Hi folks,

I recently bought a used Tek SC 501 scope to plug into my TM500 series
rack. It is only a 5mhz unit and I bought it more for audio and afsk
type projects. The highest unmagnified writing speed is 1us/div and
with the X5 mag it's 200ns/div.

The crt beam seems very feeble at these two highest writing speeds.
Very unimpressive for what I would call Tek's normal high standards.
Not in the same ballpark as my SC502 dual trace unit for instance.

This unit is used and came from a GE lab environment. It perhaps
has thousands of hours on it, I'm not sure.

Were these SC 501 scopes just a dog or is my crt shot??

I notice the literature lists a very lame 1KV as the acceleration
voltage. That is pretty low for the job at hand isn't it?

Thanks to all who reply.

Gudmundur wrote:


The crt beam seems very feeble at these two highest writing speeds.
Very unimpressive for what I would call Tek's normal high standards.
Not in the same ballpark as my SC502 dual trace unit for instance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are you triggering the sweep at the higher speeds or just letting it
auto-trigger? Auto-trigger is done at a low rate and makes the sweep
very dim until it gets an actual high frequency trigger.

Bill, W6WRT

In article , says...

Gudmundur wrote:


The crt beam seems very feeble at these two highest writing speeds.
Very unimpressive for what I would call Tek's normal high standards.
Not in the same ballpark as my SC502 dual trace unit for instance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Are you triggering the sweep at the higher speeds or just letting it
auto-trigger? Auto-trigger is done at a low rate and makes the sweep
very dim until it gets an actual high frequency trigger.

Bill, W6WRT

Bill, I know exactly what you are saying and I was triggering from
a sinewave signal generator at rates from 1mhz to 10mhz where the
scopes bandwidth becomes the limit of usability.

Most Tek scopes produce a trace that looks like a green laser beam.
This thing is like a 2AP1 or 2BP1 and lacks that normal Tek punch,
but as mentioned, it only has 1kv of acceleration potential so I am
guessing lame is the name of the game.

Gudmundur wrote:

Most Tek scopes produce a trace that looks like a green laser beam.
This thing is like a 2AP1 or 2BP1 and lacks that normal Tek punch,
but as mentioned, it only has 1kv of acceleration potential so I am
guessing lame is the name of the game.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1 kv is pretty low indeed. I'm surprised Tek let it out the door.

Bill, W6WRT
(10-year Tek employee)