Hi Ed,

What I am NOT doing is trying to mix the needs of the hobbiest with
the realities of companies that build for professionals. You are
lamenting the fact that the newer gear is hard for hobbiests to
maintain. That argument will go soft on HP or Tektronix, or any of
several dozen other equipment manufacturers that make equipment for
professionals.

The simple fact that your abilities at repair stop at thru hole,
technology, doesn't mean that devices that use hybrids, and surface
mount technology are not repairable. The hybrid front end on the
2465 is quite repairable, but requires a little optical help, just
like watch repair, an 1800's tecnology. From what I have heard, most
of the parts in the hybrid are standard off the shelf surface mount
faire... I have no direct knowledge of whether this is actually true.
I did find it to be the case with the output hybrid in HP's 86222A
sweeper plugin.

There would be no more point in taking your busted 2465 to Tek for
repair than there would be for your 465, they won't work on either.

Checked is not the same as calibration. The case doesn't even get
opened for "checked".

And to your assertion that I am a rich hobbiest, I am not an electronics
hobbiest at all! I am a self-employed electrical engineer, and I use
the test equipment I own to earn a living. Sadly, for me electronics
died as a hobby when I started getting paid to do it. The happy part
is I truly enjoy my work!

-Chuck, WA3UQV

(I will admit that VERY obsolete electronics retains a hobby sort of
thrill for me... Old tube gear, and old minicomputers.)

Ed Price wrote:
You keep mixing the needs of an enterprise with those of a hobbyist. True,
many of the people on the groups of this thread are electronics
professionals who also have an electronics hobby interest. My comments have
all been aimed toward the hobbyist. If you have a 2465B scope (one of the
finest analog scopes I have ever used), then you are one extremely wealthy
hobbyist, and the economic constraints most everyone else lives by must not
apply to you.

A hobbyist doesn't send anything "out" for calibration; they rely on the
ability to cross-check their various gear with everything else in their
collection. Sometimes, they might be able to compare one of their items with
a professionally calibrated and traceable item. Or maybe they buy a new DMM,
that's rated for 0.1% (whatever) and then proceed to adjust the rest of
their stuff into agreement with that one new item.

My point is that old equipment is repairable. Your point is that newer
equipment is chock full of value, more reliable, and is easier to lift.
There's no contradiction between these positions.

BTW, your DVM always "needs" calibration, even if it is still within
tolerance every time it's checked. Nice to know that it's stable, but
nothing lives forever. As for "fidgety little components", should you ever
apply a few watts of RF to the input of your 2465, you'll find it very
difficult to repair by yourself, and the Tek bill for the job could very
well approach the replacement cost. If the same had happened to a 465, then
you would just be replacing a few small, precision resistors.

Ed
wb6wsn

Andrew Tweddle wrote:

Dave Hall wrote:
Ed Price wrote:

"Paul Burridge" wrote in message
. ..

On Sun, 16 Nov 2003 23:30:40 -0800, "Ed Price"
wrote:


Designing and building a product to provide many years of use, and then
capable of being repaired without access to unique components and/or

exotic

service equipment, is a concept so rare as to be thought a scam.

Can anyone recommend a decent commercial vector network analyser and
spectrum analyser that one can repair oneself if necessary and
hopefully keep them up and running for ever?
--

"I expect history will be kind to me, since I intend to write it."
-

Winston Churchill

For the spectrum analyzer part, the best a hobbyist can usually afford is an
HP-141, with a few plug-ins (IIRC, they offered a total of 6, collect the
whole set!). And you will need the HP manuals (some of which are available
free from the US Army LOGSA site). And you will need some other basic and
decent lab gear (scope, counter, DMM, sig gens) to do the job right.

Sorry, but I can't comment on any Network Analyzers.


This might be a bit off the exact topic but I have a friend who has a HP
141 and the horozontal display scan has shrunk and folded over on top of
itself. Having never worked on test equipment, I could only offer
generic possibilities, (Voltages, deflection transistors, caps?). Is
there are common part failure that can cause this to the best of your
knowlege?

Thanks,
Dave


Look at the 2W resistors and the output transistors in the output
deflection stages for a start.

Andrew


Thank you!

Dave

Chuck Harris wrote in message ...
Hi Ed,

What I am NOT doing is trying to mix the needs of the hobbiest with
the realities of companies that build for professionals. You are
lamenting the fact that the newer gear is hard for hobbiests to
maintain. That argument will go soft on HP or Tektronix, or any of
several dozen other equipment manufacturers that make equipment for
professionals.

The simple fact that your abilities at repair stop at thru hole,
technology, doesn't mean that devices that use hybrids, and surface
mount technology are not repairable. The hybrid front end on the
2465 is quite repairable, but requires a little optical help, just
like watch repair, an 1800's tecnology. From what I have heard, most
of the parts in the hybrid are standard off the shelf surface mount
faire... I have no direct knowledge of whether this is actually true.
I did find it to be the case with the output hybrid in HP's 86222A
sweeper plugin.

There would be no more point in taking your busted 2465 to Tek for
repair than there would be for your 465, they won't work on either.

Checked is not the same as calibration. The case doesn't even get
opened for "checked".

And to your assertion that I am a rich hobbiest, I am not an electronics
hobbiest at all! I am a self-employed electrical engineer, and I use
the test equipment I own to earn a living. Sadly, for me electronics
died as a hobby when I started getting paid to do it. The happy part
is I truly enjoy my work!

-Chuck, WA3UQV

(I will admit that VERY obsolete electronics retains a hobby sort of
thrill for me... Old tube gear, and old minicomputers.)

Ed Price wrote:
You keep mixing the needs of an enterprise with those of a hobbyist. True,
many of the people on the groups of this thread are electronics
professionals who also have an electronics hobby interest. My comments have
all been aimed toward the hobbyist. If you have a 2465B scope (one of the
finest analog scopes I have ever used), then you are one extremely wealthy
hobbyist, and the economic constraints most everyone else lives by must not
apply to you.

A hobbyist doesn't send anything "out" for calibration; they rely on the
ability to cross-check their various gear with everything else in their
collection. Sometimes, they might be able to compare one of their items with
a professionally calibrated and traceable item. Or maybe they buy a new DMM,
that's rated for 0.1% (whatever) and then proceed to adjust the rest of
their stuff into agreement with that one new item.

My point is that old equipment is repairable. Your point is that newer
equipment is chock full of value, more reliable, and is easier to lift.
There's no contradiction between these positions.

BTW, your DVM always "needs" calibration, even if it is still within
tolerance every time it's checked. Nice to know that it's stable, but
nothing lives forever. As for "fidgety little components", should you ever
apply a few watts of RF to the input of your 2465, you'll find it very
difficult to repair by yourself, and the Tek bill for the job could very
well approach the replacement cost. If the same had happened to a 465, then
you would just be replacing a few small, precision resistors.

Ed
wb6wsn


does that mean you still have some use for trash 80's?

gw wrote:
Chuck Harris wrote in message ...

-Chuck, WA3UQV

does that mean you still have some use for trash 80's?


Way too new! I'm more interested in old PDP 8, stuff, 8/I's
in particular. Things that have absolutely no practical use ;-)

-Chuck

Chuck Harris wrote:
gw wrote:

Chuck Harris wrote in message
...


-Chuck, WA3UQV


does that mean you still have some use for trash 80's?



Way too new! I'm more interested in old PDP 8, stuff, 8/I's
in particular. Things that have absolutely no practical use ;-)

-Chuck


So Chuck your looking for a Trash 8/E rather than a Trash 80. BTW my
Trash 80 was a real Trash 80. R.S said it was uneconomical to repair,
read out of warrenty replaced a bad ttl chip and away it went. A friend
reworked the firmware to get rid of the infamous keyboard and cassette
problems(we rescued 8 of them from that dumpster).
Bill

Bill Higdon wrote:
Chuck Harris wrote:


So Chuck your looking for a Trash 8/E rather than a Trash 80. BTW my
Trash 80 was a real Trash 80. R.S said it was uneconomical to repair,
read out of warrenty replaced a bad ttl chip and away it went. A friend
reworked the firmware to get rid of the infamous keyboard and cassette
problems(we rescued 8 of them from that dumpster).
Bill


Snort! That's a good one! I spent too much time using the original
TRS-80 to ever really want one. In one of my first consulting jobs
I wrote a bunch of drivers for a customer's Z80 controlled instrument
using the customer's TRS-80 as the development system. It worked just
fine, I guess... it got the job done, but I never did like it all that
much. I kind of liked the TRS80 IV, I think it was, that came out much
later.

-Chuck

FYI: I still use the Color Computer to do laser light shows.
Steve, k,9,d,c,i


"Chuck Harris" wrote in message
...
gw wrote:
Chuck Harris wrote in message
...

-Chuck, WA3UQV

does that mean you still have some use for trash 80's?


Way too new! I'm more interested in old PDP 8, stuff, 8/I's
in particular. Things that have absolutely no practical use ;-)

-Chuck

Steve Nosko wrote:
FYI: I still use the Color Computer to do laser light shows.
Steve, k,9,d,c,i

Good for you! I really felt stupid seeing mine in the trash can only a
year or two after having paid $300 for it.
Shoulda kept it? Nah.
Still have that little pocket version with 4k RAM, though. It'll come
in handy someday :-)
-Bill M

Chuck Harris wrote in message ...
gw wrote:
Chuck Harris wrote in message ...

-Chuck, WA3UQV

does that mean you still have some use for trash 80's?


Way too new! I'm more interested in old PDP 8, stuff, 8/I's
in particular. Things that have absolutely no practical use ;-)

-Chuck

perhaps one of you guys can tell me this. when you see a unit on ebay
and it says fresh calibration, what exactly does this mean to me as
the buyer? does this mean it will probably be operating ok for a few
years or is this something that has to be done yearly? for the home
shop hobbyist ? thanks.

"gw" wrote in message
om...
Chuck Harris wrote in message
...

SNIP

does that mean you still have some use for trash 80's?

Sorry, I never had much use for TRS-80's. But I do have a Commodore PET; a
very original one (with the black tape deck). It has an IEEE-488 port, and a
Basic that can control any IEEE-488 instrument. And, considering that it has
a built-in monochrome monitor, it qualifies as a genuine boat-anchor, since
it glows in the dark. g

Ed