On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 06:48:24 -0400, Dave Hall wrote:


Dave,

Do you recoomended a decent Freq counter I can get on ebay for aound $40? They
have a ton of older HP and BK Precisions. I had a Fluke 1900A, but it died on
me, and I am looking to replace it.



Well, as a matter of course, you get what you pay for. To me $40 is in
the "recreational user" category. For true lab precision quality test
equipment, you're going to pay a lot more (Unless, of course, it's 30+
years old, and then I'd have my doubts about calibration).

Well, most of these are bench quality that have been removed from labs that have
been shut down. For how often I have to do it, it doesn't pay to buy a $200
counter when it's going back in the closet after alignment.

I have a Fluke counter, which I obtained about 8 years ago. At the
time I got it, the calibration was about a year old. While the
optional heated crystal oven high precision timebase is fairly stable,
I'm sure there's been some drift in the last 8 or 9 years.

So even if you get a "Lab quality" counter, unless the seller can
provide calibration traceability, you still don't know how accurate it
might be.


I used to do calibrations, years ago on research instruments that was traceable
to NIST, and NBS before that. At that time, traceability was at least $100 per
piece. I don't see how it would be cost effective to get a counter with this
traceability that could easily run you twice the cost of a new radio.

Vinnie S.