Rigol DS1054 trigger output

[Fenichel]

  Does anyone have experience with using this feature of the DS1054 oscilloscope?

  I though I could use it to see how often a rare brief signal (5 us every minute or so) appeared in channel 1 by triggering on channel 1, then running a cable from the trigger output to the input of channel 2, with the time base then set as slow as possible, so that I could watch channel 2.   

  This doesn't seem to work.  Channel 2 starts out low, then rises to ~3.4V when channel 1 is triggered, but then channel 2 stays high indefinitely.  The manual is nonspecific, but I somehow expected that the Trigger Output would be a pulse, not just a change or state.  What am I missing?

[David Hess]

The trigger output is not really a trigger output; instead it reports the start of a sweep so it really it tracks the waveform acquisition rate.  A since it is synchronous with the sweep, monitoring it with the same oscilloscope is not particularly useful.  You might connect it to a separate frequency counter.

[2N3055]

You can also put scope in peak detect mode and put it on very slow timebase if only number of pulses are important.....