On Friday 01 May 2015 12:00:40 Mark Wendt wrote: > On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 11:08 AM, Gene Heskett <ghesk...@wdtv.com> wrote: > > > Never say never. I own a set of them there input attenuators, as > > > well as almost all the gear required to calibration most Tek > > > analog scopes, up to, and including the 7104 1 GHz mainframe. > > > > How deep are your pockets? [...] > I'm talking about guys like me out there that collect "vintage" Tek > stuff relatively inexpensively from Ebay, hamfests, Craigslist and > other sources, and they are malfunctioning, repair them. And then run > them through the performance checks and calibrate if necessary. My > calibrations don't carry certs, but the scope will end up close enough > for gummint work, or for that matter, just about any shop work you or > I would do.
Touche' > And then there are the amateur metrologists out there who have full-up > cal labs in their shop, called the volt-nuts and time-nuts (I > unashamedly admit to being on both those mailing lists... ;-) ) will > cal your measuring equipment for you. > > I've got close to a dozen different Tek scopes from an SC502 TM50x > mainframe plugin up to a 7854 four-bay mainframe which does waveform > calculations and has digital storage. Power draw? > All are quite repairable should anything break. > > There are a few Tek products with almost unobtanium proprietary chips > in them, but I avoid those. None of the scopes I have have those > parts. How does one discern that? > > > And there are quite a few shops out there that will cal the scopes > > > with certs if you require them too. > > > > Which is why I asked if you had really deep pockets. We have been > > frugal so I could do it, once. But I would never hear the end of it > > for paying 3 or 4 grand to calibrate a 99 dollar (+ ship, that thing > > must weigh 35 lbs) ebay scope. For under a $500 bill you can own a > > 2ghz digital sampler that masquerades as a 200Mhz, dual trace scope, > > with a full color display 2x the size of the teks, and 10x brighter. > > And weighs 2 lbs & change. > > No need for deep pockets, as I mentioned above. They aren't Tek. > They're guys like me that enjoy playing around with the vintage > scopes, and have built labs for repair and calibration. > > As I mentioned before, I can repair and calibrate a scope close enough > (without certs) for pretty much any use I, or just about anybody else > on this list would have. We aren't running NIST labs, creating > satellites, or stuff like that, though as I mentioned previously, > there are guys out there that can cal your gear and back it up with > NIST certs. > > > The beginning of the end for tek was when they went public, then > > bought, or was bought, by the Grass Valley Group, both of which made > > top of the line test and production video gear IN THEIR DAY. Then > > they rested on their 1980 laurals. Today, they are both history, > > having been surpassed in the night by people whose names you may > > never have heard of, but who WILL give you the state of the art > > tools you need today, at a reasonable asking price. > > > > I gotta say it, Mark, that 2015 morning coffee smells pretty darned > > good from here. The 1985 version? Gah, its hopelessly burnt > > sitting on the back burner that long. > > So, perhaps there's a spot in your shop that requires 20 GHz+ > bandwidth digital scopes, VNA's, spectrum analyzers and such that cost > well over $20k a piece? I gotta see your shop! ;-) Nope, that recent Chinese digital is the best I can drag out to impress the frogs with. I have easily impressed frogs here in WV though. :) > Let's face it. A 500 MHz analog scope is way overkill for pretty much > anything you, I or anyone else on this list will do in their shops. +10 at least, Mark. A 50mhz quad trace would do anything we need to do, if they made it. That was one of the reasons I bought that newer (then) Hitachi for the tv station, it takes a quad trace scope to setup a DVC-PRO deck after replacing a head drum/motor assembly. And you do that fairly frequently since head life is sub 2.5k hours run time in the average editing booth. Its also fragile as hell when being cleaned. Those, the first of the truly digital tape decks, caused a whole generation of wannabe techs to be needed to keep them running well. I couldn't hire them for any amount of money, we had by then collected the cream of the tech minded people available locally, so I wound up doing it all. Half the reason I retired at about 66.75 yo. Problem solved when they converted the next generation cameras to interchangeable hard drives as a recording medium. Sealed environment=20x more dependable. The head assembly at $2000+, vs a $200 hard drive box anyone could plug in. With longer recording time than the tape ever gave. Whats not to love? Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ One dashboard for servers and applications across Physical-Virtual-Cloud Widest out-of-the-box monitoring support with 50+ applications Performance metrics, stats and reports that give you Actionable Insights Deep dive visibility with transaction tracing using APM Insight. http://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/clk/290420510;117567292;y _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
