first oscilloscope advice.

[AlanBeckett]

Just to add another comment, the first time I got to use a real 'scope in anger was when I started work with televisions. I'd read the book etc but to hang a 'scope probe - 545 - on the video drive and see the actual signal was wonderful. Not some drawing in a book but the real thing.
Just to expand on what Al says, the repair of old Test Gear, for example Signal Generators, really needs a 'scope to see what's going on. To put that into context last year I fixed an Advance 81A af Signal Generator, with Al's help. Attached are the Output Waveforms before and after. Without a 'scope you wouldn't have known that the output was awful.
Alan

[attachment=2674][attachment=2675]

[Skywave]

Exactly, Alan. You can read text books on theory until your brain hurts (I know!), but all that theory, wonderful as it is, fails to have any real, concrete meaning until you put it into practice - and when you do that, you can even feel your brain working in a different way! :s Then suddenly the penny drops - and all that theory you learnt now starts to make sense - real 'here-and-now' sense.

Good, basic (and extended) theory comes from good, quality text books. Good, real-life comprehension comes from good, quality test kit. And, preferably, in that sequence. Both require substantial investments in time and, regretfully, hard-earnt cash.

Al.

[tiv48]

with the stuff you are involved with (digital effects)i think a scope is essential as you need to know the shape of the waveforms at various places in the cuciut.20 meg would be fine. for vintage radio not so much, a good meter and a signal gen of some kind are more inportant.
rob t

[Skywave]

Quote: Rob t (tiv48): "A good meter and a signal gen of some kind are more important (than an oscilloscope, for repair of 'ordinary' vintage radios)".

I wouldn't say that those items are more important - but at the same time, I wouldn't say that they are less important either. Those three items of test kit should just about cover 99% of all the faults you will ever meet in repairing domestic vintage radios; they frequently are used together, in effect forming a 'test kit suite'. (Incidentally, to that list, I would also add a frequency counter).
However, along with that list of kit, the accuracy of the calibrations of those items, the knowledge of how to use each item meaningfully and the ability to fully comprehend the information that they reveal to you must all be considered. As I said earlier, the concept of 'trust' is deeply embedded in the usage of any item of test kit. For example . . . if, having spent many hours chasing that impossible fault that defies all the known laws of Physics, you subsequently discover that your test kit was 'telling you fibs', (read: calibrations seriously out), you'd have been better off not having had that item of test kit in the first place and simply relying of experience and judgement alone - which is not always the best method. As I have found on many an occasion, when a well-known fault symptom becomes manifest, the temptation to dive right in and change components X, Y and Z is very strong - and is often sucessful. But one fateful day, that strategy doesn't work. And you're sitting there with a funny expression on your face. Time to break out the tried, tested and proven test kit.

Which neatly brings me back to where I came in.