"gw" wrote in message
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"Ed Price" wrote in message
news:tPmtb.4837$cX1.463@fed1read02...
"John Miles" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...
johnm wrote in message
...
what is a good spectrum analyzer to have for a home shop in your
opinion, and also what is a good scope to have and do you have
to
break the bank on this stuff? thanks.


SNIP

The 141Ts at Tucker seem like a pretty good deal. I believe they all
come with new CRTs. I personally like to buy broken models on eBay
and
fix them up. It's cheaper, you get really familiar with the gear
inside
and out, and you always have spare parts on hand. But that strategy
isn't for everybody.

-- jm


As I have HP-141's, an HP-8569, an 8566B and an 8562A, let me drop a few
comments here.

The 141's are the best deal for a hobbyist. You can acquire the slightly
better 8552B IF section, and then get only the RF plug-in that suits
your
needs (an 8556, with it's built-in tracking generator, for a few Hz to
300
kHz, or an 8555, for 10 MHz through umpteen GHz, assuming you also get
the
external mixers). Unfortunately, by the time a hobbyist gets one of
these,
it has been abused and neglected by its last commercial owner. CRT burns
are
common, and the flood-gun analog memory may be very quirky. For an
advanced
hobbyist, either get an associated Polaroid scope camera, or build your
own
camera hood. You can capture a lot of transient things that way, and you
can
scan the pixs to input into your computer. Also, HP made a line of
oscilloscope plug-ins that fit the 141 mainframe, so you can use the 141
as
a multi-channel analog memory oscilloscope too. 141's are a pain in two
ways; first, you have to externally store extra plug-ins, and secondly,
the
hard side handles make carrying one a painful experience beyond about 50
feet. Also, you tend to injure your fingertips sliding those bulky
plug-ins
in and out past the big metal front handles. The 141 may also be the
last of
the hobbyist repairable analyzers; newer analyzers use proprietary chips
and
are built too dense to let you get fingers and probes into them.

The 8562A is old (1987) but a superb analyzer, 1 kHz to 18 GHz, all
digital
and synthesized. This will do everything you want, except drive a
parallel
or RS-232 printer directly. If you're smart enough to talk to it by
IEEE-488, then you can do everything through the computer. Other 856x
series
units have lesser capabilities, but are still great analyzers, and just
might be priced low enough for a very serious hobbyist. Also, the
HP-859x
series are very good, although some have odd frequency, memory and IO
capabilities. All 856x & 859x series units are one-man portables, until
your
knuckles turn white and numb.

The 8569 is, in my opinion, a transitional beast between the analog and
digital worlds. It's not as stable and simple as the 8562A, although
it's a
leap above the 141. Since it's wide, it's also awkward to carry using
it's
handle. I'm not much of a fan of the 8569.

The 8566B is HP's top-of-the-line analyzer. They threw down the
benchmark
for everyone else to try to meet. Mine is customized a bit, covering 20
Hz
to 22 GHz, and with an external tracking pre-selector, optional
detectors,
programmable attenuators, RF path switching and low-noise pre-amps. My
company has a number of somewhat more plain-vanilla 8566B's and 8566A's.
There isn't anything I need to do that these units fall short of (uhh,
with
the help of some external IEEE-488 linked computers). OTOH, these are
now
obsolete, non-supported by Agilent, and need two guys to carry one. Mine
is
in a 60" tall dedicated rack. Typical used price is around $20k.

Most companies will be better served with one of Agilent's newer EPA or
SPA
analyzers. Anritsu and Rohde & Schwartz are also making fine analyzers.
IIRC, Leader makes an analyzer that a hobbyist may aspire to affording.

I would say that a 141 is still the best hobbyist choice. A company
needs to
be sure that they get a usable item for their money, so buying on eBay
is a
gamble. A company should buy from some place like Tucker, where they get
a
warranty backed by a reputable source. Yeah, it initially costs more.
But
it's a lot safer than having to try to repair an analyzer when you need
that
analyzer to do the real work of your company. A hobbyist can afford to
spend
50 to 100 hours to get something going; in a business environment, where
the
clock is always ticking, that's unacceptable.

Ed
wb6wsn


didn't the 141t's come out in the late 60's? I believe I read
somewhere that the hp 8566b came out in 1995 and cost around $75,000
new, and like you stated I have read that it is the best spectrum
analyzer ever built. I see them for about $10,000.00 to $12,000.00
starting on ebay but I would have some serious problems laying out
that kind of money for a item on ebay. Thanks for the info. For all I
know the 141t might serve my purposes just fine. I will look and see
if tucker has one of those 8562a's though.


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.

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.

Ed
wb6wsn


I wouldn't buy an 8566B on eBay; I can't cross my fingers that hard.