea market and ads in ARRL, QST, etc

2N3055:

--- Quote from: jonpaul on December 04, 2022, 05:42:35 am ---advise a cheap and simple vintage analog CRT scope,

Hameg in EU can be found for 5..100€ 10..100 MHz have several in Paris


Best scopes are Tektronix 465/475/B, 22xx series and 2465B, 2467B.

100..500$

Suggest that you join groups.io forums tektronix, Tektronix2 and instruments FS.WTB

The Chinese scopes have many potential pitfalls and a digital scope is not a substitute for the classic analog scope CRT

Just the ramblings of an old retired EE

Jon

In US the ham radio flea market and ads in ARRL, QST, etc

--- End quote ---

Dear Jon,

Everybody here has enormous respect for you, so nobody has heart to speak up.

Analog scopes today are like vintage cars: thing of beauty but of limited practical value.
We all love them, and very few use them for actual work. Or if they do sometimes, they still have digital scopes for "all other"stuff CRT scope cannot do..

What little are available to purchase had have prices going through the roof ( they are "vintage") and most of them are not working or have been subjected to unqualified repairs and all kinds of abuse.. They are also getting harder and harder to keep running.

Fact is than in last 10 years everything changed..

For 500$ you can buy brand new scopes (with warranty) that are very good.

Digital scope is not only substitute for CRT scope but a many times more powerful instrument that can capture many things CRT cannot and measure many things CRT scope cannot.

And in low end scopes (sub 1000$) likes of Rigol and Siglent make better scopes than "non-Chinese" do for 2-3X times the money.. That also changed in last 10ish years..

I hope you don't get offended,

Respectfully,
Sinisa
jonpaul:
Rebonjour Cher 2N3033/ Sinisa !

many thanks for the kind notes, I comprend completely and share your reaction.

I am open to use any instruments or tools vintage or new, analog or digital.

In the big lab since 1970ss, we have Tektronix 7000 and 465, 475, as well as  246x portable.

We can only marvel at the fine engineering and long life of these 1980s..1990s machines.
I find great enjoyment from the calibration and maintenance of these vintage scopes.

For many applications the digital scopes are much better eg single shot capture and image export to a PC.
We have Yokogawa DL1740 and DL7440 via close connection to the Japanese.

Certainly,  beginners with limited acess to ham radio Fleas and silent keys, the latest digital scopes from China are popular.

personally,  being burned by some Chinese equipment,  I am wary of it in general.

The old analog scopes are fine for 95% of use and users.....
As mentioned, we have found perfectly working 1 or 2 channel 10..20 MHz Hameg German scopes for €5, €25 in  Paris at street sales and fleas.  Another source is sites like Craigslist in USA or Le Bon Coin or PAP in France.

So,  my viewpoint is through the lens of an ancient electronic dinasour, (EE 68')  and over the decades, I have accumulated a huge laboratoire of classic HP, Tektronix, Fluke, Genrad equipment.
Thus, I have no hands on experience with the Chinese digital scopes popular nowadays.

Hope that this note is interesting to you and others.....

Back to the lab....working on a valve microphone preamplifier 6SL7 !  see pix of SIGSALY Quantizer....

Bon Week-end

Jon

markone:

--- Quote from: jonpaul on December 04, 2022, 12:39:52 pm ---
-snip
For many applications the digital scopes are much better eg single shot capture and image export to a PC.

--- End quote ---

For many applications DSO are the ONLY solution, i.e. if you have to take measurements, log data, save screens, make automated sequences and so on.
Apart that nowaday I cannot see a single reason to put on the table a bulky, heavy, smelly, uncalibrated, power hungry, etc anchor boat, even if it's for free.

It's a lot of time that i do not see one in electronic labs and there is a reason for that.


--- Quote from: jonpaul on December 04, 2022, 12:39:52 pm ---
Certainly,  beginners with limited acess to ham radio Fleas and silent keys, the latest digital scopes from China are popular.

--- End quote ---

Latest DSOs from China are a lot popular not only among hobbiest but also in industry sector, they disrupted a market that was dominated by Tektronix, a company that was thinking to be able to sell DSOs with few kpts at whopping prices for ever.

Now it's a sinking ship.


--- Quote from: jonpaul on December 04, 2022, 12:39:52 pm ---personally,  being burned by some Chinese equipment,  I am wary of it in general.

--- End quote ---

Sure there is a lot of trash in the market, but if you limit your choice to Rigol & Siglent, in the low and the medium segments of the market you obtain much better product price / quality ratio and service (i.e. it happened that Keysight refused to service final users instrumentation).

Coming back to the OP, as a Ham in search of a DSO i would invest in a dual channel instrument with at least 2GS/s and bandwidth "upgradable" to 200-300Mhz, there are nice solutions from both Siglent & Rigol.
 
Andy2:
I've only speed-read this thread, so sorry if someone has already made this point. If you are a radio amateur (like me), at some point you will probably use your 'scope to view your outgoing signal. This is a trivial task for an analogue scope, but for DSO's it can be a difficult job and it will start aliasing and you'll not get the familiar 'AM envelope' display. The way around this is to get one with plenty of screen memory (ie it can store lots of 'points'). My Rigol has 14 million points and will show a good AM display on 160m (1.8 MHz) and up to maybe 10 MHz or so, but beyond this it looks worse than my old Tek analogue.  So when you are inspecting the manufacturer's boast-sheets, look for the 'Memory Depth' spec and aim high. Hope this helps, it had me befuddled for ages....
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