"gw" wrote in message
om...
"Ed Price" wrote in message
news:tPmtb.4837$cX1.463@fed1read02...
"John Miles" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
johnm wrote in message
...
what is a good spectrum analyzer to have for a home shop in your
opinion, and also what is a good scope to have and do you have
to
break the bank on this stuff? thanks.


SNIP

The 141Ts at Tucker seem like a pretty good deal. I believe they all
come with new CRTs. I personally like to buy broken models on eBay
and
fix them up. It's cheaper, you get really familiar with the gear
inside
and out, and you always have spare parts on hand. But that strategy
isn't for everybody.

-- jm


As I have HP-141's, an HP-8569, an 8566B and an 8562A, let me drop a few
comments here.

The 141's are the best deal for a hobbyist. You can acquire the slightly
better 8552B IF section, and then get only the RF plug-in that suits
your
needs (an 8556, with it's built-in tracking generator, for a few Hz to
300
kHz, or an 8555, for 10 MHz through umpteen GHz, assuming you also get
the
external mixers). Unfortunately, by the time a hobbyist gets one of
these,
it has been abused and neglected by its last commercial owner. CRT burns
are
common, and the flood-gun analog memory may be very quirky. For an
advanced
hobbyist, either get an associated Polaroid scope camera, or build your
own
camera hood. You can capture a lot of transient things that way, and you
can
scan the pixs to input into your computer. Also, HP made a line of
oscilloscope plug-ins that fit the 141 mainframe, so you can use the 141
as
a multi-channel analog memory oscilloscope too. 141's are a pain in two
ways; first, you have to externally store extra plug-ins, and secondly,
the
hard side handles make carrying one a painful experience beyond about 50
feet. Also, you tend to injure your fingertips sliding those bulky
plug-ins
in and out past the big metal front handles. The 141 may also be the
last of
the hobbyist repairable analyzers; newer analyzers use proprietary chips
and
are built too dense to let you get fingers and probes into them.

The 8562A is old (1987) but a superb analyzer, 1 kHz to 18 GHz, all
digital
and synthesized. This will do everything you want, except drive a
parallel
or RS-232 printer directly. If you're smart enough to talk to it by
IEEE-488, then you can do everything through the computer. Other 856x
series
units have lesser capabilities, but are still great analyzers, and just
might be priced low enough for a very serious hobbyist. Also, the
HP-859x
series are very good, although some have odd frequency, memory and IO
capabilities. All 856x & 859x series units are one-man portables, until
your
knuckles turn white and numb.

The 8569 is, in my opinion, a transitional beast between the analog and
digital worlds. It's not as stable and simple as the 8562A, although
it's a
leap above the 141. Since it's wide, it's also awkward to carry using
it's
handle. I'm not much of a fan of the 8569.

The 8566B is HP's top-of-the-line analyzer. They threw down the
benchmark
for everyone else to try to meet. Mine is customized a bit, covering 20
Hz
to 22 GHz, and with an external tracking pre-selector, optional
detectors,
programmable attenuators, RF path switching and low-noise pre-amps. My
company has a number of somewhat more plain-vanilla 8566B's and 8566A's.
There isn't anything I need to do that these units fall short of (uhh,
with
the help of some external IEEE-488 linked computers). OTOH, these are
now
obsolete, non-supported by Agilent, and need two guys to carry one. Mine
is
in a 60" tall dedicated rack. Typical used price is around $20k.

Most companies will be better served with one of Agilent's newer EPA or
SPA
analyzers. Anritsu and Rohde & Schwartz are also making fine analyzers.
IIRC, Leader makes an analyzer that a hobbyist may aspire to affording.

I would say that a 141 is still the best hobbyist choice. A company
needs to
be sure that they get a usable item for their money, so buying on eBay
is a
gamble. A company should buy from some place like Tucker, where they get
a
warranty backed by a reputable source. Yeah, it initially costs more.
But
it's a lot safer than having to try to repair an analyzer when you need
that
analyzer to do the real work of your company. A hobbyist can afford to
spend
50 to 100 hours to get something going; in a business environment, where
the
clock is always ticking, that's unacceptable.

Ed
wb6wsn


didn't the 141t's come out in the late 60's? I believe I read
somewhere that the hp 8566b came out in 1995 and cost around $75,000
new, and like you stated I have read that it is the best spectrum
analyzer ever built. I see them for about $10,000.00 to $12,000.00
starting on ebay but I would have some serious problems laying out
that kind of money for a item on ebay. Thanks for the info. For all I
know the 141t might serve my purposes just fine. I will look and see
if tucker has one of those 8562a's though.


A 140 series, with a round face CRT came out in the early 70's. The 141,
with a rectangular face, hit around 1975. The 8566 was around 1991, IIRC.

Unless you get extraordinarily lucky (and when does that ever happen), all
but the 141 series is priced beyond the hobbyist. Maybe some of those 8562's
or 859x's will be still working in 5 years or so when they hit the surplus
market. Till then, hobbyists are still pretty much in the analog SA world.

Ed
wb6wsn


I wouldn't buy an 8566B on eBay; I can't cross my fingers that hard.

In article nqutb.6159$cX1.4086@fed1read02, Ed Price wrote:

A 140 series, with a round face CRT came out in the early 70's. The 141,
with a rectangular face, hit around 1975. The 8566 was around 1991, IIRC.

The 141 weighs a ton, but it's rock solid stable, it sells for reasonable
money at hamfests, and it's not that hard to get repaired.

Also, I think the Singer spectrum analyzers of that era are underrated and
sell for very low sums considering how good they are. When I first used
one, I was amazed at how birdie-free it was (although admittedly this was
30 years ago, and all of our standards for birdies are a bit higher).

Unless you get extraordinarily lucky (and when does that ever happen), all
but the 141 series is priced beyond the hobbyist. Maybe some of those 8562's
or 859x's will be still working in 5 years or so when they hit the surplus
market. Till then, hobbyists are still pretty much in the analog SA world.

You know, I like the analogue SA gear. I like analogue scopes too.

I see a lot of wideband hand-held receivers like the Icom R10, some of which
have crude LCD panadaptor displays. Has anyone used any of these as cheap
spectrum analyzers? If so, what is the one that will give me the best
resolution possible? I don't much care about the front end sensitivity.
I can live with some serious limitations in order to have something I can
carry in my pocket.

It would be very nice to have a spectrum analyzer I can carry up to the top
of the tower with me to poke around at the head amps before taking the
whole thing down.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

No, there is no person so named. Would you prefer that he had used the sort
of expletives that those symbols generally represent? Have you never seen
profanity annotated that way (think: comic strip)? The 'Sanford & Son'
reference was made by the service rep, apparently referring to the gall of
the OP, for wasting the rep's valuable time asking for information about
equipment that he (the rep) considered to be nothing but junk (you'll recall
the TV series of that name was about a junk dealer).

Does that wrap it up for you...or--OP--did I get that right?

jak

"Bill Turner" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 15:58:52 -0600, "jakdedert"
wrote:

Looked like English to me. What part of it did you not understand?

jak

__________________________________________________ _______

1. The part about calling regarding a 465 faceplate and the guy losing
his wig before he got to speak about the 2232. Can you say "non
sequitur"?

2. Is there a person named "$^% 465 !!"? This person apparently makes
jokes about Sanford and Son. What does this have to do with ordering
parts from Tektronix?

3. If you *can* make sense out of his post, I worry about you. :-)

--
Bill, W6WRT

johnm wrote:

I heard someone on the test-equipment reflector (http://www.qth.net) was
going to fabricate some replacement 8640B gears out of metal. You might
check with that list to see if it ever happened.

Dunno, but the guy at www.odometergears.com has been VERY happy to fabricate
plastic instrument gears for me, for fairly little money.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Thanks to Ed for the good advice.

I've got an HP 140T. As far as I know, the only difference between it
and the 141T is that the CRT in mine is a conventional one with
long-persistence phosphor rather than a storage tube. It uses the same
plug-in units as the 141T. I find it to be very usable, and don't really
miss storage capability at all. I think the tube is a lot more
trouble-free than a storage type unit.

So I recommend that you don't turn down a 140T if you come across one --
and you might even have a better chance of getting a unit with a working
display than with a 141T.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Ed Price wrote:

[Lots of good advice]

Roy Lewallen wrote in message ...
Thanks to Ed for the good advice.

I've got an HP 140T. As far as I know, the only difference between it
and the 141T is that the CRT in mine is a conventional one with
long-persistence phosphor rather than a storage tube. It uses the same
plug-in units as the 141T. I find it to be very usable, and don't really
miss storage capability at all. I think the tube is a lot more
trouble-free than a storage type unit.

So I recommend that you don't turn down a 140T if you come across one --
and you might even have a better chance of getting a unit with a working
display than with a 141T.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Ed Price wrote:

[Lots of good advice]


well it is amazing i think how some of these units retain their resale
value even though the companies that made them do not service them or
back them......man who was the brainiac that thought about how to
implement this scam?

incidentally some guy tried to sell a stolen hp unit he lifted over at
his job at nasa.......on ebay.....the final price was i think about
$3,000.00....for a 35,000 dollar unit i thing they said on the
news......he got arrested and the guy who bought it on ebay needless
to say didn't get the deal he was trying to get.....which makes me
wonder how many stolen items are listed on ebay and are sold there?

"gw" wrote in message
om...
Roy Lewallen wrote in message
...
Thanks to Ed for the good advice.

I've got an HP 140T. As far as I know, the only difference between it
and the 141T is that the CRT in mine is a conventional one with
long-persistence phosphor rather than a storage tube. It uses the same
plug-in units as the 141T. I find it to be very usable, and don't really
miss storage capability at all. I think the tube is a lot more
trouble-free than a storage type unit.

So I recommend that you don't turn down a 140T if you come across one --
and you might even have a better chance of getting a unit with a working
display than with a 141T.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Ed Price wrote:

[Lots of good advice]


well it is amazing i think how some of these units retain their resale
value even though the companies that made them do not service them or
back them......man who was the brainiac that thought about how to
implement this scam?

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.

Ed
wb6wsn

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.

Ed
wb6wsn


Imagine your cell phone if it was designed to be repaired, and used only
common components. It would be the size of a briefcase. Do you think
cell phones would be popular if they had to be briefcase sized?

What about spectrum analyzers that needed to be contained in several
6 foot high rack cabinets?

Is the world better or worse now that a 100MHz oscilloscope can be made
the size of a paper back book?

-Chuck, WA3UQV

Chuck Harris wrote:

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.

Ed
wb6wsn


Imagine your cell phone if it was designed to be repaired, and used only
common components. It would be the size of a briefcase. Do you think
cell phones would be popular if they had to be briefcase sized?

What about spectrum analyzers that needed to be contained in several
6 foot high rack cabinets?

Is the world better or worse now that a 100MHz oscilloscope can be made
the size of a paper back book?

-Chuck, WA3UQV

Most of the chips in cell phones are off the shelf parts, and there
are places that do repair cell phones. RMS Communications in Ocala,
Florida rebuilds thousands of pagers and cell phones every week. I know
several techs who worked there, and they were telling me about the
equipment they had available at each work station.


One problem with new RF and test equipment is the firmware programmed
into chips isn't readily available to program replacement parts. Another
problem is the short production life for some parts. If you build a
product for over two years, you either do "Lifetime purchases", or
redesign boards to use the next round of parts. What is real fun is a
base product with up to 100 different sets of software, depending on the
customers specifications. Its hard enough to keep it straight on the
factory floor, let alone trying to do it in the field.
--


Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

"Bill Turner" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 19:15:09 -0600, "jakdedert"
wrote:

No, there is no person so named. Would you prefer that he had used the
sort
of expletives that those symbols generally represent? Have you never
seen
profanity annotated that way (think: comic strip)?

I've never seen "465" included in symbolic profanity before. Remove
that and the rest becomes recognizable.

Didn't notice that...finger must've slipped off the shift key.


The 'Sanford & Son'
reference was made by the service rep, apparently referring to the gall
of
the OP, for wasting the rep's valuable time asking for information about
equipment that he (the rep) considered to be nothing but junk (you'll
recall
the TV series of that name was about a junk dealer).

Pretty obscure, but makes sense now.

Does that wrap it up for you...or--OP--did I get that right?

Got it all, thanks. Plain 'ol English beats speaking in tongues though.
Actually, this was kind of fun. Maybe we should all start posting with
obscure references and irregular grammar. Not.

Glad to be of service. Actually I think the obscure reference was actually
a paraphrased quotation of the service rep, which the OP repeated...probably
should have used quote marks there to clear it up.

jak
--
Bill, W6WRT