-group-therapy-thread/?action=dlattach;attach=2475373;image)
A little distraction from Ebay. I never go there, instead I just search Leboncoin.fr. It's like walking around a giant flea market. I like being surprised at what I might find whenever I visit. And before X-max I found this :
https://www.leboncoin.fr/ad/equipements_industriels/2897609579I have enough hollow-state Tek scopes here, so a couple years ago or so, I started changing the goal, and now enjoy going after smaller TE of that same era, that accompanied these scopes. Like special / uncommon plug-ins, special TE to calibrate this or that in the scope. Makes for a more vibrant and interesting "ecosystem", than just having bare scopes, doesn't it ? Yes it does, to me at least.
So in this vein I have managed to find so far :
- A type 107 fast pulse generator, to check B/W and frequency response of vertical amps.
- A type 1121 wide band pre-amp
- A type 180A time mark / comb generator to calibrate the horizontal amplifier of the scope
and today... this.... thing, which I can't even tell you what "type" it is because it doesn't even have one !

It's purely a calibration fixture, and often Tek didn't give them a type number, but instead a long sequence of digits that looks very much like the part-number of a... single part, not a complete instrument.
This thing they call a "Amplitude calibrator and comparator".
Looked in the manual, it's designed solely to fine tune the amplitude of the calibrator output of the scope. The scope already has a trimmer to fine tune this, but I guess with a calibrator it's more... accurate. I don't know, I just found this thing cool and cute, so I could not resist buying it. I am very excited to welcome the fourth member of my debuting collection of 500 scope "peripherals" so to speak

At first, it was advertised at 80 or 90 Euros IIRC. Too expensive for such a small TE, especially since it was untested, no pics of the inside (so for all I knew there could be missing parts and tons of corrosion), and more worrying, at the rear : a missing foot, missing fuse holder, and the (hard wired) power cord has an American plug ! So clearly that instrument has been messed with, and chances are it's still wired for 120V and maybe someone plugged it straight to the 240V and fried the transformer and 90% of the components inside the instrument...
So yeah, all that considered, 90 Euros was a bit much to me ! So I waited a few weeks, luckily nobody bought / "stole" it from me.... and eventually price got dropped to 45 Euros ! That's much more like it... but still a bit dear given all I said above. So I asked the seller pics of the inside... to my surprise he agreed and sent them to me. Inside it looked complete and like new, zero sign of corrosion or mould. Ah... that's nice. Still, TE might be fried, so I used that to bargain him and offered 35 instead of 45. He agreed, and today here it is on my bench !!!

It came as a "kit".... of course he had no clue how to open the cabinet to take the requested pics of the inside, so he removed lots more parts that he needed to ! But he put all the bits nicely in a plastic bag to make sure nothing got lost.
So I will try to put it all back in one piece...
Inside, of special interest... look at the wafer switch / attenuator with tons of high precision flat wire-wound resistors ! Gorgeous

And there is a miniature electro-mechanical "chopper" switch/relay as well. I hope it works fine or I am screwed, good luck finding a replacement for this thing I guess...
The transformer looks "mundane" though : it doesn't have a nice painted Tek blue stamped cover on top. Oh well...
Front handle oozes quality, a nice cast alloy part.
Will try to find a moment to play with it this week-end. Clean it best I can, re-assemble it, check the wiring and health of the transformer, add a fuse holder, fit a Euro cord so I can power it up to test it. I guess it will be a perfect excuse to use my newly acquired variac. Will start at 120V and see what comes out... before I dare to give it the full 240V.