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

Michael A. Terrell wrote:


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.

Most of the parts in a tek scope are off the shelf too, but like the
cell phone, there are one or two show stoppers. For the cell phone,
it is the microprocessor with its combination mask and flash
programming.

I know a guy that repairs pagers, but you cannot convince me that it
is a profitable business.... The way he moaned about the cost of my
fixing his RF signal generator gives me a clue.

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.

It is even worse in the space field, where by the time a part is
qualified, and a satellite is made, the part is stone cold obsolete.

-Chuck