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oups.com...

tubesforall wrote:
Velleman (www.velleman.be) makes a very inexpensive dual scope and
signal
generator controlled by a PC that will do the job. See PC-500.


I would stick to legitimate test equipment manufacturers, which
needn't be that expensive as many are available very cheaply at
hamfests today. The exception would be a serious oscilloscope-"simple
scopes" can be had for five to twenty dollars all day and repaired by
jackleg methods, but modern, calibrated, DC-coupled triggered sweep
scopes with attenuators and calibrated sweep are probably best bought
_new_. Or late model(still supported) refurb from legitimate test
houses (i.e. not *ucker.)

Fifteen years ago one was safe in saying "buy nothing but a Tek scope"
but Tek does not build actual oscilloscopes, per se, today. Iwatsu in
Japan is one of the last respoectable builders of scopes. Hameg in
Germany may still be at it as well, but I don't know.

People who "can't afford test equipment" are usually full of ****. And
if they really aren't they need to get a job, or a better one at any
rate. As the True Hams said in the old days,"If you have time to ham,
you have time to build". (There are very, very few true hams left.)

Cal,
Tek's high end scopes are still made here. The ones assembled in China
are reported to have very good mechanical construction, and I'm sure they
didn't give the Chinese the responsibility of making the chips.

The best way to acquire a scope is to use eBay to purchase a used Tek
scope. The 7000 series are exemplary instruments, representing the finest in
American craftsmanship. The economics of maintenance are actually superior
to when these scopes were in production, as parts are plentiful through
cannibalization.
I personally have purchased a 7904 with a set of plugins for $170 off of
eBay, and it has worked flawlessly out of the box ever since. Many
specialized plugins are available for virtually any measurement need, from
low frequency differential to microwave sampling.
As for the odds of getting a bad one, I've bought around ten that way,
and never got bit. The scopes are well supported by the listserver TekScopes
, who represent a wealth of expertise and
generous knowledge sharing.
A Tek 7000 scope equipped with the appropriate 7A21 differential plugin
can measure into the microvolt range, something a Hameg cannot. And when it
breaks, the superb documentation enables self-repair, or simply calibration.