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scope question

kaos513

Sr. Member
Apr 10, 2014
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Putnam county,NY
Im in the process of purchasing a scope i have a choice of the hantek brand new 70 mhz 2 channel for 210 bucks. or tektronics used for 189 2channels without probes just power plug? thanks
 

Hmm. "Tektronix"?

That's like saying "Ford". The brand name alone doesn't narrow down what it is very much. Is it 30 years old with 200,000 hard miles on it? Half-ton pickup? Or a mid-1980s Fairmont wagon?

The new Hantek is probably the safer bet, and perfectly sufficient for just about anything inside a CB or HF ham radio you might need to see.

If what you want is a reliable daily driver, the Hantek sounds like the better choice.

An old beat-up Tek can be like an old beat-up sports car. A dream to drive once it's restored, but not so good until decades of maintenance have been "caught up".

And maybe my attitude is colored by the stack of Tektronix "project" 'scopes I have. Every one of them was great for the two, five or ten years it lasted. Just got cheaper to buy a another used 'scope when they croak, and add it to the "project" pile.

73
 
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Are you just playing at being a technician, or getting serious and open a shop?
If you already know what you are doing buy the best scope you can afford for the shop.
If you are just playing around just go for functional and useable. If you are not going to open a shop just about any scope will do. You don't need a 200 MHz bandwidth scope and a 20 MHz will work just fine for the casual user. The more bandwidth the higher the cost.
 
So long as the scope can still give an accurate waveform, I'm OK with that. Doesn't necessarily have to give accuracy in voltage readings. But seeing that waveform tells a huge story - to those that listen. Learning to interpret those forms gets to the nitty-gritty
 
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If all you will ever do is look at waveforms and have a pc at your desk the REA modulation monitor is pretty sweet. It can also record your demodulated audio and you can play it back on the pc. The pickup isn't hard to modify for different power ranges.

If you're needing something for troubleshooting, alignments, etc a scope is the only way to go. A guy one of the other forums bought a Hantek with an LCD screen not too long ago and is happy with it. Mine is an old 30mhz job with a CRT. I found it for less than $50 several years ago.
 
Im in the process of purchasing a scope i have a choice of the hantek brand new 70 mhz 2 channel for 210 bucks. or tektronics used for 189 2channels without probes just power plug? thanks
Your question begs my own: Analog or Digital? with a PC or standalone... I love analog 'scopes; give me a cathode ray tube for examining/monitoring AM radios over the digital stuff any day of the week. On many (if not most) of the digital scopes, you will not be able to see everything that matters... A better way to say that is "You can miss things on a digital 'scope, that you would see on an analog one."
 
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Your question begs my own: Analog or Digital? with a PC or standalone... I love analog 'scopes; give me a cathode ray tube for AM radios over the digital stuff any day of the week. On many (if not most) of the digital scopes, you will not be able to see everything that matters... A better way to say that is "You can miss things on a digital 'scope, that you would see on an analog one."

A friend bought a digital scope a few years ago and I did not care for it at all. I have not saw one with an LCD in action but I hope it's better.
 
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A friend bought a digital scope a few years ago and I did not care for it at all. I have not saw one with an LCD in action but I hope it's better.
I believe a fellow forum member mentioned "cycle by cycle", here is a demo.

My apologies for using curse words, I was tore up from the floor up...
(Cobra 25 LTD, mostly carrier in this demo)
 
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I believe a fellow forum member mentioned "cycle by cycle", if I wanted to examine an (F.M.) 27 MHz signal with a 20 MHz 'scope, I don't believe the 20 MHz 'scope would perform the same as a 150 MHz scope.. {try examining a 27 MHz F.M. signal with a 20 MHz 'scope}

My apologies for the 720p upload, my camera can not perform 4K capture..
(Cobra 25 LTD, mostly carrier in this demo)


I just don't know how that would help me or most people. I use my scope to adjust AM modulation, to make sure an amplifier is not oscillating and to do the occasional RX alignment. I'm not opposed to buying a better scope when mine fails, I know I will, but the only FM work I do is on vhf & uhf.
 
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Agreed!
I just don't know how that would help me or most people. I use my scope to adjust AM modulation, to make sure an amplifier is not oscillating and to do the occasional RX alignment. I'm not opposed to buying a better scope when mine fails, I know I will, but the only FM work I do is on vhf & uhf.
Very true, I agree; buy what u can afford at the time and upgrade later, I got a hel-uv-a good deal on my analog 'scope, I got lucky!
 
The MHz mentioned is the "Band Width" and not the maximum frequency it can read.
It is like the difference of watching a video on a small display versus a high resolution big screen television. Same signal just more details to see.
No one needs to look at cycle by cycle of the carrier wave. Not much to see unless you are looking for a "Jitter" on the AM carrier.
If you want to know what the frequency is use a frequency counter. The scope is good for looking at Peak to Peak voltages. In one shop where I was the top dog(Boss) I got approval from the FAA to put stickers on the Oscilloscope that said, "Calibration not required" on them because none of the critical reading were being made by the scopes. We had HP Distortion analyzers, Fluke VOMs, and frequency counters for the critical measurements. The scope was just for display purposes only.

Just be sure there is some sort of assurances that it works properly.
 
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