wrote:
On Sat, 27 May 2017 21:25:42 -0700, Jeff Liebermann
wrote:


Although I am not willing to spend big money on this, I tend to avoid
those super cheap boards with no cabinets. I dont know how they can
even sell them that cheap, so obviously they are not quality. Not to
mention it costs 5 times the price of the board to buy some sort of
box to put those boards in, and for all the connectors and stuff. So,
by that time I'd have $25 or $30 invested. I'd rather find a complete
unit that is better quality and eliminate all the hours it takes to
put them into some sort of box. Making boxes and drilling all the
holes and that sort of thing has never been something I am real fond
of anyhow.

I am currently looking at a Hickok 380, several HP counters, and a C&C
150. That Hickok is a BID sale, which means I dont have much of a
chance of getting it. (Being on dialup, I cant place a bid in the
last 10 seconds). Normally I dont even bother with bid sales, and
just do the "Buy It Now" items.

The HPs are all over my price range, but I dont need to buy it today
or even this week. I can wait till I find a better deal. That C&C 150
seems like a real good deal, (about $39 with shipping), but I have
never heard of that brand so I am looking to see if I can find more
reviews of it. It appears to be a rather high-end device, with lots
of features and a very wide freq range.

My main reason to get a counter is mostly just to check the frequency
coming from my Signal Generator. Having one that also checks audio
freqs would be kind of nice, since I have a tone generator that I'd
like to be able to know the frequencies it's outputting, but that is
not an absolute necessity.

I probably got more use from the Freq counter I used in the 70s (which
was borrowed). Back then I was doing a lot with CB radios and that
counter would check the CB channel output for accuracy. But I dont do
much with CBs anymore, since no one uses them now.

Can't blame you a bit for not jumping on those "kits" mentioned previously.
Often more trouble than they're worth when you consider all the other stuff
you have to buy and then all the work to assemble and make work.
The C&C 150 seems like a pretty good deal for you. Certainly in your price
range, and appears to be a decent entry level counter. You can get a manual
from the manufacturer' web site
(http://www.cncinst.co.kr/english/bbs...ual&wr_id=13);
(Registration required, but nothing out of reason, like credit card numbers,
etc.)

You'll probably find out, if you research "reciprocal counters" (of which,
this is one) that they offer much better resolution than other "normal"
counters, especially at low audio frequencies. This is a good thing, since
you can select a shorter gate time for the measurement than normal counters.
If you want to measure an audio tone of, say 123.4 Hz, you'd need to select
a gate time of 10 seconds to get the last digit to display. With a
reciprocal counter, you can select a gate time of 1 second, or even 0.1
second, and see all the digits the counter can display. It actually
measures the period of a signal, and a microcomputer inside the counter does
a bit of math to calculate and display the frequency with all the digits the
counter is capable of displaying.

Good luck with your choice,
Dave M