Thinking about 'scopes ancient and modern today so time to revive this ancient thread.
The ancient is a Hartley 13A which I found at the Broadcast Engineering Museum. I don't know where it came from but we don't want it. It's going to Retrotech to raise funds. These will be used to pay for fixing the hernia
Unusually it has its front cover, mains lead and printed manual. Any idea on pricing?
The modern is a Fluke Scopemeter, not sure which model. One of these turned up at the museum and it's potentially useful, such as when fooling around in awkward spaces behind rack bays. A fellow trustee is giving it a check up. It runs on its mains PSU/charger but the battery pack is completely shot. The official replacement is about £250 but I think he's found a compatible for about £30.
Ah, the 13A. A hernia hiding in an oscilloscope. Built out of girders.
I had one. £25 back in 1970ish.
Dreadful thing. Uncalibrated Y & X.
Y2 channel is invert wrt Y1 which is a bit confusing.
Cathode follower probe for "HF" measurements (it runs out of steam at about 4.5MHz only achieved in single channel mode: no Y2 then).
There's an article in WW from about 1970 describing how to "improve" it a little.
The original Boatanchor of oscilloscopes.
I built a trolley for mine. Said trolley still lives in next door's car port, whereas the 13A resides in bits in mine.
My first scope. Must have been 15 at the time (so about '71), and cheerfully carried it up the steps into the porch. That had the lid, CF probe and mains lead. And the rubberised connecting leads.
Like you said - an awful scope. But built like a battleship. Wierdly the CRT was a true double gun double beam.
Quite forget what I did with it. Gave it to someone eventually I think. Last time I saw one was when I was doing some restoration work at BP; I showed surprise at the fact they had one. "Do you want it?
The 13A are not worth much candidly.
Craig
Definitely built like a battleship. If you dropped it on the enemy they would know about it! The dual gun tube was probably simpler than beam switching electronics back then.
I'll put £25 on it at Retrotech and see if anyone bites.
IMy first was a Tek 533 which came from GE's local dispersal sale and was given to me by my old boss. Used it for a few years for setting up video heads when I did TV & VIdeo repairs from home, and could just about work with the newfangled CD eye patterns with a bit of squinting. Also doubled as a room heater.
At my previous job I had use of an RS scope (a rebadged Leader) and later a refurbished Wayne Kerr (rebadged Hung-Chang) both of which performed faultlessly.
The next, and still daily scope is a Hitachi V-555 here at work which does all I need and came from a courier lost parcel sale. It's not a dazzling performer but always comes on.
I used to repair instruments at a firm from the late 80's up til around 2010 and saw alsorts, the good and definitely the bad, from Tektronix's from labs, Telequipments, Philip Harris & Scopex from the schools and colleges, Farnell, Gould, Crotech, Philips/Grundig, all in various states. The Tektronix were definitely my least favourite, mainly due to complexity and scarcity of service data, which in those days had to be ordered and bought before you could even quote the client, which meant we usually had to manage without!
Cossor CDU150. Nice enough. It worked the last time it was switched on, though I had to fix it immediately after buying it from Stewarts of Reading, the bridge rectifiers being in need of replacement.
At the Broadcast Engineering Museum we have far too many duff scopes and not enough good ones. In the Central Apparatus Room we have a Tek 2465 which is a very fine 300MHz instrument except channel 2 is duff. Almost certainly the hybrid. I think we have a donor scope.
There was a Tek 2225 (a good and useful scope though not in the league of the 2465) which had a label "Trips RCD a few minutes after switch on". Looked up the manual (we may have a paper copy but the Tek wiki is easier than checking in our library) and found that there's a toroidal mains transformer feeding about 60V to various switchmode regulators. An odd sort of hybrid design. Changed all three RIFA caps and it ran for several hours on soak test.
My first scope was a home-brewed job, using a VCR97 in whatever bit if RAF equipment it used to be. I seem to recall copying the timebase from the Heathkit scope and making up the rest as I went along. It was not a bad scope. The only thing I never mastered was the best alignment of the mains transformer which resulted in a small amount of magnetic ripple on the trace. These days I use a Tek. 465 and a nice HP unit which someone kindly gave me for nothing.
Have I mentioned the Metropolitan Vickers CT52 scope that's upstairs in a cupboard? Worked (sort of) many years ago.
Or the Hitachi V-212? Nice little scope, light enough & does wot it says on the tin.
Or the Tek 465 that only works on one channel because the selector switch is jammed?
All acquired from the late lamented Electromart in Clydach, near Swansea, from my now late friend Martin.
Or the Tek TDS210 that my company bought in 2000 when I was contracting in Rugby and it was less than a week's invoicing.
My journey into oscilloscopes began with building a Heathkit (valve) one - which failed to move house with me at some point. I then acquired a Telequipment S51B, which I still have, but prefer to use a Solartron dual-beam 'scope (whose model number I don't recall and which is a bit inaccessible at present).