Jeff Liebermann wrote:

snip

I have a fluorescent lamp calibrated noise source that's quite noisy
well into the GHz range.

snip
I built it myself from an article in some long lost magazine
perhaps 30 years ago. It's just a 5watt fluorescent tube, with a few
turns of wire wrapped around it going to a broadband CATV amplifier.

I was quite excited by the acquisition of a CATV distrib. amp as a
giveaway at a local hamfest earlier this spring; I modified it to
accept external power and use BNC connectors and produced a hand-
drawn schematic which I will 'capture' when time permits and post
together with photos. I have used it as a front end to a freq.
counter and an oscilloscope and without it I could not have completed
several projects.

These units are so handy it is a wonder that (at least on the Web) there
has been little mention of their experimental uses.

BTW, which of the numerous newsgroups in this miserably cross-posted thread do
you regularly read?

Regards,

Michael