[Elecraft] scope suggestions?

[Mario Lorenz]

Am 21. Jan 2004, um 09:22:30 schrieb DHK2BOB@aol.com:
> Good morning all!
> 
> Trying to trouble shoot my K2 PLL problems without a scope is getting 
> tiresome. It seems that U5 on the RF board is getting funny commands at pins 1,2,and 
> 3 but I can't be sure. Has anyone been scope shopping lately?

Well, I bought  a Conrad Electronics / Voltcraft DSO scope (rebranded Hung
Chang) here in Germany a while ago. It connects via the parallel port. It 
is ok up to about 25 MHz, everything above that I take with a grain of salt
(although its a 100MS so it should do up to 50 MHz).

The mere fact that it has to be recalibrated and the calibration settings
change significantly when comparing a cold unit vs. one that is running for
half an hour tells me that this is more a cheap design, and probably good
for checking/looking/troubleshooting, but not for serious measurements.

Nowadays, I would probably go for a bitscope (www.bitscope.com), if only
for the fact that they seem to be reasonably priced, and sold in kit form,
and I believe in soldering my own stuff :)

Again, I know bitscope only from hearsay and their web pages, which
unfortunately I only found when I had the voltcraft already bought. I'd be interested
in hearing reports about bitscopes too.

Talking about lab equipment kits, could anyone suggest a good spectrum
analyzer, preferably in kit form, and PC based / digital, in the ham relevant
frequency range (read: Yeah, it'd be nice if it did 2.5GHz, but 1GHz would
be quite OK and I'd settle for 150 MHz ?)

73s,

Mario


-- 
Mario Lorenz                            Internet:    <ml@vdazone.org>
                                        Ham Radio:   DL5MLO@OK0PKL.#BOH.CZE.EU
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