Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[lists]

I have both, but the HP is bigger than a breadbox. Way bigger. ;-) 

You don't know at how many used ones I saw before I found one with the pods!

The deal with Rigol is expectations (at least mine) are low, so when it works, 
yippie. 

I'm not so sure I'd want the Rigol to be my only scope. But I am doing 
something that needs operation in the field. I have a commercial grade true 
sine inverter and AGM.

-Original Message-
From: cfo 
Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2012 21:05:26 
To: 
Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement

Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

On Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:40:19 +, lists-ATaFeEbBpG8qDJ6do+/SaQ wrote:

> I have the D version. What exactly doesn't work on the logic analyzer? I
> haven't flogged that port. The rest of the scope works well. The PC
> interface is messy on win 7 64 bit, but as I staed before, China runs on
> bootleg win XP.
> 
> The infamous price break on the E version happened about two days after
> I bought the D version. Prior to the price drop, the added cost for the
> logic analyzer wasn't much. With the price drop, it may not pay to get
> the D version.
> 

I might have been a bit hasty there (sorry).

It was the older C model had problems with their analyzer , and Rigol 
never fixed that. 
So it was assumed that the errors might never have been fixed , and was 
present in the D's.
http://hackaday.com/2010/03/10/50mhz-to-100mhz-scope-conversion/comment-
page-1/#comment-129345

But it's my understanding that there is no protocol decoding in the D's , 
so i'd still suggest an external LA.

CFO


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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[cfo]

On Thu, 19 Apr 2012 17:40:19 +, lists-ATaFeEbBpG8qDJ6do+/SaQ wrote:

> I have the D version. What exactly doesn't work on the logic analyzer? I
> haven't flogged that port. The rest of the scope works well. The PC
> interface is messy on win 7 64 bit, but as I staed before, China runs on
> bootleg win XP.
> 
> The infamous price break on the E version happened about two days after
> I bought the D version. Prior to the price drop, the added cost for the
> logic analyzer wasn't much. With the price drop, it may not pay to get
> the D version.
> 

I might have been a bit hasty there (sorry).

It was the older C model had problems with their analyzer , and Rigol 
never fixed that. 
So it was assumed that the errors might never have been fixed , and was 
present in the D's.
http://hackaday.com/2010/03/10/50mhz-to-100mhz-scope-conversion/comment-
page-1/#comment-129345

But it's my understanding that there is no protocol decoding in the D's , 
so i'd still suggest an external LA.

CFO


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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[lists]

I have the D version. What exactly doesn't work on the logic analyzer? I 
haven't flogged that port. The rest of the scope works well. The PC interface 
is messy on win 7 64 bit, but as I staed before, China runs on bootleg win XP. 

The infamous price break on the E version happened about two days after I 
bought the D version. Prior to the price drop, the added cost for the logic 
analyzer wasn't much. With the price drop, it may not pay to get the D version. 

-Original Message-
From: cfo 
Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:44:45 
To: 
Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement

Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

On Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:54:35 +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:

> On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:48:58 + (UTC) cfo
>  wrote:
> 
>> Have you tried here ?
>> http://www.batronix.com/shop/index.html
> 
> Nope, i haven't. These prices look much more sane! Thanks a lot!
> 
>   Attila Kinali

Ohh Btw: Don't get the 'D version (The built in Logic Analyzer is Buggy)


CFo


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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[cfo]

On Thu, 19 Apr 2012 08:54:35 +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:

> On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:48:58 + (UTC) cfo
>  wrote:
> 
>> Have you tried here ?
>> http://www.batronix.com/shop/index.html
> 
> Nope, i haven't. These prices look much more sane! Thanks a lot!
> 
>   Attila Kinali

Ohh Btw: Don't get the 'D version (The built in Logic Analyzer is Buggy)


CFo


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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Attila Kinali]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:48:58 + (UTC)
cfo  wrote:

> Have you tried here ?
> http://www.batronix.com/shop/index.html

Nope, i haven't. These prices look much more sane!
Thanks a lot!

Attila Kinali

-- 
The trouble with you, Shev, is you don't say anything until you've saved
up a whole truckload of damned heavy brick arguments and then you dump
them all out and never look at the bleeding body mangled beneath the heap
-- Tirin, The Dispossessed, U. Le Guin

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[cfo]

On Wed, 18 Apr 2012 00:22:17 +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:


> 
> Then again, the rigol scopes i found at the local representative cost
> only 20% less than a Tek or Agilent in the same BW/channel class...
> which is kind of unexpected.
> 
>   Attila Kinali

Have you tried here ?
http://www.batronix.com/shop/index.html

CFO


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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[cfo]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:27:32 -0400, John Ackermann N8UR wrote:


> 
> It works well, but one thing that annoys me is a flicker on the screen
> at fast (less than a few microsecond) sweep speeds.  I emailed Rigol US
> about it, but never had a response so don't know if it's normal or not.
>   My Tek 2012 (almost identical form factor as the Rigol, by the way)
> doesn't show the flicker.

That flicker is a known issue with one of the firmware revisions.
Solutions exists on eevblog.

I have 2 rigols 50Mhz (ds1052e) & 100Mhz (ds1102e), and a TEK TDS-320.
After i got the rigols , i hardly ever turn on the TEK.
(Earprotection required when the TEK is on , and i just turn it on if i 
doubt the rigols , witch has been wrong until now).


I like the rigols , and after it became "publicly known" that the 50Mhz 
and the 100Mhz was same hardware. Rigol dropped the price on the 
ds1102e , to around +50$ , compared to the ds1052e.
The ds1052e was limited to 50Mhz by it's model number in the firmware , 
but 2 simple commands via USB or RS-232. Would change the model & serial 
number , and on next boot you had a 1102e.

Rigol has tried to prevent that in newer firmwares , but the guys at 
eevblog keeps modding firmwares , so you're allowed to downgrade to the 
version that can change the model & SN.

That said , today i'd prob. pay the +50$ for an "original" 100Mhz.



On the "More expensive scopes" , i have seen several.
Choosing Hameg scopes instead of HP , due to function & prices.

http://jeelabs.org/2011/12/21/getting-an-oscilloscope-part-2/
http://jeelabs.org/2011/12/22/my-scope-story-conclusion/
http://jeelabs.org/2012/04/06/hameg-scope-update/


CFO - Tnut Beginner Denmark


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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[J. Forster]

That's another reason you want to use a Tek 600 series (or other) display
for X-Y work. The axes are identical and the Z axis has high BW.

-John

===


> One issue with X-Y mode on analog scopes is the different bandwidth of the
> two signal paths. Do not expect to have amplitude or phase fidelity within
> the vertical bandwidth. 1/10th of it is probably the best you can hope
> for.
>
> In that regard, DSOs with all their quirks are more symmetrical since
> those I have seen do this actually use the two vertical channels, so the
> bandwidth is matched.
>
> Didier KO4BB
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...
>
> -Original Message-
> From: "Marvin E. Gozum" 
> Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
> Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2012 07:29:00
> To: ; 
> Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
>   
> Subject: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes
>
> XY quality:
>
> Many DSO have had slow wfms/sec or update rates.
> Its a reason Agilent touts its new fast rates in their new scopes.
> Here's a test XY mode "youscope" test app on an analog, Agilent
> Infiniivison and Rigol 1052e for comparison:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxlCoKN4W7c
>
>
> Mpts on timebase:
> More memory is always good but it may not be so on low end scopes as
> it eats refresh rates.
>
> used Tek scope:
> Old scopes are always a gamble, some odds are worse than others.  If
> you can risk worse case and have to repair it, and can do so, have
> the space for it, it likely will do better than any low end Chinese scope.
>
> In the end, I think the Chinese label scopes raise the bar on new
> entry level DSO, opposed to the existing leaders.  But one can't
> expect too much from them.  Only Rigol provides 1 GHz bandwidth to
> date, just at the low end of the top tier models by Agilent, LeCroy and
> Tek.
>
> Will they catch up soon?  Dunno, I presume manufacturers have wised
> up on IP theft, and won't be giving it away as in past 20 years, to
> Chinese industry.
>
>
> http://readingjimwilliams.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
>>At 01:51 PM 4/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
>>
>> >There is a rumor that one also needs an analog scope.
>>
>>Where analog scopes generally win is in X-Y mode, most digitals I've
>>seen suck at that.
>>
>>
>>At 06:44 PM 4/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
>>>
>>>OK. IMO, there is another, perhas a more important, issue  memory
>>> depth.
>>
> To bring this full circle, a friend bought a very clean, working 465 for
> $50 at MIT.
>
>
>
>
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[shalimr9]

One issue with X-Y mode on analog scopes is the different bandwidth of the two 
signal paths. Do not expect to have amplitude or phase fidelity within the 
vertical bandwidth. 1/10th of it is probably the best you can hope for.

In that regard, DSOs with all their quirks are more symmetrical since those I 
have seen do this actually use the two vertical channels, so the bandwidth is 
matched.

Didier KO4BB

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...

-Original Message-
From: "Marvin E. Gozum" 
Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2012 07:29:00 
To: ; 
Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement

Subject: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

XY quality:

Many DSO have had slow wfms/sec or update rates.
Its a reason Agilent touts its new fast rates in their new scopes.
Here's a test XY mode "youscope" test app on an analog, Agilent 
Infiniivison and Rigol 1052e for comparison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxlCoKN4W7c


Mpts on timebase:
More memory is always good but it may not be so on low end scopes as 
it eats refresh rates.

used Tek scope:
Old scopes are always a gamble, some odds are worse than others.  If 
you can risk worse case and have to repair it, and can do so, have 
the space for it, it likely will do better than any low end Chinese scope.

In the end, I think the Chinese label scopes raise the bar on new 
entry level DSO, opposed to the existing leaders.  But one can't 
expect too much from them.  Only Rigol provides 1 GHz bandwidth to 
date, just at the low end of the top tier models by Agilent, LeCroy and Tek.

Will they catch up soon?  Dunno, I presume manufacturers have wised 
up on IP theft, and won't be giving it away as in past 20 years, to 
Chinese industry.


http://readingjimwilliams.blogspot.com/



>At 01:51 PM 4/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
>
> >There is a rumor that one also needs an analog scope.
>
>Where analog scopes generally win is in X-Y mode, most digitals I've
>seen suck at that.
>
>
>At 06:44 PM 4/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
>>
>>OK. IMO, there is another, perhas a more important, issue  memory depth.
>
To bring this full circle, a friend bought a very clean, working 465 for
$50 at MIT.




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[time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Marvin E. Gozum]

XY quality:

Many DSO have had slow wfms/sec or update rates.
Its a reason Agilent touts its new fast rates in their new scopes.
Here's a test XY mode "youscope" test app on an analog, Agilent 
Infiniivison and Rigol 1052e for comparison:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxlCoKN4W7c


Mpts on timebase:
More memory is always good but it may not be so on low end scopes as 
it eats refresh rates.


used Tek scope:
Old scopes are always a gamble, some odds are worse than others.  If 
you can risk worse case and have to repair it, and can do so, have 
the space for it, it likely will do better than any low end Chinese scope.


In the end, I think the Chinese label scopes raise the bar on new 
entry level DSO, opposed to the existing leaders.  But one can't 
expect too much from them.  Only Rigol provides 1 GHz bandwidth to 
date, just at the low end of the top tier models by Agilent, LeCroy and Tek.


Will they catch up soon?  Dunno, I presume manufacturers have wised 
up on IP theft, and won't be giving it away as in past 20 years, to 
Chinese industry.



http://readingjimwilliams.blogspot.com/




At 01:51 PM 4/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:

>There is a rumor that one also needs an analog scope.

Where analog scopes generally win is in X-Y mode, most digitals I've
seen suck at that.


At 06:44 PM 4/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:


OK. IMO, there is another, perhas a more important, issue  memory depth.



To bring this full circle, a friend bought a very clean, working 465 for
$50 at MIT.




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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Bob Camp]

Hi

Having carried fresh baked bread in the opposite direction and teletype 
machines as luggage …. you probably can get away with it.

Bob

On Apr 18, 2012, at 5:26 AM, Attila Kinali wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:58:10 -0700
> Said Jackson  wrote:
> 
>> Almost worth flying to NYC for the weekend from Switzerland and checking in 
>> the scope as luggage on way back..
> 
> Yeah.. If i knew that i'd get a usable scope and would get it back in one
> piece i probably would do that...
> 
> 
>   Attila Kinali
> -- 
> The trouble with you, Shev, is you don't say anything until you've saved
> up a whole truckload of damned heavy brick arguments and then you dump
> them all out and never look at the bleeding body mangled beneath the heap
>   -- Tirin, The Dispossessed, U. Le Guin
> 
> ___
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Attila Kinali]

On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:58:10 -0700
Said Jackson  wrote:

> Almost worth flying to NYC for the weekend from Switzerland and checking in 
> the scope as luggage on way back..

Yeah.. If i knew that i'd get a usable scope and would get it back in one
piece i probably would do that...


Attila Kinali
-- 
The trouble with you, Shev, is you don't say anything until you've saved
up a whole truckload of damned heavy brick arguments and then you dump
them all out and never look at the bleeding body mangled beneath the heap
-- Tirin, The Dispossessed, U. Le Guin

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[J. Forster]

> John
> I wonder what that same engineer would think when I used to link 2 453's
> together when trouble shooting problems on and optical character reader
> using a crt and pmt's to scan the document.

A Flying Spot scanner is entirely legitimate. I'd use a 600 series monitor
though. There ia a Dutch "artist" that uses such a setup as a scene
generator for a complex NATO (?) RADAR.

> Pardon my ignorance  but what is deep memory? Please have mercy, I come
> from the days of 64k was wow!

It amazing what DEC, DG and others did with 64kW. Now you can barely look
at a web page with <512 MB.

The Tek RTD-710A has 10 nS memory in 64 MW blocks. That's deep, IMO. I'd
think a few Meg would be helpful.

Best,

-John

===
> Thanks
>
> Ewing (Rix) Seacord
> K2AVP/4/499
> eseac...@verizon.net
>
> 845-628-0892 Home
> 914-262-9186 Cell
> 914-233-3886 Skype Notebook
>
>
> On 4/17/2012 10:43 AM, J. Forster wrote:
>> Sometime, just for fun, I'd like to get a Tek sales 'engineer' in to
>> demo
>> his latest, hideously expensive, digital toy and compare the display to
>> a
>> 453 from 1965 on a WW II LORAN-A simulator that works with- gasp- vacuum
>> tubes.
>>
>> Just for laughs, of course.
>>
>> -John
>>
>>
>
>



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Rix Seacord]

John
I wonder what that same engineer would think when I used to link 2 453's 
together when trouble shooting problems on and optical character reader 
using a crt and pmt's to scan the document.
Pardon my ignorance  but what is deep memory? Please have mercy, I come 
from the days of 64k was wow!

Thanks

Ewing (Rix) Seacord
K2AVP/4/499
eseac...@verizon.net

845-628-0892 Home
914-262-9186 Cell
914-233-3886 Skype Notebook


On 4/17/2012 10:43 AM, J. Forster wrote:

Sometime, just for fun, I'd like to get a Tek sales 'engineer' in to demo
his latest, hideously expensive, digital toy and compare the display to a
453 from 1965 on a WW II LORAN-A simulator that works with- gasp- vacuum
tubes.

Just for laughs, of course.

-John




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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Said Jackson]

Almost worth flying to NYC for the weekend from Switzerland and checking in the 
scope as luggage on way back..

Sent From iPhone

On Apr 17, 2012, at 15:22, Attila Kinali  wrote:

> On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:01:49 -0400 (EDT)
> saidj...@aol.com wrote:
> 
>> It's a bit more than a Rigol, but for around $2200 you can get the  
>> mainframe, two 21A plug ins, three FET probes, and as  a side-feature the 
>> use as a 
>> boat anchor..
> 
> The problem for me is, that those are not available in europe.
> Or shipping costs as much as the scope itself. As i said, there
> is no surplus market in europe. At least none worth mentioning.
> 
> Then again, the rigol scopes i found at the local representative cost
> only 20% less than a Tek or Agilent in the same BW/channel class...
> which is kind of unexpected.
> 
>Attila Kinali
> 
> -- 
> Why does it take years to find the answers to
> the questions one should have asked long ago?
> 
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[gary]

You can buy Rigol from Chinese vendors on ebay. It doesn't pay to do 
this in the US since they are well distributed, but I have read posts on 
sci.engineering.design about direct from China purchases.




On 4/17/2012 3:22 PM, Attila Kinali wrote:

On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:01:49 -0400 (EDT)
saidj...@aol.com wrote:


It's a bit more than a Rigol, but for around $2200 you can get the
mainframe, two 21A plug ins, three FET probes, and as  a side-feature the use 
as a
boat anchor..


The problem for me is, that those are not available in europe.
Or shipping costs as much as the scope itself. As i said, there
is no surplus market in europe. At least none worth mentioning.

Then again, the rigol scopes i found at the local representative cost
only 20% less than a Tek or Agilent in the same BW/channel class...
which is kind of unexpected.

Attila Kinali



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Don Latham]

Timestamp is good, but ping-pong circular buffers let you look at
precoursers to the trigger event if any, and loads one buffer at a time
to mass storage with accompanying metadata, including the timestamp.

Jim Lux
> On 4/17/12 7:55 AM, John Lofgren wrote:
>> One feature of the Agilent and Rohde scopes (maybe Tek, too?) that can
>> help in some situations is segmented memory.  It allows you to capture
>> periodic or random events with the full sample rate but to ignore all
>> the dead time between events.  For each trigger it stores one sweep
>> with a time stamp.  When you want to look at the record you can roll
>> back through memory and look at each individual event with full
>> resolution.
>>
>> This isn't a cure-all because the time stamps will have limited
>> resolution and some amount of jitter, but it can be helpful in some
>> applications.  It also assumes that you know what you're looking for
>> and can trigger on it :)
>>
>
>
> Yes, this was a tek..it does the same thing (called "fast frame" in
> their manual) and the trigger time stamps were actually high resolution
> (higher than the sample rate).
>
>
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-- 
"Neither the voice of authority nor the weight of reason and argument
are as significant as experiment, for thence comes quiet to the mind."
R. Bacon
"If you don't know what it is, don't poke it."
Ghost in the Shell


Dr. Don Latham AJ7LL
Six Mile Systems LLP
17850 Six Mile Road
POB 134
Huson, MT, 59846
VOX 406-626-4304
www.lightningforensics.com
www.sixmilesystems.com



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Jim Lux]

On 4/17/12 7:55 AM, John Lofgren wrote:

One feature of the Agilent and Rohde scopes (maybe Tek, too?) that can help in 
some situations is segmented memory.  It allows you to capture periodic or 
random events with the full sample rate but to ignore all the dead time between 
events.  For each trigger it stores one sweep with a time stamp.  When you want 
to look at the record you can roll back through memory and look at each 
individual event with full resolution.

This isn't a cure-all because the time stamps will have limited resolution and 
some amount of jitter, but it can be helpful in some applications.  It also 
assumes that you know what you're looking for and can trigger on it :)




Yes, this was a tek..it does the same thing (called "fast frame" in 
their manual) and the trigger time stamps were actually high resolution 
(higher than the sample rate).



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Attila Kinali]

On Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:01:49 -0400 (EDT)
saidj...@aol.com wrote:

> It's a bit more than a Rigol, but for around $2200 you can get the  
> mainframe, two 21A plug ins, three FET probes, and as  a side-feature the use 
> as a 
> boat anchor..

The problem for me is, that those are not available in europe.
Or shipping costs as much as the scope itself. As i said, there
is no surplus market in europe. At least none worth mentioning.

Then again, the rigol scopes i found at the local representative cost
only 20% less than a Tek or Agilent in the same BW/channel class...
which is kind of unexpected.

Attila Kinali

-- 
Why does it take years to find the answers to
the questions one should have asked long ago?

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Azelio Boriani]

Right. I'll try to do the same: locating a 54717 to rent.

On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 8:52 PM,  wrote:

> Haven't run into that battery problem.. but rented the 51717 from an Ebay
> offerer for low $$ in the past.
>
> I simply sent him an email saying, "I see you are selling that unit in your
>  ebay store, can I rent it from you for a week"?
>
> And he did..
>
> I did have a power supply go bad, and simply bought an 83480A digital comm
> analyzer for about $200 on Ebay, that has the same exact platform, and one
> can  re-use the parts on the 54720D (power, monitor, etc etc).
>
> That entire unit came cheaper by margin than trying to buy just the  power
> supply itself.
>
> bye,
> Said
>
>
> In a message dated 4/17/2012 03:38:41 Pacific Daylight Time,
> azelio.bori...@screen.it writes:
>
> Good,  the HP54720. We have one but, unfortunately, lost the calibration
> (backup  battery dead). Now it need the HP51717 to complete the
> calibration.
> So be  warned not to let the backup battery go flat: replace it trying to
> supply,  with a diode, the NVRAM.
>
>
> ___
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to
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>
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[shalimr9]

True, the LeCroy I have has +/- trigger, which is sometimes invaluable and very 
hard to emulate if your scope does not have that feature.

Didier KO4BB

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...

-Original Message-
From: Tom Knox 
Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2012 08:33:35 
To: 
Subject: RE: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes


I also like the LeCroy I have because of the deep memory, but I also find the 
advanced trigger options are equally important in capturing many events. 

Thomas Knox



> To: j...@quikus.com; time-nuts@febo.com
> From: shali...@gmail.com
> Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:56:43 +
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes
> 
> I agree that memory depth is an under appreciated parameter, but even 2,500 
> points like what's available on the cheap Tek scopes is quite useful. 
> 
> On the other hand, I had a few LeCroy with 50k deep memories and there are 
> cases where that is very useful too. I can't imagine real life use cases when 
> I would need multiple MB. It would be nice to have but seldom used.
> 
> One issue is that most DSOs don't have displays that let you take advantage 
> of the higher memory depth other than by letting you zoom in on a narrow time 
> window. I have found that on the TDS 200 and 2000 series, downloading the 
> data to a PC will let you display and print higher resolution pictures and I 
> wrote a utility to do that.
> 
> Didier KO4BB
> 
> Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: "J. Forster" 
> Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
> Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:58:09 
> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
> Reply-To: j...@quikus.com, Discussion of precise time and frequency 
> measurement
>   
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes
> 
> OK. IMO, there is another, perhas a more important, issue  memory depth.
> 
> Most digital scopes I've seen, and some LAs too, just don't have enough
> depth for my taste, so they undersample and guess.
> 
> Tek did make the RTD-710A high speed transient data digitizer that had 64
> MB of 12 (?) bit RAM. That is beginning to be useful, IMO.
> 
> -John
> 
> ==
> 
> 
> > Sorry john, that's more what I meant, by accuracy and precision I imply
> > its faithful to the signal you choose to examine, free of artifacts
> > induced by the scopes timebase or vertical amp, but with DSOs its limited
> > by Nyquist sampling rules.
> >
> > Thus, sampling rate is as important a feature as a scopes rated bandwidth.
> >  For best results, its should be 10x the analog bandwidth.  Below it, one
> > has to beware of artifacts, it worsens as the ratio signal bandwidth/
> > sampling rate < 10.
> >
> >
> > At 14:32 04/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
> > --
> > Message: 2
> > Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:59:16 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: "J. Forster" 
> > To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement"
> > 
> > Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)
> > Message-ID: <56387.12.6.201.2.1334599156.squir...@popaccts.quikus.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
> >
> >> At eevblog.com forum Chinese scopes are a daily discussion for over 3
> >> years.
> >>
> >> In summary, in the <= 100 MHz level they are ...
> > ...snip...
> >>... less.  The criteria for rating them are
> >> measurement accuracy and precision, UI, construction quality and tech
> >> support.
> >
> > Measurement accuracy is a ruse, IMO. I don't care if a 'scope is
> > "accurate". I want the waveform to be a faithful representation of the
> > electrical behaviour of the circuit, free oif sampling artifacts and
> > aliasing.
> >
> > If I want to accurately measure a voltage, I'll use a differential
> > comparator or DVM. Anything timing, an appropriately gated counter.
> >
> > Some years ago Tektronix had a digital camera package with RS-170 output
> > and some aardvaark frame grab board for a PC and a SW package. It was
> > designed to do waveform measurement.
> >
> > I would actually like to know why many seem to feel that a 500 MHz analog
> > 'scope is not "good enough" for what you really do in your lab?
> >
> > The more I hear about 40 GSps or whatever 'scopes, the more I'm convinced
> > it's like comparing car engines or top speed. So, I have a car that'll do
> > 160 MPH and yours will do 172? So what? Ca

Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[SAIDJACK]

Haven't run into that battery problem.. but rented the 51717 from an Ebay  
offerer for low $$ in the past.
 
I simply sent him an email saying, "I see you are selling that unit in your 
 ebay store, can I rent it from you for a week"?
 
And he did..
 
I did have a power supply go bad, and simply bought an 83480A digital comm  
analyzer for about $200 on Ebay, that has the same exact platform, and one 
can  re-use the parts on the 54720D (power, monitor, etc etc).
 
That entire unit came cheaper by margin than trying to buy just the  power 
supply itself.
 
bye,
Said
 
 
In a message dated 4/17/2012 03:38:41 Pacific Daylight Time,  
azelio.bori...@screen.it writes:

Good,  the HP54720. We have one but, unfortunately, lost the calibration
(backup  battery dead). Now it need the HP51717 to complete the calibration.
So be  warned not to let the backup battery go flat: replace it trying to
supply,  with a diode, the NVRAM.


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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[J. Forster]

That's called 'progress'. A full employment pretext for programmers. eBay
is worse. They just won't leave it alone.

If it works, don't 'fix' it!!

YMMV,

-John





> Must be the reason behind the puzzling menus of Microsoft Office 2007 and
> up...
>
> Everything requires one or two more clicks than the 2003 vintage.
>
> Didier KO4BB
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...
>
> -Original Message-
> From: Scott McGrath 
> Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
> Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:33:36
> To: j...@quikus.com; Discussion of precise time and
> frequencymeasurement
> Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
>       
> Cc: Discussion of precise time and frequency
> measurement
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re:  LORAN-C at MIT)
>
> Chinese scopes and menus
>
> In modern asian culture it's a highly valued skill to be able to memorize
> menu selections which are deeply nested And many asian designs actually
> increase the number of menus to cater to this
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 16, 2012, at 11:03 AM, "J. Forster"  wrote:
>
>> I often smile secretly at those who tout the latest asian stuff. It may
>> be
>> small, light, and look like a 'puter, but it doesn't compare for bench
>> use
>> to a Tek 7000 series similar vintage portables.
>>
>> Going through layer after layer of ever more obtuse menus is just not
>> 'user friendly' to me. Maybe it is to the designers, because they are
>> used
>> to a 10,000+ character alphabet?
>>
>> -John
>>
>> 
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 09:46:27AM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
>>>>> scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will
>>>> make
>>>>> buying boat anchors a thing of the past.
>>>>
>>>> What's the quality of those chinese scopes?
>>>
>>> I never had the opportunity to use good old Tek, HP or Fluke
>>> instruments,
>>> because I never had access to them, so when I begun to buy instruments
>>> for
>>> myself, I was completely unbiased and I looked to the price and spec
>>> sheets
>>> more than the maker.
>>>
>>> To start, I wanted to replace my very very old (but very good) analog
>>> multimeter, so I bought an handheld Metex digital multimer. I choose
>>> what
>>> was
>>> then their top item with thermocouple and PC connectivity.
>>> I had soon to give it away for free to a friend (who needed a wire
>>> continuity
>>> beeper) and I bought a Fluke 177. It costed me even more, it has not PC
>>> connectivity and thermocouple, but the Metex was completely unuseable
>>> while the
>>> Fluke is very good.
>>>
>>> Then it was the time for a scope, a function generator and a lab power
>>> supply.
>>> I bought all the three from Instek. The scope was the GDS-820S and as
>>> soon
>>> as I
>>> had the opportunity, I sold it and bought an Agilent DSO3062A. This
>>> Agilent too
>>> is very entry-level, the plastic case cracks easily, in general the
>>> quality is
>>> not near the level the other Agilent instruments I late bought (like
>>> the
>>> 34401A) but the Instek was unuseable while the Agilent is ok.
>>> (I still own the function generator and the power supply: being not
>>> precision
>>> items they are useable... but for precision I bought an used Wavetek
>>> generator)
>>>
>>> To sum it up, my experience is that good instruments are unvaluable,
>>> for
>>> work
>>> as well for hobby (for hobby it's even more important, because it's
>>> supposed
>>> you should enjoy doing it!)
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> Andrea Baldoni
>>>
>>> ___
>>> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
>>> To unsubscribe, go to
>>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>>> and follow the instructions there.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ___
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>> and follow the instructions there.
>
> ___
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Roberto Barrios]

Please, please, do not tell stories like that regarding the radar to be used 
to land on Mars. It makes me feel so sad, and my life so uninteresting...


That was a joke, I want more of that !!

By the way, I was trying to keeping it secret but as Robert just explained, 
the Agilent 546XX are s nice to use. You won't see that on the specs 
(the waveforms/sec display maybe) but it is a joy to use. I discarded other 
TEK, RIGOL and LECROY and I am only keeping this one. It simply does not get 
in the way of your work in any way. I hope prices do not skyrocket because 
of this two posts...


Regards,
Roberto EB4EQA

-Original Message- 
From: Jim Lux

Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 4:27 PM
To: time-nuts@febo.com
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

On 4/17/12 6:56 AM, shali...@gmail.com wrote:
I agree that memory depth is an under appreciated parameter, but even 
2,500 points like what's available on the cheap Tek scopes is quite 
useful.


On the other hand, I had a few LeCroy with 50k deep memories and there are 
cases where that is very useful too. I can't imagine real life use cases 
when I would need multiple MB. It would be nice to have but seldom used.




oddly enough, I had a case where very deep memory was useful last fall.
 It was an issue with logic that was switching from one clock source to
another where the clocks were orders of magnitude different frequency
(10Hz and 300kHz or something like that), and it was the relative timing
of the edges that was important, so you needed a bunch of cycles of the
low frequency clock (i.e. record length of half a second or so), but
enough samples to see the timing of the 300kHz at the same time.

Another deep memory use was when I used a fast 20GHz sample rate Tek
scope a few years back (2007) debugging a radar target simulator (for
the landing radar that's going to be used to land on Mars in August) and
deep buffers were nice there, because we essentially needed to capture
multiple pulses that were 4 ns to several microseconds long.   The
requirement was that the delta phase (and time) of successive pulses be
within a certain value (the radar used what's known as "two pulse
doppler") following a pre-programmed simulated descent profile.  We also
wanted the pulse timing after the trigger to be accurate to, as I
recall, 0.5 or 1 ns.

The PRF is pretty high, so you don't have time to unload the memory in
between pulses.

So we did something like 500 pulses, captured 16,384 samples at a time
at 20GS/sec to make a dataset of 16 million samples.

You learn a lot about what's hidden in the specs on inexpensive signal
generators like the Agilent E4421B when you start comparing phase for
1600 pulses 1 microsecond apart.

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[shalimr9]

Must be the reason behind the puzzling menus of Microsoft Office 2007 and up...

Everything requires one or two more clicks than the 2003 vintage.

Didier KO4BB

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...

-Original Message-
From: Scott McGrath 
Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:33:36 
To: j...@quikus.com; Discussion of precise time and 
frequencymeasurement
Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement

Cc: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re:  LORAN-C at MIT)

Chinese scopes and menus

In modern asian culture it's a highly valued skill to be able to memorize menu 
selections which are deeply nested And many asian designs actually increase the 
number of menus to cater to this 



Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 16, 2012, at 11:03 AM, "J. Forster"  wrote:

> I often smile secretly at those who tout the latest asian stuff. It may be
> small, light, and look like a 'puter, but it doesn't compare for bench use
> to a Tek 7000 series similar vintage portables.
> 
> Going through layer after layer of ever more obtuse menus is just not
> 'user friendly' to me. Maybe it is to the designers, because they are used
> to a 10,000+ character alphabet?
> 
> -John
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 09:46:27AM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:
>> 
>>>> Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
>>>> scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will
>>> make
>>>> buying boat anchors a thing of the past.
>>> 
>>> What's the quality of those chinese scopes?
>> 
>> I never had the opportunity to use good old Tek, HP or Fluke instruments,
>> because I never had access to them, so when I begun to buy instruments for
>> myself, I was completely unbiased and I looked to the price and spec
>> sheets
>> more than the maker.
>> 
>> To start, I wanted to replace my very very old (but very good) analog
>> multimeter, so I bought an handheld Metex digital multimer. I choose what
>> was
>> then their top item with thermocouple and PC connectivity.
>> I had soon to give it away for free to a friend (who needed a wire
>> continuity
>> beeper) and I bought a Fluke 177. It costed me even more, it has not PC
>> connectivity and thermocouple, but the Metex was completely unuseable
>> while the
>> Fluke is very good.
>> 
>> Then it was the time for a scope, a function generator and a lab power
>> supply.
>> I bought all the three from Instek. The scope was the GDS-820S and as soon
>> as I
>> had the opportunity, I sold it and bought an Agilent DSO3062A. This
>> Agilent too
>> is very entry-level, the plastic case cracks easily, in general the
>> quality is
>> not near the level the other Agilent instruments I late bought (like the
>> 34401A) but the Instek was unuseable while the Agilent is ok.
>> (I still own the function generator and the power supply: being not
>> precision
>> items they are useable... but for precision I bought an used Wavetek
>> generator)
>> 
>> To sum it up, my experience is that good instruments are unvaluable, for
>> work
>> as well for hobby (for hobby it's even more important, because it's
>> supposed
>> you should enjoy doing it!)
>> 
>> Best regards,
>> Andrea Baldoni
>> 
>> ___
>> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
>> To unsubscribe, go to
>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>> and follow the instructions there.
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> ___
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[John Lofgren]

One feature of the Agilent and Rohde scopes (maybe Tek, too?) that can help in 
some situations is segmented memory.  It allows you to capture periodic or 
random events with the full sample rate but to ignore all the dead time between 
events.  For each trigger it stores one sweep with a time stamp.  When you want 
to look at the record you can roll back through memory and look at each 
individual event with full resolution.

This isn't a cure-all because the time stamps will have limited resolution and 
some amount of jitter, but it can be helpful in some applications.  It also 
assumes that you know what you're looking for and can trigger on it :)

-John


-Original Message-
From: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf 
Of Jim Lux
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2012 9:27 AM
To: time-nuts@febo.com
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

On 4/17/12 6:56 AM, shali...@gmail.com wrote:
> I agree that memory depth is an under appreciated parameter, but even 2,500 
> points like what's available on the cheap Tek scopes is quite useful.
>
> On the other hand, I had a few LeCroy with 50k deep memories and there are 
> cases where that is very useful too. I can't imagine real life use cases when 
> I would need multiple MB. It would be nice to have but seldom used.
>

oddly enough, I had a case where very deep memory was useful last fall. 
  It was an issue with logic that was switching from one clock source to 
another where the clocks were orders of magnitude different frequency 
(10Hz and 300kHz or something like that), and it was the relative timing 
of the edges that was important, so you needed a bunch of cycles of the 
low frequency clock (i.e. record length of half a second or so), but 
enough samples to see the timing of the 300kHz at the same time.

Another deep memory use was when I used a fast 20GHz sample rate Tek 
scope a few years back (2007) debugging a radar target simulator (for 
the landing radar that's going to be used to land on Mars in August) and 
deep buffers were nice there, because we essentially needed to capture 
multiple pulses that were 4 ns to several microseconds long.   The 
requirement was that the delta phase (and time) of successive pulses be 
within a certain value (the radar used what's known as "two pulse 
doppler") following a pre-programmed simulated descent profile.  We also 
wanted the pulse timing after the trigger to be accurate to, as I 
recall, 0.5 or 1 ns.

The PRF is pretty high, so you don't have time to unload the memory in 
between pulses.

So we did something like 500 pulses, captured 16,384 samples at a time 
at 20GS/sec to make a dataset of 16 million samples.

You learn a lot about what's hidden in the specs on inexpensive signal 
generators like the Agilent E4421B when you start comparing phase for 
1600 pulses 1 microsecond apart.

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[J. Forster]

Sometime, just for fun, I'd like to get a Tek sales 'engineer' in to demo
his latest, hideously expensive, digital toy and compare the display to a
453 from 1965 on a WW II LORAN-A simulator that works with- gasp- vacuum
tubes.

Just for laughs, of course.

-John

==



> On 4/17/12 7:15 AM, Robert Darlington wrote:
>> I need lots of memory on scopes.  A buddy of mine I worked with in the
>> ultrasound world actually yelled at the Tek product management and
>> asked if they actually *use* oscilloscopes.  The answer was a sheepish
>> no, and yet they felt qualified to develop the products for the
>> company.
>>
>> The cheap Aktakom scope I have has plenty.  10 million samples (you
>> can select less if you want) and will write out to usb thumb drives.
>> It's definitely a toy scope with lots of noise, but it's useful for
>> some things.
>>
>> What we do is send out pulses or chirps and look at what returns.
>> There are tens of millisecond delays between what we send out and what
>> we receive and the echos.With traditional low memory scopes we
>> simply can't get by.  Thankfully Tek is learning that memory is cheap
>> and 2500 samples was hardly sufficient in the 70s, let alone now!
>
>
> Yes, just like in the radar world (really, ultrasound and radar are
> really similar.. same kinds of pulse compression and signal processing)
>
>
> Back in 1998-1999, I was buying digitizer cards from Gage Applied
> Sciences (since acquired by Tek, as it happens), and one of their big
> markets was for ultrasound.  Same for Signatec (another mfr of fast
> digitizer cards for PCs)
>
> Another case where deep memory is nice is when you don't know exactly
> when the signal is going to arrive, it's very low SNR, so you want to
> record a long time, and then go look for the signal later.  But that's
> more a data capture problem than a bench oscilloscope problem.
>
> say you were recording off-the-air GPS signals.  You want to record a
> couple milliseconds, at least (so you get at least 1 code epoch), and
> you need to record at least 10 MHz bandwidth.  That's only, say, 64,000
> samples, but you might want to record a whole 50 bps nav message bit, so
> then you need ot record 40-50 milliseconds, and the record length starts
> to grow.
>
> Again, that's more of a data recording problem than an oscilloscope
> problem.
>
> It's the wideband pulsed waveforms where you want to compare pulse to
> pulse is where deep memory in an oscilloscope is nice.  The digitizer
> cards are ok, but "real oscilloscopes" tend to have better input
> amplifiers and such.
>
>
>
>
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[J. Forster]

> I need lots of memory on scopes.  A buddy of mine I worked with in the
> ultrasound world actually yelled at the Tek product management and
> asked if they actually *use* oscilloscopes.  The answer was a sheepish
> no, and yet they felt qualified to develop the products for the
> company.

Yeah!! That's Danaher-Tek, which is not the REAL Tek. Now it's run by
suits, not engineers.

> The cheap Aktakom scope I have has plenty.  10 million samples (you
> can select less if you want) and will write out to usb thumb drives.
> It's definitely a toy scope with lots of noise, but it's useful for
> some things.
>
> What we do is send out pulses or chirps and look at what returns.
> There are tens of millisecond delays between what we send out and what
> we receive and the echos.With traditional low memory scopes we
> simply can't get by.  Thankfully Tek is learning that memory is cheap
> and 2500 samples was hardly sufficient in the 70s, let alone now!
>
> -Bob

Right. That's exactly my point w/ the LORAN-A stuff. Even to roughly the
same PRI and carrier frequency.

-John




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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[J. Forster]

IMO, memory depth is like trying to do CAD on a standard computer
monitor...  you keep having to switch between the local and global views
to do really anything. I find it annoying in the extreme.

IMO, you need enough memory depth so that you don't get artifacts, like
those in the pics I posted. No 465 would mess up the waveform that way,
and remember, that was of a LORAN-A pulse for a system that was designed
before most of us were born and that ceased operation over 40 years ago...
 not a current design.

-John





> I agree that memory depth is an under appreciated parameter, but even
> 2,500 points like what's available on the cheap Tek scopes is quite
> useful.
>
> On the other hand, I had a few LeCroy with 50k deep memories and there are
> cases where that is very useful too. I can't imagine real life use cases
> when I would need multiple MB. It would be nice to have but seldom used.
>
> One issue is that most DSOs don't have displays that let you take
> advantage of the higher memory depth other than by letting you zoom in on
> a narrow time window. I have found that on the TDS 200 and 2000 series,
> downloading the data to a PC will let you display and print higher
> resolution pictures and I wrote a utility to do that.
>
> Didier KO4BB
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...
>
> -Original Message-
> From: "J. Forster" 
> Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
> Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:58:09
> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency
> measurement
> Reply-To: j...@quikus.com, Discussion of precise time and frequency
> measurement
>   
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes
>
> OK. IMO, there is another, perhas a more important, issue  memory
> depth.
>
> Most digital scopes I've seen, and some LAs too, just don't have enough
> depth for my taste, so they undersample and guess.
>
> Tek did make the RTD-710A high speed transient data digitizer that had 64
> MB of 12 (?) bit RAM. That is beginning to be useful, IMO.
>
> -John
>
> ==
>
>
>> Sorry john, that's more what I meant, by accuracy and precision I imply
>> its faithful to the signal you choose to examine, free of artifacts
>> induced by the scopes timebase or vertical amp, but with DSOs its
>> limited
>> by Nyquist sampling rules.
>>
>> Thus, sampling rate is as important a feature as a scopes rated
>> bandwidth.
>>  For best results, its should be 10x the analog bandwidth.  Below it,
>> one
>> has to beware of artifacts, it worsens as the ratio signal bandwidth/
>> sampling rate < 10.
>>
>>
>> At 14:32 04/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
>> --
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:59:16 -0700 (PDT)
>> From: "J. Forster" 
>> To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement"
>> 
>> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)
>> Message-ID: <56387.12.6.201.2.1334599156.squir...@popaccts.quikus.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>>
>>> At eevblog.com forum Chinese scopes are a daily discussion for over 3
>>> years.
>>>
>>> In summary, in the <= 100 MHz level they are ...
>> ...snip...
>>>... less.  The criteria for rating them are
>>> measurement accuracy and precision, UI, construction quality and tech
>>> support.
>>
>> Measurement accuracy is a ruse, IMO. I don't care if a 'scope is
>> "accurate". I want the waveform to be a faithful representation of the
>> electrical behaviour of the circuit, free oif sampling artifacts and
>> aliasing.
>>
>> If I want to accurately measure a voltage, I'll use a differential
>> comparator or DVM. Anything timing, an appropriately gated counter.
>>
>> Some years ago Tektronix had a digital camera package with RS-170 output
>> and some aardvaark frame grab board for a PC and a SW package. It was
>> designed to do waveform measurement.
>>
>> I would actually like to know why many seem to feel that a 500 MHz
>> analog
>> 'scope is not "good enough" for what you really do in your lab?
>>
>> The more I hear about 40 GSps or whatever 'scopes, the more I'm
>> convinced
>> it's like comparing car engines or top speed. So, I have a car that'll
>> do
>> 160 MPH and yours will do 172? So what? Can you use it? No.
>>
>> YMMV,
>>
>> -John
>>
>>
>> Best Wishes,
>>
>>
>> Marv 

Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Jim Lux]

On 4/17/12 7:15 AM, Robert Darlington wrote:

I need lots of memory on scopes.  A buddy of mine I worked with in the
ultrasound world actually yelled at the Tek product management and
asked if they actually *use* oscilloscopes.  The answer was a sheepish
no, and yet they felt qualified to develop the products for the
company.

The cheap Aktakom scope I have has plenty.  10 million samples (you
can select less if you want) and will write out to usb thumb drives.
It's definitely a toy scope with lots of noise, but it's useful for
some things.

What we do is send out pulses or chirps and look at what returns.
There are tens of millisecond delays between what we send out and what
we receive and the echos.With traditional low memory scopes we
simply can't get by.  Thankfully Tek is learning that memory is cheap
and 2500 samples was hardly sufficient in the 70s, let alone now!



Yes, just like in the radar world (really, ultrasound and radar are 
really similar.. same kinds of pulse compression and signal processing)



Back in 1998-1999, I was buying digitizer cards from Gage Applied 
Sciences (since acquired by Tek, as it happens), and one of their big 
markets was for ultrasound.  Same for Signatec (another mfr of fast 
digitizer cards for PCs)


Another case where deep memory is nice is when you don't know exactly 
when the signal is going to arrive, it's very low SNR, so you want to 
record a long time, and then go look for the signal later.  But that's 
more a data capture problem than a bench oscilloscope problem.


say you were recording off-the-air GPS signals.  You want to record a 
couple milliseconds, at least (so you get at least 1 code epoch), and 
you need to record at least 10 MHz bandwidth.  That's only, say, 64,000 
samples, but you might want to record a whole 50 bps nav message bit, so 
then you need ot record 40-50 milliseconds, and the record length starts 
to grow.


Again, that's more of a data recording problem than an oscilloscope problem.

It's the wideband pulsed waveforms where you want to compare pulse to 
pulse is where deep memory in an oscilloscope is nice.  The digitizer 
cards are ok, but "real oscilloscopes" tend to have better input 
amplifiers and such.





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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Jim Lux]

On 4/17/12 6:56 AM, shali...@gmail.com wrote:

I agree that memory depth is an under appreciated parameter, but even 2,500 
points like what's available on the cheap Tek scopes is quite useful.

On the other hand, I had a few LeCroy with 50k deep memories and there are 
cases where that is very useful too. I can't imagine real life use cases when I 
would need multiple MB. It would be nice to have but seldom used.



oddly enough, I had a case where very deep memory was useful last fall. 
 It was an issue with logic that was switching from one clock source to 
another where the clocks were orders of magnitude different frequency 
(10Hz and 300kHz or something like that), and it was the relative timing 
of the edges that was important, so you needed a bunch of cycles of the 
low frequency clock (i.e. record length of half a second or so), but 
enough samples to see the timing of the 300kHz at the same time.


Another deep memory use was when I used a fast 20GHz sample rate Tek 
scope a few years back (2007) debugging a radar target simulator (for 
the landing radar that's going to be used to land on Mars in August) and 
deep buffers were nice there, because we essentially needed to capture 
multiple pulses that were 4 ns to several microseconds long.   The 
requirement was that the delta phase (and time) of successive pulses be 
within a certain value (the radar used what's known as "two pulse 
doppler") following a pre-programmed simulated descent profile.  We also 
wanted the pulse timing after the trigger to be accurate to, as I 
recall, 0.5 or 1 ns.


The PRF is pretty high, so you don't have time to unload the memory in 
between pulses.


So we did something like 500 pulses, captured 16,384 samples at a time 
at 20GS/sec to make a dataset of 16 million samples.


You learn a lot about what's hidden in the specs on inexpensive signal 
generators like the Agilent E4421B when you start comparing phase for 
1600 pulses 1 microsecond apart.


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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Robert Darlington]

I need lots of memory on scopes.  A buddy of mine I worked with in the
ultrasound world actually yelled at the Tek product management and
asked if they actually *use* oscilloscopes.  The answer was a sheepish
no, and yet they felt qualified to develop the products for the
company.

The cheap Aktakom scope I have has plenty.  10 million samples (you
can select less if you want) and will write out to usb thumb drives.
It's definitely a toy scope with lots of noise, but it's useful for
some things.

What we do is send out pulses or chirps and look at what returns.
There are tens of millisecond delays between what we send out and what
we receive and the echos.With traditional low memory scopes we
simply can't get by.  Thankfully Tek is learning that memory is cheap
and 2500 samples was hardly sufficient in the 70s, let alone now!

-Bob

On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 7:56 AM,   wrote:
> I agree that memory depth is an under appreciated parameter, but even 2,500 
> points like what's available on the cheap Tek scopes is quite useful.
>
> On the other hand, I had a few LeCroy with 50k deep memories and there are 
> cases where that is very useful too. I can't imagine real life use cases when 
> I would need multiple MB. It would be nice to have but seldom used.
>
> One issue is that most DSOs don't have displays that let you take advantage 
> of the higher memory depth other than by letting you zoom in on a narrow time 
> window. I have found that on the TDS 200 and 2000 series, downloading the 
> data to a PC will let you display and print higher resolution pictures and I 
> wrote a utility to do that.
>
> Didier KO4BB
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...
>
> -Original Message-
> From: "J. Forster" 
> Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
> Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:58:09
> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
> Reply-To: j...@quikus.com, Discussion of precise time and frequency 
> measurement
>        
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes
>
> OK. IMO, there is another, perhas a more important, issue  memory depth.
>
> Most digital scopes I've seen, and some LAs too, just don't have enough
> depth for my taste, so they undersample and guess.
>
> Tek did make the RTD-710A high speed transient data digitizer that had 64
> MB of 12 (?) bit RAM. That is beginning to be useful, IMO.
>
> -John
>
> ==
>
>
>> Sorry john, that's more what I meant, by accuracy and precision I imply
>> its faithful to the signal you choose to examine, free of artifacts
>> induced by the scopes timebase or vertical amp, but with DSOs its limited
>> by Nyquist sampling rules.
>>
>> Thus, sampling rate is as important a feature as a scopes rated bandwidth.
>>  For best results, its should be 10x the analog bandwidth.  Below it, one
>> has to beware of artifacts, it worsens as the ratio signal bandwidth/
>> sampling rate < 10.
>>
>>
>> At 14:32 04/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
>> --
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:59:16 -0700 (PDT)
>> From: "J. Forster" 
>> To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement"
>>         
>> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)
>> Message-ID: <56387.12.6.201.2.1334599156.squir...@popaccts.quikus.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>>
>>> At eevblog.com forum Chinese scopes are a daily discussion for over 3
>>> years.
>>>
>>> In summary, in the <= 100 MHz level they are ...
>> ...snip...
>>>... less.  The criteria for rating them are
>>> measurement accuracy and precision, UI, construction quality and tech
>>> support.
>>
>> Measurement accuracy is a ruse, IMO. I don't care if a 'scope is
>> "accurate". I want the waveform to be a faithful representation of the
>> electrical behaviour of the circuit, free oif sampling artifacts and
>> aliasing.
>>
>> If I want to accurately measure a voltage, I'll use a differential
>> comparator or DVM. Anything timing, an appropriately gated counter.
>>
>> Some years ago Tektronix had a digital camera package with RS-170 output
>> and some aardvaark frame grab board for a PC and a SW package. It was
>> designed to do waveform measurement.
>>
>> I would actually like to know why many seem to feel that a 500 MHz analog
>> 'scope is not "good enough" for what you really do in your lab?
>>
>>

Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[shalimr9]

I agree that memory depth is an under appreciated parameter, but even 2,500 
points like what's available on the cheap Tek scopes is quite useful. 

On the other hand, I had a few LeCroy with 50k deep memories and there are 
cases where that is very useful too. I can't imagine real life use cases when I 
would need multiple MB. It would be nice to have but seldom used.

One issue is that most DSOs don't have displays that let you take advantage of 
the higher memory depth other than by letting you zoom in on a narrow time 
window. I have found that on the TDS 200 and 2000 series, downloading the data 
to a PC will let you display and print higher resolution pictures and I wrote a 
utility to do that.

Didier KO4BB

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless thingy while I do other things...

-Original Message-
From: "J. Forster" 
Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:58:09 
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Reply-To: j...@quikus.com, Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
    
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

OK. IMO, there is another, perhas a more important, issue  memory depth.

Most digital scopes I've seen, and some LAs too, just don't have enough
depth for my taste, so they undersample and guess.

Tek did make the RTD-710A high speed transient data digitizer that had 64
MB of 12 (?) bit RAM. That is beginning to be useful, IMO.

-John

==


> Sorry john, that's more what I meant, by accuracy and precision I imply
> its faithful to the signal you choose to examine, free of artifacts
> induced by the scopes timebase or vertical amp, but with DSOs its limited
> by Nyquist sampling rules.
>
> Thus, sampling rate is as important a feature as a scopes rated bandwidth.
>  For best results, its should be 10x the analog bandwidth.  Below it, one
> has to beware of artifacts, it worsens as the ratio signal bandwidth/
> sampling rate < 10.
>
>
> At 14:32 04/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
> --
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:59:16 -0700 (PDT)
> From: "J. Forster" 
> To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement"
> 
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)
> Message-ID: <56387.12.6.201.2.1334599156.squir...@popaccts.quikus.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>
>> At eevblog.com forum Chinese scopes are a daily discussion for over 3
>> years.
>>
>> In summary, in the <= 100 MHz level they are ...
> ...snip...
>>... less.  The criteria for rating them are
>> measurement accuracy and precision, UI, construction quality and tech
>> support.
>
> Measurement accuracy is a ruse, IMO. I don't care if a 'scope is
> "accurate". I want the waveform to be a faithful representation of the
> electrical behaviour of the circuit, free oif sampling artifacts and
> aliasing.
>
> If I want to accurately measure a voltage, I'll use a differential
> comparator or DVM. Anything timing, an appropriately gated counter.
>
> Some years ago Tektronix had a digital camera package with RS-170 output
> and some aardvaark frame grab board for a PC and a SW package. It was
> designed to do waveform measurement.
>
> I would actually like to know why many seem to feel that a 500 MHz analog
> 'scope is not "good enough" for what you really do in your lab?
>
> The more I hear about 40 GSps or whatever 'scopes, the more I'm convinced
> it's like comparing car engines or top speed. So, I have a car that'll do
> 160 MPH and yours will do 172? So what? Can you use it? No.
>
> YMMV,
>
> -John
>
>
> Best Wishes,
>
>
> Marv Gozum, Philadelphia Pa
>
> [ sent via Outlook webApp]
> ___
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
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> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.
>
>



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Azelio Boriani]

Good, the HP54720. We have one but, unfortunately, lost the calibration
(backup battery dead). Now it need the HP51717 to complete the calibration.
So be warned not to let the backup battery go flat: replace it trying to
supply, with a diode, the NVRAM.

On Tue, Apr 17, 2012 at 7:01 AM,  wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> I am very partial to the HP Denali 54720D scope which is available on Ebay
> in varius forms for around $1500.
>
> This $50K+ when-new scope is very easy to use, has many low cost plug ins,
> 8GS/s with up to 2GHz Bandwidth plug ins available, and the amazing 54701A
> FET  probe. Support and spare parts supply are excellent. It's almost
> instantly  on and ready, something I really don't like about the small
> portable
> scopes as  they seem to take forever to boot up.
>
> The plug in I find most useful is the 54721A, with 1.1GHz bandwith, that
> gives two channels plus triggers.
>
> Don't look at the 54720A version, it is about the same price but has less
> performance (BW, memory etc).
>
> It's a bit more than a Rigol, but for around $2200 you can get the
> mainframe, two 21A plug ins, three FET probes, and as  a side-feature the
> use as a
> boat anchor..
>
> The only time I needed to use the manual was when using more obscure
> features such as histogram and FFT features, and then only to get all the
> details of what's possible. Otherwise it's so much easier to use than the
> small
> handheld Tektronix and Lecroy Waveace scopes.
>
> One cool feature is to use the 54701A probe as a FET input probe  for our
> RF spectrum analyzer, using the scope as a probe power supply.  Works
> amazingly well, I've used it up to way past 2GHz.Gives the analyzer
>  0.6pF/100KOhms
> input impedance. The probe is almost indestrucable.
>
> bye,
> Said
>
>
> In a message dated 4/16/2012 19:54:42 Pacific Daylight Time,
> hmur...@megapathdsl.net writes:
>
>
> >  To bring this full circle, a friend bought a very clean, working 465 for
>  $50
> > at MIT.
>
> Did that include probes?  :)
>
> Good  probes are probably worth more than that even without the scope.
>
>
> --
> These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate  spam.
>
>
>
>
> ___
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[SAIDJACK]

Hi guys,
 
I am very partial to the HP Denali 54720D scope which is available on Ebay  
in varius forms for around $1500.
 
This $50K+ when-new scope is very easy to use, has many low cost plug ins,  
8GS/s with up to 2GHz Bandwidth plug ins available, and the amazing 54701A 
FET  probe. Support and spare parts supply are excellent. It's almost 
instantly  on and ready, something I really don't like about the small portable 
scopes as  they seem to take forever to boot up.
 
The plug in I find most useful is the 54721A, with 1.1GHz bandwith, that  
gives two channels plus triggers.
 
Don't look at the 54720A version, it is about the same price but has less  
performance (BW, memory etc).
 
It's a bit more than a Rigol, but for around $2200 you can get the  
mainframe, two 21A plug ins, three FET probes, and as  a side-feature the use 
as a 
boat anchor..
 
The only time I needed to use the manual was when using more obscure  
features such as histogram and FFT features, and then only to get all the  
details of what's possible. Otherwise it's so much easier to use than the small 
 
handheld Tektronix and Lecroy Waveace scopes.
 
One cool feature is to use the 54701A probe as a FET input probe  for our 
RF spectrum analyzer, using the scope as a probe power supply.  Works 
amazingly well, I've used it up to way past 2GHz.Gives the analyzer  
0.6pF/100KOhms 
input impedance. The probe is almost indestrucable.
 
bye,
Said
 
 
In a message dated 4/16/2012 19:54:42 Pacific Daylight Time,  
hmur...@megapathdsl.net writes:


>  To bring this full circle, a friend bought a very clean, working 465 for 
 $50
> at MIT. 

Did that include probes?  :)

Good  probes are probably worth more than that even without the scope.


--  
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate  spam.




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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Hal Murray]

> To bring this full circle, a friend bought a very clean, working 465 for $50
> at MIT. 

Did that include probes?  :)

Good probes are probably worth more than that even without the scope.


-- 
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.




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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Steve Byan]

On Apr 16, 2012, at 10:23 PM, J. Forster wrote:

> To bring this full circle, a friend bought a very clean, working 465 for
> $50 at MIT.

I passed on a clean 454 for $35; I was sorely tempted, but other items had 
priority in my budget.

Didn't see any 7000-series scopes, and not too much in the way of counters. A 
bunch of Racal Dana something-or-others from one of the test equipment dealers, 
but that was about it, other than a non-working HP 5223L.

Best regards,
-Steve

-- 
Steve Byan 
Littleton, MA 01460




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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[J. Forster]

To bring this full circle, a friend bought a very clean, working 465 for
$50 at MIT.

-John



>
> - Original Message -
> From: "gary" 
> To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement"
> 
> Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 7:43 PM
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes
>
>
> That simply is not the case with the Rigol scope. I was able to use it
> without opening the manual.
>
>
> So quick, without looking at the screen, select channel 2 ground
> reference.
> I can do that anytime with the good ol' Tek 465. Guess I will never "like
> or
> prefer" menu driven devices over switch driven functions.
>
> But the Rigol 50 (100) MHz scope for <$400 is a good deal.
>
> Regards,
> Tom
>
>
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[J. Forster]

You may be onto something w/ the cultural thing.

In the US, we buy a toy and just expect it to work right out of the package.

In asia, they might actually read the instructions before unpacking the
hardware.

Have you ever read the user's manual for your SW? I certainly have not,
beyond looking up 'how to '

-John




> Ah but a UI is as much a cultural thing as technical we all learned
> systems which valued a interface which visually displayed all parameters
> both set and ranges on individual controls.
>
>  In Asia where rote memorization and Obedience is valued uses overloaded
> controls with deep menus.  If you are a photographer as I am as well you
> will find modern high end cameras with the same design on their menu
> systems
>
> Ie ISO values will be buried in a shooting menu 2 levels down instead of
> being assigned to a dial or you will be expected to trust the cameras auto
> iso feature ie obiedience to authority
>
> Scott
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 16, 2012, at 8:04 PM, "J. Forster"  wrote:
>
>> IMO, a good UI should be entirely obvious. I learnt to use a Tek 503 in
>> about 1963. Everything after that has been obvious, until the
>> 'puter'scopes.
>>
>> The problem with nested menus is knowing where the dang thing you want
>> is,
>> or worse, that some setting or other even exists.
>>
>> Have you explored all the pull-down menus in your browser or Word, or,
>> worse, Excel or AutoCAD? I know I havn't. An Adventure game is far less
>> opaque, IMO, and the game is designed to decieve.
>>
>> -John
>>
>> 
>>
>>
>>> That simply is not the case with the Rigol scope. I was able to use it
>>> without opening the manual.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 4/16/2012 4:33 PM, Scott McGrath wrote:
 Chinese scopes and menus

 In modern asian culture it's a highly valued skill to be able to
 memorize menu selections which are deeply nested And many asian
 designs
 actually increase the number of menus to cater to this

>>>
>>> ___
>>> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
>>> To unsubscribe, go to
>>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>>> and follow the instructions there.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
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>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>> and follow the instructions there.
>
>



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Scott McGrath]

Yep and sounded like bbs on a tin roof with all the relays in the thing!

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 16, 2012, at 9:22 PM, Michael Blazer  wrote:

> Does anyone remember the HP 1980B Digital O'scope?  This had to be the worst 
> scope UI ever.  There was only one knob and buttons for everything else.
> 
> Mike
> 
> On 4/16/2012 7:04 PM, J. Forster wrote:
>> IMO, a good UI should be entirely obvious. I learnt to use a Tek 503 in
>> about 1963. Everything after that has been obvious, until the
>> 'puter'scopes.
>> 
>> The problem with nested menus is knowing where the dang thing you want is,
>> or worse, that some setting or other even exists.
>> 
>> Have you explored all the pull-down menus in your browser or Word, or,
>> worse, Excel or AutoCAD? I know I havn't. An Adventure game is far less
>> opaque, IMO, and the game is designed to decieve.
>> 
>> -John
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> That simply is not the case with the Rigol scope. I was able to use it
>>> without opening the manual.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On 4/16/2012 4:33 PM, Scott McGrath wrote:
 Chinese scopes and menus
 
 In modern asian culture it's a highly valued skill to be able to
 memorize menu selections which are deeply nested And many asian designs
 actually increase the number of menus to cater to this
 
>>> ___
>>> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
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>>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>>> and follow the instructions there.
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
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>> 
> 
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Tom Miller]

- Original Message - 
From: "gary" 
To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement" 


Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 7:43 PM
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes


That simply is not the case with the Rigol scope. I was able to use it
without opening the manual.


So quick, without looking at the screen, select channel 2 ground reference. 
I can do that anytime with the good ol' Tek 465. Guess I will never "like or 
prefer" menu driven devices over switch driven functions.


But the Rigol 50 (100) MHz scope for <$400 is a good deal.

Regards,
Tom 



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Scott McGrath]

Ah but a UI is as much a cultural thing as technical we all learned systems 
which valued a interface which visually displayed all parameters both set and 
ranges on individual controls.  

 In Asia where rote memorization and Obedience is valued uses overloaded 
controls with deep menus.  If you are a photographer as I am as well you will 
find modern high end cameras with the same design on their menu systems

Ie ISO values will be buried in a shooting menu 2 levels down instead of being 
assigned to a dial or you will be expected to trust the cameras auto iso 
feature ie obiedience to authority

Scott

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 16, 2012, at 8:04 PM, "J. Forster"  wrote:

> IMO, a good UI should be entirely obvious. I learnt to use a Tek 503 in
> about 1963. Everything after that has been obvious, until the
> 'puter'scopes.
> 
> The problem with nested menus is knowing where the dang thing you want is,
> or worse, that some setting or other even exists.
> 
> Have you explored all the pull-down menus in your browser or Word, or,
> worse, Excel or AutoCAD? I know I havn't. An Adventure game is far less
> opaque, IMO, and the game is designed to decieve.
> 
> -John
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> That simply is not the case with the Rigol scope. I was able to use it
>> without opening the manual.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 4/16/2012 4:33 PM, Scott McGrath wrote:
>>> Chinese scopes and menus
>>> 
>>> In modern asian culture it's a highly valued skill to be able to
>>> memorize menu selections which are deeply nested And many asian designs
>>> actually increase the number of menus to cater to this
>>> 
>> 
>> ___
>> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
>> To unsubscribe, go to
>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>> and follow the instructions there.
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Michael Blazer]

Does anyone remember the HP 1980B Digital O'scope?  This had to be the 
worst scope UI ever.  There was only one knob and buttons for everything 
else.


Mike

On 4/16/2012 7:04 PM, J. Forster wrote:

IMO, a good UI should be entirely obvious. I learnt to use a Tek 503 in
about 1963. Everything after that has been obvious, until the
'puter'scopes.

The problem with nested menus is knowing where the dang thing you want is,
or worse, that some setting or other even exists.

Have you explored all the pull-down menus in your browser or Word, or,
worse, Excel or AutoCAD? I know I havn't. An Adventure game is far less
opaque, IMO, and the game is designed to decieve.

-John





That simply is not the case with the Rigol scope. I was able to use it
without opening the manual.



On 4/16/2012 4:33 PM, Scott McGrath wrote:

Chinese scopes and menus

In modern asian culture it's a highly valued skill to be able to
memorize menu selections which are deeply nested And many asian designs
actually increase the number of menus to cater to this


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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Andrea Baldoni]

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 05:51:13PM +, Marvin Gozum wrote:

> FWIW the 3000 series Agilents were rebadged Rigols.  The newer entry levels
> to mid-range scopes are now all designed and built by Agilent in their
> Malaysia plant.

This means two things: I now know why the overall quality is really lower
in respect to other Agilent stuff and, provide that Agilent didn't ask for
more RAM, improved firmware, or other changes, Rigol scopes have a "easy to
crack case" but ok...

I am now curious to try a real Agilent one.

Best regards,
Andrea Baldoni

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[J. Forster]

IMO, a good UI should be entirely obvious. I learnt to use a Tek 503 in
about 1963. Everything after that has been obvious, until the
'puter'scopes.

The problem with nested menus is knowing where the dang thing you want is,
or worse, that some setting or other even exists.

Have you explored all the pull-down menus in your browser or Word, or,
worse, Excel or AutoCAD? I know I havn't. An Adventure game is far less
opaque, IMO, and the game is designed to decieve.

-John




> That simply is not the case with the Rigol scope. I was able to use it
> without opening the manual.
>
>
>
> On 4/16/2012 4:33 PM, Scott McGrath wrote:
>> Chinese scopes and menus
>>
>> In modern asian culture it's a highly valued skill to be able to
>> memorize menu selections which are deeply nested And many asian designs
>> actually increase the number of menus to cater to this
>>
>
> ___
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to
> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.
>
>



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[J. Forster]

Ah! That explains inscruitable VCR menus.

-John

===


> Chinese scopes and menus
>
> In modern asian culture it's a highly valued skill to be able to memorize
> menu selections which are deeply nested And many asian designs actually
> increase the number of menus to cater to this
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Apr 16, 2012, at 11:03 AM, "J. Forster"  wrote:
>
>> I often smile secretly at those who tout the latest asian stuff. It may
>> be
>> small, light, and look like a 'puter, but it doesn't compare for bench
>> use
>> to a Tek 7000 series similar vintage portables.
>>
>> Going through layer after layer of ever more obtuse menus is just not
>> 'user friendly' to me. Maybe it is to the designers, because they are
>> used
>> to a 10,000+ character alphabet?
>>
>> -John
>>
>> 
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 09:46:27AM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:
>>>
> Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
> scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will
 make
> buying boat anchors a thing of the past.

 What's the quality of those chinese scopes?
>>>
>>> I never had the opportunity to use good old Tek, HP or Fluke
>>> instruments,
>>> because I never had access to them, so when I begun to buy instruments
>>> for
>>> myself, I was completely unbiased and I looked to the price and spec
>>> sheets
>>> more than the maker.
>>>
>>> To start, I wanted to replace my very very old (but very good) analog
>>> multimeter, so I bought an handheld Metex digital multimer. I choose
>>> what
>>> was
>>> then their top item with thermocouple and PC connectivity.
>>> I had soon to give it away for free to a friend (who needed a wire
>>> continuity
>>> beeper) and I bought a Fluke 177. It costed me even more, it has not PC
>>> connectivity and thermocouple, but the Metex was completely unuseable
>>> while the
>>> Fluke is very good.
>>>
>>> Then it was the time for a scope, a function generator and a lab power
>>> supply.
>>> I bought all the three from Instek. The scope was the GDS-820S and as
>>> soon
>>> as I
>>> had the opportunity, I sold it and bought an Agilent DSO3062A. This
>>> Agilent too
>>> is very entry-level, the plastic case cracks easily, in general the
>>> quality is
>>> not near the level the other Agilent instruments I late bought (like
>>> the
>>> 34401A) but the Instek was unuseable while the Agilent is ok.
>>> (I still own the function generator and the power supply: being not
>>> precision
>>> items they are useable... but for precision I bought an used Wavetek
>>> generator)
>>>
>>> To sum it up, my experience is that good instruments are unvaluable,
>>> for
>>> work
>>> as well for hobby (for hobby it's even more important, because it's
>>> supposed
>>> you should enjoy doing it!)
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> Andrea Baldoni
>>>
>>> ___
>>> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
>>> To unsubscribe, go to
>>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>>> and follow the instructions there.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> ___
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>> To unsubscribe, go to
>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>> and follow the instructions there.
>
>



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[gary]

That simply is not the case with the Rigol scope. I was able to use it 
without opening the manual.




On 4/16/2012 4:33 PM, Scott McGrath wrote:

Chinese scopes and menus

In modern asian culture it's a highly valued skill to be able to memorize menu 
selections which are deeply nested And many asian designs actually increase the 
number of menus to cater to this



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Scott McGrath]

Chinese scopes and menus

In modern asian culture it's a highly valued skill to be able to memorize menu 
selections which are deeply nested And many asian designs actually increase the 
number of menus to cater to this 



Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 16, 2012, at 11:03 AM, "J. Forster"  wrote:

> I often smile secretly at those who tout the latest asian stuff. It may be
> small, light, and look like a 'puter, but it doesn't compare for bench use
> to a Tek 7000 series similar vintage portables.
> 
> Going through layer after layer of ever more obtuse menus is just not
> 'user friendly' to me. Maybe it is to the designers, because they are used
> to a 10,000+ character alphabet?
> 
> -John
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 09:46:27AM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:
>> 
 Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
 scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will
>>> make
 buying boat anchors a thing of the past.
>>> 
>>> What's the quality of those chinese scopes?
>> 
>> I never had the opportunity to use good old Tek, HP or Fluke instruments,
>> because I never had access to them, so when I begun to buy instruments for
>> myself, I was completely unbiased and I looked to the price and spec
>> sheets
>> more than the maker.
>> 
>> To start, I wanted to replace my very very old (but very good) analog
>> multimeter, so I bought an handheld Metex digital multimer. I choose what
>> was
>> then their top item with thermocouple and PC connectivity.
>> I had soon to give it away for free to a friend (who needed a wire
>> continuity
>> beeper) and I bought a Fluke 177. It costed me even more, it has not PC
>> connectivity and thermocouple, but the Metex was completely unuseable
>> while the
>> Fluke is very good.
>> 
>> Then it was the time for a scope, a function generator and a lab power
>> supply.
>> I bought all the three from Instek. The scope was the GDS-820S and as soon
>> as I
>> had the opportunity, I sold it and bought an Agilent DSO3062A. This
>> Agilent too
>> is very entry-level, the plastic case cracks easily, in general the
>> quality is
>> not near the level the other Agilent instruments I late bought (like the
>> 34401A) but the Instek was unuseable while the Agilent is ok.
>> (I still own the function generator and the power supply: being not
>> precision
>> items they are useable... but for precision I bought an used Wavetek
>> generator)
>> 
>> To sum it up, my experience is that good instruments are unvaluable, for
>> work
>> as well for hobby (for hobby it's even more important, because it's
>> supposed
>> you should enjoy doing it!)
>> 
>> Best regards,
>> Andrea Baldoni
>> 
>> ___
>> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
>> To unsubscribe, go to
>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>> and follow the instructions there.
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Scott McGrath]

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 16, 2012, at 11:03 AM, "J. Forster"  wrote:

> I often smile secretly at those who tout the latest asian stuff. It may be
> small, light, and look like a 'puter, but it doesn't compare for bench use
> to a Tek 7000 series similar vintage portables.
> 
> Going through layer after layer of ever more obtuse menus is just not
> 'user friendly' to me. Maybe it is to the designers, because they are used
> to a 10,000+ character alphabet?
> 
> -John
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 09:46:27AM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:
>> 
 Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
 scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will
>>> make
 buying boat anchors a thing of the past.
>>> 
>>> What's the quality of those chinese scopes?
>> 
>> I never had the opportunity to use good old Tek, HP or Fluke instruments,
>> because I never had access to them, so when I begun to buy instruments for
>> myself, I was completely unbiased and I looked to the price and spec
>> sheets
>> more than the maker.
>> 
>> To start, I wanted to replace my very very old (but very good) analog
>> multimeter, so I bought an handheld Metex digital multimer. I choose what
>> was
>> then their top item with thermocouple and PC connectivity.
>> I had soon to give it away for free to a friend (who needed a wire
>> continuity
>> beeper) and I bought a Fluke 177. It costed me even more, it has not PC
>> connectivity and thermocouple, but the Metex was completely unuseable
>> while the
>> Fluke is very good.
>> 
>> Then it was the time for a scope, a function generator and a lab power
>> supply.
>> I bought all the three from Instek. The scope was the GDS-820S and as soon
>> as I
>> had the opportunity, I sold it and bought an Agilent DSO3062A. This
>> Agilent too
>> is very entry-level, the plastic case cracks easily, in general the
>> quality is
>> not near the level the other Agilent instruments I late bought (like the
>> 34401A) but the Instek was unuseable while the Agilent is ok.
>> (I still own the function generator and the power supply: being not
>> precision
>> items they are useable... but for precision I bought an used Wavetek
>> generator)
>> 
>> To sum it up, my experience is that good instruments are unvaluable, for
>> work
>> as well for hobby (for hobby it's even more important, because it's
>> supposed
>> you should enjoy doing it!)
>> 
>> Best regards,
>> Andrea Baldoni
>> 
>> ___
>> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
>> To unsubscribe, go to
>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>> and follow the instructions there.
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Hal Murray]

> I would actually like to know why many seem to feel that a 500 MHz analog
> 'scope is not "good enough" for what you really do in your lab? 

> Older 'scopes didn't NEED to re-allocate memory, or use "peak" modes to
> avoid sampling artifacts. 

I can think of  3 reasons why I like digital scopes:

  It holds the picture for a long time.  This is great for looking at 
slow/PPS signals and things that happen only occasionally (logic glitches, 
software bugs).

  You can see the signal before the trigger.

  You can get the data out to a PC.

Any one of those could be enough to convince me to switch to digital.  With 
all 3, it's a no-brainer.  YMMV.

I'm sure I'll get burned by an aliasing glitch one of these days.  In the 
meantime, I'll get lots of good pictures.

If you want a really good example of aliasing, try this one:
  http://www.megapathdsl.net/~hmurray/time-nuts/Rigol/scope-2ms.png
That sine wave is10 MHz.  :)

Since this is time-nuts, you can back compute the frequency of the internal 
clock in the scope.


-- 
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.




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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[J. Forster]

OK. IMO, there is another, perhas a more important, issue  memory depth.

Most digital scopes I've seen, and some LAs too, just don't have enough
depth for my taste, so they undersample and guess.

Tek did make the RTD-710A high speed transient data digitizer that had 64
MB of 12 (?) bit RAM. That is beginning to be useful, IMO.

-John

==


> Sorry john, that's more what I meant, by accuracy and precision I imply
> its faithful to the signal you choose to examine, free of artifacts
> induced by the scopes timebase or vertical amp, but with DSOs its limited
> by Nyquist sampling rules.
>
> Thus, sampling rate is as important a feature as a scopes rated bandwidth.
>  For best results, its should be 10x the analog bandwidth.  Below it, one
> has to beware of artifacts, it worsens as the ratio signal bandwidth/
> sampling rate < 10.
>
>
> At 14:32 04/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
> --
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:59:16 -0700 (PDT)
> From: "J. Forster" 
> To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement"
> 
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)
> Message-ID: <56387.12.6.201.2.1334599156.squir...@popaccts.quikus.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>
>> At eevblog.com forum Chinese scopes are a daily discussion for over 3
>> years.
>>
>> In summary, in the <= 100 MHz level they are ...
> ...snip...
>>... less.  The criteria for rating them are
>> measurement accuracy and precision, UI, construction quality and tech
>> support.
>
> Measurement accuracy is a ruse, IMO. I don't care if a 'scope is
> "accurate". I want the waveform to be a faithful representation of the
> electrical behaviour of the circuit, free oif sampling artifacts and
> aliasing.
>
> If I want to accurately measure a voltage, I'll use a differential
> comparator or DVM. Anything timing, an appropriately gated counter.
>
> Some years ago Tektronix had a digital camera package with RS-170 output
> and some aardvaark frame grab board for a PC and a SW package. It was
> designed to do waveform measurement.
>
> I would actually like to know why many seem to feel that a 500 MHz analog
> 'scope is not "good enough" for what you really do in your lab?
>
> The more I hear about 40 GSps or whatever 'scopes, the more I'm convinced
> it's like comparing car engines or top speed. So, I have a car that'll do
> 160 MPH and yours will do 172? So what? Can you use it? No.
>
> YMMV,
>
> -John
>
>
> Best Wishes,
>
>
> Marv Gozum, Philadelphia Pa
>
> [ sent via Outlook webApp]
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Dan Kemppainen]

I'd have a hard time doing a lot of what I do with an analog scope.  I 
have a lot of logic running at high frequency, and find myself 
triggering on single pulse events that happen infrequently. The 
advanced triggering options of digital scopes make seeing these events 
possible. Just the pulse width, or runt pulse triggering is worth the 
price when you need it. (If you need it, that is).


I've owned some low end test equipment over the years. I always end up 
selling it off to upgrade to an agilent or tek product. That being 
said, even the low end Tek's have problems. I have a 200Mhz digital 
unit here that likes to cross talk a lot between channels. If I have a 
100Mhz digital on one channel and analog on the other, A LOT of 
digital will make it onto the analog trace (disconnect the channe, or 
unhook the probe and the problem goes away). I'm guessing some of the 
cheap scopes may exhibit this also, but have no experience first hand. 
My higher end Tek scope is much better in this respect. But then 
again, it's several times the cost of this 200Mhz low end tek...


FYI: I have an Agilent signal generator that's getting close to 10 
years old now. Last year they replaced a bad encoder on the front 
panel and did a NIST calibration on the unit free of charge. I figured 
at that age, I'd have to do the work myself. The tech on the phone 
spent the time to figure out what I was fixing, and looked up the unit 
and notified me of the free repair option. They knew the encoder was 
bad, and offered the service when I called to order a replacement 
encoder. I'll keep this in mind when I buy more equipment this year.



Dan


On 4/16/2012 3:30 PM, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:

Measurement accuracy is a ruse, IMO. I don't care if a 'scope is
"accurate". I want the waveform to be a faithful representation of the
electrical behaviour of the circuit, free oif sampling artifacts and
aliasing.

If I want to accurately measure a voltage, I'll use a differential
comparator or DVM. Anything timing, an appropriately gated counter.

Some years ago Tektronix had a digital camera package with RS-170 output
and some aardvaark frame grab board for a PC and a SW package. It was
designed to do waveform measurement.

I would actually like to know why many seem to feel that a 500 MHz analog
'scope is not "good enough" for what you really do in your lab?

The more I hear about 40 GSps or whatever 'scopes, the more I'm convinced
it's like comparing car engines or top speed. So, I have a car that'll do
160 MPH and yours will do 172? So what? Can you use it? No.

YMMV,

-John


Best Wishes,


Marv Gozum, Philadelphia Pa


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[time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Marvin Gozum]

Sorry john, that's more what I meant, by accuracy and precision I imply its 
faithful to the signal you choose to examine, free of artifacts induced by the 
scopes timebase or vertical amp, but with DSOs its limited by Nyquist sampling 
rules.

Thus, sampling rate is as important a feature as a scopes rated bandwidth.  For 
best results, its should be 10x the analog bandwidth.  Below it, one has to 
beware of artifacts, it worsens as the ratio signal bandwidth/ sampling rate < 
10.


At 14:32 04/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
--
Message: 2
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:59:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: "J. Forster" 
To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement"
    
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)
Message-ID: <56387.12.6.201.2.1334599156.squir...@popaccts.quikus.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

> At eevblog.com forum Chinese scopes are a daily discussion for over 3
> years.
>
> In summary, in the <= 100 MHz level they are ...
...snip...
>... less.  The criteria for rating them are
> measurement accuracy and precision, UI, construction quality and tech
> support.

Measurement accuracy is a ruse, IMO. I don't care if a 'scope is
"accurate". I want the waveform to be a faithful representation of the
electrical behaviour of the circuit, free oif sampling artifacts and
aliasing.

If I want to accurately measure a voltage, I'll use a differential
comparator or DVM. Anything timing, an appropriately gated counter.

Some years ago Tektronix had a digital camera package with RS-170 output
and some aardvaark frame grab board for a PC and a SW package. It was
designed to do waveform measurement.

I would actually like to know why many seem to feel that a 500 MHz analog
'scope is not "good enough" for what you really do in your lab?

The more I hear about 40 GSps or whatever 'scopes, the more I'm convinced
it's like comparing car engines or top speed. So, I have a car that'll do
160 MPH and yours will do 172? So what? Can you use it? No.

YMMV,

-John


Best Wishes,


Marv Gozum, Philadelphia Pa

[ sent via Outlook webApp]
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Marvin Gozum]

Alas, those are the UI issues I suggested in my post, fonts is one of them, 
there aren't any others in the 1000s series.  You can change the 'skins' in the 
utility menu.  Fonts are one advantage of Owon or Hantek, plus they offer 
larger LCDs.

The flicker is from the slow sampling rate at slower horizontal time bases.

One user actually timed it, here as a pdf:

http://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog-specific/rigol-ds1052e-sample-rate-vs-timebase-setting/

FWIW, the human eye can detect < 15 fps [ movies are at 24 fps] so the flicker 
becomes very obvious below 1 ms/div and at higher, it depends on your eyes and 
if you have fluorescent lighting, which highlights update rate gaps.

Another interesting finding is they overclock their DACs, to further shave off 
on cost.

The good news, as shown in multiple tear downs, they use quality electronic 
components.  The only other quibbles are the quality of the plastic in the 
knobs vary [ some have spontaneously cracked] and a few units have installed 
rotary encoders dirtier than others; methinks this is the fault of their 
Chinese subcomponent suppliers.


Best Wishes,


Marv Gozum, Philadelphia Pa

[ sent via Outlook webApp]

From: John Ackermann N8UR [j...@febo.com]
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 2:27 PM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement

I got one of the 50MHz Rigol scopes last year as a "toss in" when I
bought one of their arbs.

It works well, but one thing that annoys me is a flicker on the screen
at fast (less than a few microsecond) sweep speeds. I emailed Rigol US
about it, but never had a response so don't know if it's normal or not.
My Tek 2012 (almost identical form factor as the Rigol, by the way)
doesn't show the flicker.

The other notable thing about the Rigol is that the on-screen text uses
that not-very-attractive, Times Roman-ish, serif font that seems
ubiquitous in Chinese documentation. Anyone know why they use that
versus something more pleasant on the eyes?

John



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Don Latham]

I just can't help it. I like moving the mouse pointer over the slider
and clicking or moving or just typing in a value. My latest scope
(Bitscope)is from Australia, cost $250 inflated $ and all functions are
done via PC. In addition, there is a dll if I want to roll my own app,
and a suite of apps available on a website. The scope occupies as much
or as little screen area as i like, the body is a huge 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 x
1/2 inches. I/O (yep, a built-in signal source) for the scope and an
8-channel digital analyzer is via .1 in spaced terminals. Needs some
special connectors made for RF, but that is one of the only drawbacks.
I've been a knob twiddler for over 50 years now, and USB or 'net test
equipment is my current choice.
That rant delivered, I admit that I simply do not need test lab or
metrological acccuracy, for which one now has to go to R&S or maybe
Agilent, and pay the price for the additional decimal places.
Don

Hal Murray
>
> j...@quikus.com said:
>> Going through layer after layer of ever more obtuse menus is just not
>> 'user
>> friendly' to me. Maybe it is to the designers, because they are used
>> to a
>> 10,000+ character alphabet?
>
> How much of that is because you want to use fancy features that didn't
> even
> exist on older scopes?
>
> Here is an example:  The switch from small/fast to big/slow memory is
> buried
> deep in a menu.  That's better than cluttering up the box with another
> button.
>
>
> My Rigol DS1102E has 6 knobs, 17 dedicated push buttons, and 5 menu
> buttons.
>
> One of the knobs is trigger level.  2 are horizontal scale and position.
>  2
> are vertical scale and position.  The 6th knob is for the current menu
> item.
>
> The vertical knobs are shared by both input channels.  If you want to
> adjust
> the other channel you have to poke a button first.  Sure, I'd prefer 2
> more
> knobs.  I can live with this.  It's not obvious how to fit in 2 more
> knobs if
> you did decide that was important.  Making the box an inch wider looks
> like
> the obvious way.
>
> Glancing at my old Tek 465, the thing that I think I would miss most is
> the
> AC/DC coupling switch on the input.  I won't miss the Focus knob. :)
>
> Neither scope has an optional 50 ohm terminator on the inputs.
>
> ---
>
> I think there are 2 patterns for using a scope.  One is chasing a
> glitch.
> The other is collecting data.
>
> When I'm chasing a glitch, I occasionally have to wander around in the
> menus.
>  Yes, it's annoying.  Part of the problem is that I sometimes don't
> remember
> how to get where I want to go so I make a few false starts.  Overall,
> it's
> not a lot more time than it took me to setup the hardware.  (I remember
> having to find a pair of coax cables with matched length.)
>
> It would be fun to hack the firmware to record all the button/knob
> actions.
>
> Once I have things setup, collecting more data is as simple as watching
> the
> screen or poking Enter on my PC.
>
> --
>
> If you want to be critical, I see two weak areas.
>
> One is the documentation and/or firmware for remote control.  It's good
> enough, at least if you are stubborn, but far from good.  (I haven't
> tried
> their software: no Windows boxes here.)
>
>
> The other is the probes.  Good probes are still expensive.  The Rigol
> unit
> came with old big/clunky probes.  Why would anybody want a 1x/10x switch
> on
> their probe?  (I guess it might be interesting if you were working on
> small,
> slow signals, but I haven't done that in a long time.)
>
> For probes, there is a knee in the curve somewhere around 200 MHz.  With
> a
> bit of care, you can get reasonable pictures up through 100 MHz.  Beyond
> that, you have to really pay attention and good/small probes help.  They
> also
> help with modern surface mount parts.
>
>
> --
> These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.
>
>
>
>
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>


-- 
"Neither the voice of authority nor the weight of reason and argument
are as significant as experiment, for thence comes quiet to the mind."
R. Bacon
"If you don't know what it is, don't poke it."
Ghost in the Shell


Dr. Don Latham AJ7LL
Six Mile Systems LLP
17850 Six Mile Road
POB 134
Huson, MT, 59846
VOX 406-626-4304
www.lightningforensics.com
www.sixmilesystems.com



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[J. Forster]

IMO, the place you really need >2-4 channels is logic analyzers, not 'scopes.

YMMV,

-John





> On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:59:16 -0700 (PDT)
> "J. Forster"  wrote:
>
>> I would actually like to know why many seem to feel that a 500 MHz
>> analog
>> 'scope is not "good enough" for what you really do in your lab?
>
> Well... if i had a 500MHz analog scope, i wouldnt want anything better..
> ok, well maybe the storage function of DSO's is nice, but other than
> that, i don't need much more and for home use i'd be happy with a 500MHz
> analog... but, the only scope i have is a 2 channel 50MHz one. I definitly
> could have a use for two more channels and a bit of more bandwidth.
> The rest is nice to have.
>
>   Attila Kinali
>
> --
> Why does it take years to find the answers to
> the questions one should have asked long ago?
>
>



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Attila Kinali]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:32:07 -0400
paul swed  wrote:

> Interesting read but have not figured out the MIT loran thread part of the
> header. This is about chinese scopes

This is because i forked of the MIT loran thread. Ie i replied to a mail
in the MIT loran thread that mentioned chinese scopes. And to make it clear
that the discussion isn't about any MIT flea market anymore, i changed
the subject. And as it is custom, i left the original subject line
enclosed in "(was:"..")" 

Attila Kinali
-- 
Why does it take years to find the answers to
the questions one should have asked long ago?

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Attila Kinali]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 17:47:37 +
Marvin Gozum  wrote:

> At eevblog.com forum Chinese scopes are a daily discussion for over 3 years.
> 
> In summary, in the <= 100 MHz level they are very cost effective but
> there are better and worse.  Rigol, Owon and Hantek are on par while Atten
> and Uni-T are consistently rated less.  The criteria for rating them are
> measurement accuracy and precision, UI, construction quality and tech
> support.

Thanks! that is the info i was looking for!

Attila Kinali

-- 
Why does it take years to find the answers to
the questions one should have asked long ago?

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Attila Kinali]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:59:16 -0700 (PDT)
"J. Forster"  wrote:

> I would actually like to know why many seem to feel that a 500 MHz analog
> 'scope is not "good enough" for what you really do in your lab?

Well... if i had a 500MHz analog scope, i wouldnt want anything better..
ok, well maybe the storage function of DSO's is nice, but other than
that, i don't need much more and for home use i'd be happy with a 500MHz
analog... but, the only scope i have is a 2 channel 50MHz one. I definitly
could have a use for two more channels and a bit of more bandwidth.
The rest is nice to have.

Attila Kinali

-- 
Why does it take years to find the answers to
the questions one should have asked long ago?

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[paul swed]

Interesting read but have not figured out the MIT loran thread part of the
header. This is about chinese scopes

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 2:27 PM, John Ackermann N8UR  wrote:

> On 4/16/2012 1:47 PM, Marvin Gozum wrote:
>
>> At eevblog.com forum Chinese scopes are a daily discussion for over 3
>> years.
>>
>> In summary, in the<= 100 MHz level they are very cost effective but there
>> are better and worse.  Rigol, Owon and Hantek are on par while Atten and
>> Uni-T are consistently rated less.  The criteria for rating them are
>> measurement accuracy and precision, UI, construction quality and tech
>> support.
>>
>> Prices vary depending on country, and local support varies.  Those
>> differences will help you choose between the better 3 brands.
>>
>> Rigol is consistent in quality all around, but cost more than the others.
>>  Rigol is the only maker with scopes that compete with Agilent or Tek, in
>> the 1-4 GHz level.  Support is mostly via the sellers.  In the USA, Rigol
>> has a subsidiary that provides responsive support.
>>
>> Owon and Hantek offer larger screens, more features and better GUI, but
>> can be plagued with construction flaws.  Its acceptable if your seller will
>> exchange any defective units you purhcase.  Owon has provided tech and
>> hardware support directly from China, including spares.
>>
>> Atten and Uni-T glitches are concerning, as they tend to provide erratic
>> measurement.
>>
>
> I got one of the 50MHz Rigol scopes last year as a "toss in" when I bought
> one of their arbs.
>
> It works well, but one thing that annoys me is a flicker on the screen at
> fast (less than a few microsecond) sweep speeds.  I emailed Rigol US about
> it, but never had a response so don't know if it's normal or not.  My Tek
> 2012 (almost identical form factor as the Rigol, by the way) doesn't show
> the flicker.
>
> The other notable thing about the Rigol is that the on-screen text uses
> that not-very-attractive, Times Roman-ish, serif font that seems ubiquitous
> in Chinese documentation.  Anyone know why they use that versus something
> more pleasant on the eyes?
>
> John
>
>
> __**_
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/**
> mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.
>
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[John Ackermann N8UR]

On 4/16/2012 1:47 PM, Marvin Gozum wrote:

At eevblog.com forum Chinese scopes are a daily discussion for over 3 years.

In summary, in the<= 100 MHz level they are very cost effective but there are 
better and worse.  Rigol, Owon and Hantek are on par while Atten and Uni-T are 
consistently rated less.  The criteria for rating them are measurement accuracy 
and precision, UI, construction quality and tech support.

Prices vary depending on country, and local support varies.  Those differences 
will help you choose between the better 3 brands.

Rigol is consistent in quality all around, but cost more than the others.  
Rigol is the only maker with scopes that compete with Agilent or Tek, in the 
1-4 GHz level.  Support is mostly via the sellers.  In the USA, Rigol has a 
subsidiary that provides responsive support.

Owon and Hantek offer larger screens, more features and better GUI, but can be 
plagued with construction flaws.  Its acceptable if your seller will exchange 
any defective units you purhcase.  Owon has provided tech and hardware support 
directly from China, including spares.

Atten and Uni-T glitches are concerning, as they tend to provide erratic 
measurement.


I got one of the 50MHz Rigol scopes last year as a "toss in" when I 
bought one of their arbs.


It works well, but one thing that annoys me is a flicker on the screen 
at fast (less than a few microsecond) sweep speeds.  I emailed Rigol US 
about it, but never had a response so don't know if it's normal or not. 
 My Tek 2012 (almost identical form factor as the Rigol, by the way) 
doesn't show the flicker.


The other notable thing about the Rigol is that the on-screen text uses 
that not-very-attractive, Times Roman-ish, serif font that seems 
ubiquitous in Chinese documentation.  Anyone know why they use that 
versus something more pleasant on the eyes?


John


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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Peter Gottlieb]

Heard a story of someone who went to a high performance driving school 
for racers.  One of the specialty cars had an encounter with a wall and 
was out of service so the instructor grabbed an ordinary street rental 
car from the lot.  Everyone laughed until the instructor out-drove them all.


If you know what you are looking for and understand the instruments you 
can indeed do what you need to with a 500 MHz analog scope.


Peter


On 4/16/2012 1:59 PM, J. Forster wrote:

At eevblog.com forum Chinese scopes are a daily discussion for over 3
years.

In summary, in the<= 100 MHz level they are very cost effective but there
are better and worse.  Rigol, Owon and Hantek are on par while Atten and
Uni-T are consistently rated less.  The criteria for rating them are
measurement accuracy and precision, UI, construction quality and tech
support.

Measurement accuracy is a ruse, IMO. I don't care if a 'scope is
"accurate". I want the waveform to be a faithful representation of the
electrical behaviour of the circuit, free oif sampling artifacts and
aliasing.

If I want to accurately measure a voltage, I'll use a differential
comparator or DVM. Anything timing, an appropriately gated counter.

Some years ago Tektronix had a digital camera package with RS-170 output
and some aardvaark frame grab board for a PC and a SW package. It was
designed to do waveform measurement.

I would actually like to know why many seem to feel that a 500 MHz analog
'scope is not "good enough" for what you really do in your lab?

The more I hear about 40 GSps or whatever 'scopes, the more I'm convinced
it's like comparing car engines or top speed. So, I have a car that'll do
160 MPH and yours will do 172? So what? Can you use it? No.

YMMV,

-John




Prices vary depending on country, and local support varies.  Those
differences will help you choose between the better 3 brands.

Rigol is consistent in quality all around, but cost more than the others.
Rigol is the only maker with scopes that compete with Agilent or Tek, in
the 1-4 GHz level.  Support is mostly via the sellers.  In the USA, Rigol
has a subsidiary that provides responsive support.

Owon and Hantek offer larger screens, more features and better GUI, but
can be plagued with construction flaws.  Its acceptable if your seller
will exchange any defective units you purhcase.  Owon has provided tech
and hardware support directly from China, including spares.

Atten and Uni-T glitches are concerning, as they tend to provide erratic
measurement.


At 04:19 04/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
Message: 7
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:46:27 +0200
From: Attila Kinali
To: li...@lazygranch.com, Discussion of precise time and frequency
measurement
Subject: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)
Message-ID:<20120416094627.f245ebdfd5df7305dd528...@kinali.ch>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

On Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:42:31 +
li...@lazygranch.com wrote:


Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will make
buying boat anchors a thing of the past.

What's the quality of those chinese scopes?
I could need a "modern" DSO as addition to my stone age 2ch 50MHz Tek.
But there isn't any usable surplus market in europe and used scopes cost
nearly as much as new ones. Ie Tek, Agilent and LeCroy are out of my
budget,
even if used. But then, i'd rather spend 2000chf on a new Scope than get
one for 500 that isn't half usable.

Attila Kinali

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[J. Forster]

>
> j...@quikus.com said:
>> Going through layer after layer of ever more obtuse menus is just not
>> 'user
>> friendly' to me. Maybe it is to the designers, because they are used to
>> a
>> 10,000+ character alphabet?
>
> How much of that is because you want to use fancy features that didn't
> even exist on older scopes?

Older 'scopes didn't NEED to re-allocate memory, or use "peak" modes to
avoid sampling artifacts.

> Here is an example:  The switch from small/fast to big/slow memory is
> buried
> deep in a menu.  That's better than cluttering up the box with another
> button.
>
>
> My Rigol DS1102E has 6 knobs, 17 dedicated push buttons, and 5 menu
> buttons.
>
> One of the knobs is trigger level.  2 are horizontal scale and position.
> 2
> are vertical scale and position.  The 6th knob is for the current menu
> item.
>
> The vertical knobs are shared by both input channels.  If you want to
> adjust
> the other channel you have to poke a button first.  Sure, I'd prefer 2
> more
> knobs.  I can live with this.  It's not obvious how to fit in 2 more
knobs if you did decide that was important.  Making the box an inch
wider looks like the obvious way.
>
> Glancing at my old Tek 465, the thing that I think I would miss most is
> the
> AC/DC coupling switch on the input.  I won't miss the Focus knob. :)
>
> Neither scope has an optional 50 ohm terminator on the inputs.

All Tek 'scopes have AC/DC/GND,and some have trace identify. 50 Ohm is
easy with a throughy terminator.

-John

===
>
> ---
>
> I think there are 2 patterns for using a scope.  One is chasing a glitch.
> The other is collecting data.
>
> When I'm chasing a glitch, I occasionally have to wander around in the
> menus.
>  Yes, it's annoying.  Part of the problem is that I sometimes don't
> remember
> how to get where I want to go so I make a few false starts.  Overall, it's
> not a lot more time than it took me to setup the hardware.  (I remember
> having to find a pair of coax cables with matched length.)
>
> It would be fun to hack the firmware to record all the button/knob
> actions.
>
> Once I have things setup, collecting more data is as simple as watching
> the
> screen or poking Enter on my PC.
>
> --
>
> If you want to be critical, I see two weak areas.
>
> One is the documentation and/or firmware for remote control.  It's good
> enough, at least if you are stubborn, but far from good.  (I haven't tried
> their software: no Windows boxes here.)
>
>
> The other is the probes.  Good probes are still expensive.  The Rigol unit
> came with old big/clunky probes.  Why would anybody want a 1x/10x switch
> on
> their probe?  (I guess it might be interesting if you were working on
> small,
> slow signals, but I haven't done that in a long time.)
>
> For probes, there is a knee in the curve somewhere around 200 MHz.  With a
> bit of care, you can get reasonable pictures up through 100 MHz.  Beyond
> that, you have to really pay attention and good/small probes help.  They
> also
> help with modern surface mount parts.
>
>
> --
> These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.
>
>
>
>
> ___
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to
> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.
>
>



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[J. Forster]

> At eevblog.com forum Chinese scopes are a daily discussion for over 3
> years.
>
> In summary, in the <= 100 MHz level they are very cost effective but there
> are better and worse.  Rigol, Owon and Hantek are on par while Atten and
> Uni-T are consistently rated less.  The criteria for rating them are
> measurement accuracy and precision, UI, construction quality and tech
> support.

Measurement accuracy is a ruse, IMO. I don't care if a 'scope is
"accurate". I want the waveform to be a faithful representation of the
electrical behaviour of the circuit, free oif sampling artifacts and
aliasing.

If I want to accurately measure a voltage, I'll use a differential
comparator or DVM. Anything timing, an appropriately gated counter.

Some years ago Tektronix had a digital camera package with RS-170 output
and some aardvaark frame grab board for a PC and a SW package. It was
designed to do waveform measurement.

I would actually like to know why many seem to feel that a 500 MHz analog
'scope is not "good enough" for what you really do in your lab?

The more I hear about 40 GSps or whatever 'scopes, the more I'm convinced
it's like comparing car engines or top speed. So, I have a car that'll do
160 MPH and yours will do 172? So what? Can you use it? No.

YMMV,

-John



> Prices vary depending on country, and local support varies.  Those
> differences will help you choose between the better 3 brands.
>
> Rigol is consistent in quality all around, but cost more than the others.
> Rigol is the only maker with scopes that compete with Agilent or Tek, in
> the 1-4 GHz level.  Support is mostly via the sellers.  In the USA, Rigol
> has a subsidiary that provides responsive support.
>
> Owon and Hantek offer larger screens, more features and better GUI, but
> can be plagued with construction flaws.  Its acceptable if your seller
> will exchange any defective units you purhcase.  Owon has provided tech
> and hardware support directly from China, including spares.
>
> Atten and Uni-T glitches are concerning, as they tend to provide erratic
> measurement.
>
>
> At 04:19 04/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
> Message: 7
> Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:46:27 +0200
> From: Attila Kinali 
> To: li...@lazygranch.com, Discussion of precise time and frequency
> measurement 
> Subject: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)
> Message-ID: <20120416094627.f245ebdfd5df7305dd528...@kinali.ch>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> On Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:42:31 +
> li...@lazygranch.com wrote:
>
>> Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
>> scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will make
>> buying boat anchors a thing of the past.
>
> What's the quality of those chinese scopes?
> I could need a "modern" DSO as addition to my stone age 2ch 50MHz Tek.
> But there isn't any usable surplus market in europe and used scopes cost
> nearly as much as new ones. Ie Tek, Agilent and LeCroy are out of my
> budget,
> even if used. But then, i'd rather spend 2000chf on a new Scope than get
> one for 500 that isn't half usable.
>
> Attila Kinali
>
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> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
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>
>



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Hal Murray]

j...@quikus.com said:
> Going through layer after layer of ever more obtuse menus is just not 'user
> friendly' to me. Maybe it is to the designers, because they are used to a
> 10,000+ character alphabet? 

How much of that is because you want to use fancy features that didn't even 
exist on older scopes?

Here is an example:  The switch from small/fast to big/slow memory is buried 
deep in a menu.  That's better than cluttering up the box with another button.


My Rigol DS1102E has 6 knobs, 17 dedicated push buttons, and 5 menu buttons.

One of the knobs is trigger level.  2 are horizontal scale and position.  2 
are vertical scale and position.  The 6th knob is for the current menu item.

The vertical knobs are shared by both input channels.  If you want to adjust 
the other channel you have to poke a button first.  Sure, I'd prefer 2 more 
knobs.  I can live with this.  It's not obvious how to fit in 2 more knobs if 
you did decide that was important.  Making the box an inch wider looks like 
the obvious way.

Glancing at my old Tek 465, the thing that I think I would miss most is the 
AC/DC coupling switch on the input.  I won't miss the Focus knob. :)

Neither scope has an optional 50 ohm terminator on the inputs.

---

I think there are 2 patterns for using a scope.  One is chasing a glitch.  
The other is collecting data.

When I'm chasing a glitch, I occasionally have to wander around in the menus. 
 Yes, it's annoying.  Part of the problem is that I sometimes don't remember 
how to get where I want to go so I make a few false starts.  Overall, it's 
not a lot more time than it took me to setup the hardware.  (I remember 
having to find a pair of coax cables with matched length.)

It would be fun to hack the firmware to record all the button/knob actions.

Once I have things setup, collecting more data is as simple as watching the 
screen or poking Enter on my PC.

--

If you want to be critical, I see two weak areas.

One is the documentation and/or firmware for remote control.  It's good 
enough, at least if you are stubborn, but far from good.  (I haven't tried 
their software: no Windows boxes here.)


The other is the probes.  Good probes are still expensive.  The Rigol unit 
came with old big/clunky probes.  Why would anybody want a 1x/10x switch on 
their probe?  (I guess it might be interesting if you were working on small, 
slow signals, but I haven't done that in a long time.)

For probes, there is a knee in the curve somewhere around 200 MHz.  With a 
bit of care, you can get reasonable pictures up through 100 MHz.  Beyond 
that, you have to really pay attention and good/small probes help.  They also 
help with modern surface mount parts.


-- 
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.




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[time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Marvin Gozum]

FWIW the 3000 series Agilents were rebadged Rigols.  The newer entry levels to 
mid-range scopes are now all designed and built by Agilent in their Malaysia 
plant.



At 08:00 04/16/2012, you wrote:
--

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:23:08 +0200
From: "Andrea Baldoni" 
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement

Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re:  LORAN-C at MIT)
Message-ID: <20120416112308.ga20...@sol.ermione.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 09:46:27AM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:

> > Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
> > scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will make
> > buying boat anchors a thing of the past.
>
> What's the quality of those chinese scopes?

I never had the opportunity to use good old Tek, HP or Fluke instruments,
because I never had access to them, so when I begun to buy instruments for
myself, I was completely unbiased and I looked to the price and spec sheets
more than the maker.

To start, I wanted to replace my very very old (but very good) analog
multimeter, so I bought an handheld Metex digital multimer. I choose what was
then their top item with thermocouple and PC connectivity.
I had soon to give it away for free to a friend (who needed a wire continuity
beeper) and I bought a Fluke 177. It costed me even more, it has not PC
connectivity and thermocouple, but the Metex was completely unuseable while the
Fluke is very good.

Then it was the time for a scope, a function generator and a lab power supply.
I bought all the three from Instek. The scope was the GDS-820S and as soon as I
had the opportunity, I sold it and bought an Agilent DSO3062A. This Agilent too
is very entry-level, the plastic case cracks easily, in general the quality is
not near the level the other Agilent instruments I late bought (like the
34401A) but the Instek was unuseable while the Agilent is ok.
(I still own the function generator and the power supply: being not precision
items they are useable... but for precision I bought an used Wavetek generator)

To sum it up, my experience is that good instruments are unvaluable, for work
as well for hobby (for hobby it's even more important, because it's supposed
you should enjoy doing it!)

Best regards,
Andrea Baldoni

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[time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Marvin Gozum]

At eevblog.com forum Chinese scopes are a daily discussion for over 3 years.

In summary, in the <= 100 MHz level they are very cost effective but there are 
better and worse.  Rigol, Owon and Hantek are on par while Atten and Uni-T are 
consistently rated less.  The criteria for rating them are measurement accuracy 
and precision, UI, construction quality and tech support.

Prices vary depending on country, and local support varies.  Those differences 
will help you choose between the better 3 brands.

Rigol is consistent in quality all around, but cost more than the others.  
Rigol is the only maker with scopes that compete with Agilent or Tek, in the 
1-4 GHz level.  Support is mostly via the sellers.  In the USA, Rigol has a 
subsidiary that provides responsive support.

Owon and Hantek offer larger screens, more features and better GUI, but can be 
plagued with construction flaws.  Its acceptable if your seller will exchange 
any defective units you purhcase.  Owon has provided tech and hardware support 
directly from China, including spares.

Atten and Uni-T glitches are concerning, as they tend to provide erratic 
measurement.


At 04:19 04/16/2012, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
Message: 7
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 09:46:27 +0200
From: Attila Kinali 
To: li...@lazygranch.com, Discussion of precise time and frequency
measurement 
Subject: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)
Message-ID: <20120416094627.f245ebdfd5df7305dd528...@kinali.ch>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

On Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:42:31 +
li...@lazygranch.com wrote:

> Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
> scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will make
> buying boat anchors a thing of the past.

What's the quality of those chinese scopes?
I could need a "modern" DSO as addition to my stone age 2ch 50MHz Tek.
But there isn't any usable surplus market in europe and used scopes cost
nearly as much as new ones. Ie Tek, Agilent and LeCroy are out of my budget,
even if used. But then, i'd rather spend 2000chf on a new Scope than get
one for 500 that isn't half usable.

Attila Kinali

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <4f8c3ecd.1080...@neon-john.com>, NeonJohn writes:

>There is a rumor that one also needs an analog scope.

Where analog scopes generally win is in X-Y mode, most digitals I've
seen suck at that.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp   | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
p...@freebsd.org | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer   | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Bob Bownes]

You know, I have a 1Gig Tek digital (DSA602 with 11A72/11A71,11A34) on my
bench and a 1G Tek analog (7934). The 7934 never gets fired up anymore. I
really should reclaim the space.


On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 11:41 AM, Tom Knox  wrote:

>
> I was speaking several years ago to someone at Tektronix and asked why
> they did not still make an analog scope.
> He told me cost was the reason, simply price; to make a modern version of
> the 7104 or 2467B would cost nearly as much as an Italian sports car.
> I have the Latest 40Gs/s scope and it is fantastic but still have a LeCroy
> LA354 analog (of sorts) scope as a second opinion.
> All that said, as someone who brokers equipment, it is difficult to
> justify as a reseller older scopes less the 500MHz in light of the great
> products coming out of China.
>
> Thomas Knox
>
>
>
> > Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 08:19:58 -0700
> > From: garn...@gmail.com
> > To: time-nuts@febo.com
> > Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)
> >
> > I have the latest and greatest from both Tek and Agilent at work,
> > designed and made right here in the states. They suffer from menu-itis
> > just like the chinese stuff does. My Tek DSA 72004 at work is a
> > complete PITA to use unless I have the mouse and keyboard attached. In
> > my opinion, it's just how things are in the modern age.
> >
> >
> > -Eric
> >
> > On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 8:03 AM, J. Forster  wrote:
> > > I often smile secretly at those who tout the latest asian stuff. It
> may be
> > > small, light, and look like a 'puter, but it doesn't compare for bench
> use
> > > to a Tek 7000 series similar vintage portables.
> > >
> > > Going through layer after layer of ever more obtuse menus is just not
> > > 'user friendly' to me. Maybe it is to the designers, because they are
> used
> > > to a 10,000+ character alphabet?
> > >
> > > -John
> > >
> > > 
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 09:46:27AM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> > Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have
> "real"
> > >>> > scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will
> > >>> make
> > >>> > buying boat anchors a thing of the past.
> > >>>
> > >>> What's the quality of those chinese scopes?
> > >>
> > >> I never had the opportunity to use good old Tek, HP or Fluke
> instruments,
> > >> because I never had access to them, so when I begun to buy
> instruments for
> > >> myself, I was completely unbiased and I looked to the price and spec
> > >> sheets
> > >> more than the maker.
> > >>
> > >> To start, I wanted to replace my very very old (but very good) analog
> > >> multimeter, so I bought an handheld Metex digital multimer. I choose
> what
> > >> was
> > >> then their top item with thermocouple and PC connectivity.
> > >> I had soon to give it away for free to a friend (who needed a wire
> > >> continuity
> > >> beeper) and I bought a Fluke 177. It costed me even more, it has not
> PC
> > >> connectivity and thermocouple, but the Metex was completely unuseable
> > >> while the
> > >> Fluke is very good.
> > >>
> > >> Then it was the time for a scope, a function generator and a lab power
> > >> supply.
> > >> I bought all the three from Instek. The scope was the GDS-820S and as
> soon
> > >> as I
> > >> had the opportunity, I sold it and bought an Agilent DSO3062A. This
> > >> Agilent too
> > >> is very entry-level, the plastic case cracks easily, in general the
> > >> quality is
> > >> not near the level the other Agilent instruments I late bought (like
> the
> > >> 34401A) but the Instek was unuseable while the Agilent is ok.
> > >> (I still own the function generator and the power supply: being not
> > >> precision
> > >> items they are useable... but for precision I bought an used Wavetek
> > >> generator)
> > >>
> > >> To sum it up, my experience is that good instruments are unvaluable,
> for
> > >> work
> > >> as well for hobby (for hobby it's even more important, because
> it's
> > >> supposed
> > >> you should enjoy doing it!)
> 

Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[NeonJohn]

On 04/16/2012 03:46 AM, Attila Kinali wrote:

> What's the quality of those chinese scopes?

I have one of the Rigol 2 channel 100 MHz 1GHz sampling rate scopes.
Can't recall the model number.  It's the one that either HP or Tek
private labels.

It is superb.  It was with great sadness that I removed my Tek 465 and a
more modern 4 channel unit from my bench and now have them covered and
stored in the back corner of my shop.  I just don't need them.

There is a rumor that one also needs an analog scope.  While that was
true with my FlukeScope, it is not with the Rigol.  It has the look and
feel of an analog storage scope but without the bloom or fade.

Disclaimer: I design induction heaters and so deal mostly with low
frequency (<20MHz) stuff.  I do have one of those scope testers that Tek
used to hand out.  The Rigol looks just like the pictures in the manual
that came with the tester.

John


John DeArmond
Tellico Plains, Occupied TN
http://www.neon-john.com<-- email from here
http://www.johndearmond.com <-- Best damned Blog on the net
PGP key: wwwkeys.pgp.net: BCB68D77

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Tom Knox]

I was speaking several years ago to someone at Tektronix and asked why they did 
not still make an analog scope.
He told me cost was the reason, simply price; to make a modern version of the 
7104 or 2467B would cost nearly as much as an Italian sports car.
I have the Latest 40Gs/s scope and it is fantastic but still have a LeCroy 
LA354 analog (of sorts) scope as a second opinion. 
All that said, as someone who brokers equipment, it is difficult to justify as 
a reseller older scopes less the 500MHz in light of the great products coming 
out of China.

Thomas Knox



> Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 08:19:58 -0700
> From: garn...@gmail.com
> To: time-nuts@febo.com
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)
> 
> I have the latest and greatest from both Tek and Agilent at work,
> designed and made right here in the states. They suffer from menu-itis
> just like the chinese stuff does. My Tek DSA 72004 at work is a
> complete PITA to use unless I have the mouse and keyboard attached. In
> my opinion, it's just how things are in the modern age.
> 
> 
> -Eric
> 
> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 8:03 AM, J. Forster  wrote:
> > I often smile secretly at those who tout the latest asian stuff. It may be
> > small, light, and look like a 'puter, but it doesn't compare for bench use
> > to a Tek 7000 series similar vintage portables.
> >
> > Going through layer after layer of ever more obtuse menus is just not
> > 'user friendly' to me. Maybe it is to the designers, because they are used
> > to a 10,000+ character alphabet?
> >
> > -John
> >
> > 
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 09:46:27AM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:
> >>
> >>> > Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
> >>> > scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will
> >>> make
> >>> > buying boat anchors a thing of the past.
> >>>
> >>> What's the quality of those chinese scopes?
> >>
> >> I never had the opportunity to use good old Tek, HP or Fluke instruments,
> >> because I never had access to them, so when I begun to buy instruments for
> >> myself, I was completely unbiased and I looked to the price and spec
> >> sheets
> >> more than the maker.
> >>
> >> To start, I wanted to replace my very very old (but very good) analog
> >> multimeter, so I bought an handheld Metex digital multimer. I choose what
> >> was
> >> then their top item with thermocouple and PC connectivity.
> >> I had soon to give it away for free to a friend (who needed a wire
> >> continuity
> >> beeper) and I bought a Fluke 177. It costed me even more, it has not PC
> >> connectivity and thermocouple, but the Metex was completely unuseable
> >> while the
> >> Fluke is very good.
> >>
> >> Then it was the time for a scope, a function generator and a lab power
> >> supply.
> >> I bought all the three from Instek. The scope was the GDS-820S and as soon
> >> as I
> >> had the opportunity, I sold it and bought an Agilent DSO3062A. This
> >> Agilent too
> >> is very entry-level, the plastic case cracks easily, in general the
> >> quality is
> >> not near the level the other Agilent instruments I late bought (like the
> >> 34401A) but the Instek was unuseable while the Agilent is ok.
> >> (I still own the function generator and the power supply: being not
> >> precision
> >> items they are useable... but for precision I bought an used Wavetek
> >> generator)
> >>
> >> To sum it up, my experience is that good instruments are unvaluable, for
> >> work
> >> as well for hobby (for hobby it's even more important, because it's
> >> supposed
> >> you should enjoy doing it!)
> >>
> >> Best regards,
> >> Andrea Baldoni
> >>
> >> ___
> >> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
> >> To unsubscribe, go to
> >> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> >> and follow the instructions there.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > ___
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> > To unsubscribe, go to 
> > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> > and follow the instructions there.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> --Eric
> _
> Eric Garner
> 
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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes

[Jim Lux]

On 4/16/12 8:19 AM, Eric Garner wrote:

I have the latest and greatest from both Tek and Agilent at work,
designed and made right here in the states. They suffer from menu-itis
just like the chinese stuff does. My Tek DSA 72004 at work is a
complete PITA to use unless I have the mouse and keyboard attached. In
my opinion, it's just how things are in the modern age.





yes.. they save knobs by not having on a spectrum analyzer for instance, 
a separate knob for center frequency, span, and reference level.



On the scopes, it's not so bad.. you have one knob for vertical and one 
for horizontal, and it seems to make sense.


But the UI is what has always separated brands of test equipment.

Those of us who grew up with Tek Scopes always found the HP scopes a bit 
weird to use.  Likewise, you get used to the HP spectrum analyzer and 
signal generator, and going to something else is a bit weird.



Power supplies are the worst.  even within the same mfr, it seems every 
PS has different ways to do the current limit, the OVP, to switch the 
metering, etc.


The new Agilent supplies (like the N6700 series), though, are very 
cool.. they have a built in ARB to do soft starts and transient testing, 
and a built in oscilloscope function to look at inrush.  And they're 
available in two versions.. one with knobs on the front panel and 
binding posts for bench use, and a basically identical unit with a few 
buttons on the front panel, and connections on the back for use in a rack.



These days, I look for the remote interface, and if I'm going to be 
typing on a keyboard, I'd rather do it on the host PC, not the instrument.



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Eric Garner]

I have the latest and greatest from both Tek and Agilent at work,
designed and made right here in the states. They suffer from menu-itis
just like the chinese stuff does. My Tek DSA 72004 at work is a
complete PITA to use unless I have the mouse and keyboard attached. In
my opinion, it's just how things are in the modern age.


-Eric

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 8:03 AM, J. Forster  wrote:
> I often smile secretly at those who tout the latest asian stuff. It may be
> small, light, and look like a 'puter, but it doesn't compare for bench use
> to a Tek 7000 series similar vintage portables.
>
> Going through layer after layer of ever more obtuse menus is just not
> 'user friendly' to me. Maybe it is to the designers, because they are used
> to a 10,000+ character alphabet?
>
> -John
>
> 
>
>
>
>
>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 09:46:27AM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:
>>
>>> > Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
>>> > scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will
>>> make
>>> > buying boat anchors a thing of the past.
>>>
>>> What's the quality of those chinese scopes?
>>
>> I never had the opportunity to use good old Tek, HP or Fluke instruments,
>> because I never had access to them, so when I begun to buy instruments for
>> myself, I was completely unbiased and I looked to the price and spec
>> sheets
>> more than the maker.
>>
>> To start, I wanted to replace my very very old (but very good) analog
>> multimeter, so I bought an handheld Metex digital multimer. I choose what
>> was
>> then their top item with thermocouple and PC connectivity.
>> I had soon to give it away for free to a friend (who needed a wire
>> continuity
>> beeper) and I bought a Fluke 177. It costed me even more, it has not PC
>> connectivity and thermocouple, but the Metex was completely unuseable
>> while the
>> Fluke is very good.
>>
>> Then it was the time for a scope, a function generator and a lab power
>> supply.
>> I bought all the three from Instek. The scope was the GDS-820S and as soon
>> as I
>> had the opportunity, I sold it and bought an Agilent DSO3062A. This
>> Agilent too
>> is very entry-level, the plastic case cracks easily, in general the
>> quality is
>> not near the level the other Agilent instruments I late bought (like the
>> 34401A) but the Instek was unuseable while the Agilent is ok.
>> (I still own the function generator and the power supply: being not
>> precision
>> items they are useable... but for precision I bought an used Wavetek
>> generator)
>>
>> To sum it up, my experience is that good instruments are unvaluable, for
>> work
>> as well for hobby (for hobby it's even more important, because it's
>> supposed
>> you should enjoy doing it!)
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Andrea Baldoni
>>
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>> and follow the instructions there.
>>
>>
>
>
>
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-- 
--Eric
_
Eric Garner

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[J. Forster]

I often smile secretly at those who tout the latest asian stuff. It may be
small, light, and look like a 'puter, but it doesn't compare for bench use
to a Tek 7000 series similar vintage portables.

Going through layer after layer of ever more obtuse menus is just not
'user friendly' to me. Maybe it is to the designers, because they are used
to a 10,000+ character alphabet?

-John






> On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 09:46:27AM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:
>
>> > Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
>> > scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will
>> make
>> > buying boat anchors a thing of the past.
>>
>> What's the quality of those chinese scopes?
>
> I never had the opportunity to use good old Tek, HP or Fluke instruments,
> because I never had access to them, so when I begun to buy instruments for
> myself, I was completely unbiased and I looked to the price and spec
> sheets
> more than the maker.
>
> To start, I wanted to replace my very very old (but very good) analog
> multimeter, so I bought an handheld Metex digital multimer. I choose what
> was
> then their top item with thermocouple and PC connectivity.
> I had soon to give it away for free to a friend (who needed a wire
> continuity
> beeper) and I bought a Fluke 177. It costed me even more, it has not PC
> connectivity and thermocouple, but the Metex was completely unuseable
> while the
> Fluke is very good.
>
> Then it was the time for a scope, a function generator and a lab power
> supply.
> I bought all the three from Instek. The scope was the GDS-820S and as soon
> as I
> had the opportunity, I sold it and bought an Agilent DSO3062A. This
> Agilent too
> is very entry-level, the plastic case cracks easily, in general the
> quality is
> not near the level the other Agilent instruments I late bought (like the
> 34401A) but the Instek was unuseable while the Agilent is ok.
> (I still own the function generator and the power supply: being not
> precision
> items they are useable... but for precision I bought an used Wavetek
> generator)
>
> To sum it up, my experience is that good instruments are unvaluable, for
> work
> as well for hobby (for hobby it's even more important, because it's
> supposed
> you should enjoy doing it!)
>
> Best regards,
> Andrea Baldoni
>
> ___
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to
> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.
>
>



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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Andrea Baldoni]

On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 09:46:27AM +0200, Attila Kinali wrote:

> > Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
> > scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will make
> > buying boat anchors a thing of the past.
> 
> What's the quality of those chinese scopes?

I never had the opportunity to use good old Tek, HP or Fluke instruments,
because I never had access to them, so when I begun to buy instruments for
myself, I was completely unbiased and I looked to the price and spec sheets
more than the maker.

To start, I wanted to replace my very very old (but very good) analog
multimeter, so I bought an handheld Metex digital multimer. I choose what was
then their top item with thermocouple and PC connectivity.
I had soon to give it away for free to a friend (who needed a wire continuity
beeper) and I bought a Fluke 177. It costed me even more, it has not PC
connectivity and thermocouple, but the Metex was completely unuseable while the
Fluke is very good.

Then it was the time for a scope, a function generator and a lab power supply.
I bought all the three from Instek. The scope was the GDS-820S and as soon as I
had the opportunity, I sold it and bought an Agilent DSO3062A. This Agilent too
is very entry-level, the plastic case cracks easily, in general the quality is
not near the level the other Agilent instruments I late bought (like the
34401A) but the Instek was unuseable while the Agilent is ok.
(I still own the function generator and the power supply: being not precision
items they are useable... but for precision I bought an used Wavetek generator)

To sum it up, my experience is that good instruments are unvaluable, for work
as well for hobby (for hobby it's even more important, because it's supposed
you should enjoy doing it!)

Best regards,
Andrea Baldoni

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Re: [time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Hal Murray]

> What's the quality of those chinese scopes?

http://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2012-January/061925.html


-- 
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.




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[time-nuts] Chinese Scopes (was: Re: LORAN-C at MIT)

[Attila Kinali]

On Sun, 15 Apr 2012 22:42:31 +
li...@lazygranch.com wrote:

> Sadly, the last scope I bought was a Chinese Rigol. (I do have "real"
> scopes too.) It is getting to the point where Rigol and Instek will make
> buying boat anchors a thing of the past.

What's the quality of those chinese scopes?
I could need a "modern" DSO as addition to my stone age 2ch 50MHz Tek.
But there isn't any usable surplus market in europe and used scopes cost
nearly as much as new ones. Ie Tek, Agilent and LeCroy are out of my budget,
even if used. But then, i'd rather spend 2000chf on a new Scope than get
one for 500 that isn't half usable.

Attila Kinali

-- 
Why does it take years to find the answers to
the questions one should have asked long ago?

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