On 6 Mar 2005 09:30:54 -0800, "ray13" wrote:

They are both useful. You don't even want to know about all the bells
and whistles you can get, let alone trying to figure out how many of
those whistles you can use, not to mention the bells. And the digital
models are like a high end ham rig. You are going to be navigating
tonnes of menus.

I'd go for an analog crt based scope, 20mhz, 50mhz or 100mhz bandwidth.
With a 50volt to 50millivolt input range. Make sure it comes with a
probe with 10:1 input switch. Scopes typically have a 1meg ohm input
impedance so the 10:1 would get you 11 meg input plus the probe offers
frequency compensation.

This is the best advice out of the whole bunch!

If you are just starting out with this kind of test equipment then a
moderately priced analogue scope will serve quite well. It will also
be under $200.00 or so. If you find you need more later on you can get
something better. But that scope will probably do all you want it to.

You will probably get more use out of a scope than anything else. If
you do any building of any logic or timing circuits, measuring ripple
on a power supply or looking for signal paths of DC or audio, a scope
is what you need. A spectrum analyzer will not do the things a scope
will do.

A general coverage receiver will serve as a "poor mans spectrum
analyzer". Most ham transceivers have general coverage on them and you
can do a lot of things with the receiver that you can do with an
expensive spectrum analyzer. Read frequency, measure levels,
distinguish between different level signals (level of a harmonic
compared to fundamental) etc. A spectrum analyzer is just an
automatically tuned receiver with a display. The transceiver can also
be used as a signal generator.

When you learn how to do those type of things with a receiver then a
spectrum analyzer is much easier to use and understand.

Add the spectrum analyzer later. There are all different types and
priced analyzers with many different features that you may or may not
want. There are also some real dogs out there that you probably don't
want.
Then the problem comes when buying of determining if it is really
working as it should. It takes some experience with that kind of
equipment to recognize if it is working properly. Repairs can be quite
expensive on a spectrum analyzer.

I would also avoid a service monitor as a first piece of test
equipment.
As someone else said "they are a poor scope, a poor spectrum
analyzer". They are a handy item for some types of things if you can
get one that works properly. Like a spectrum analyzer they can be very
expensive to repair. You really need to know what you are buying when
you buy one.

73
Gary K4FMX