On 22/05/2021 03:37, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Thu, 20 May 2021 13:41:20 +0100, williamwright wrote:

A friend of mine (one who has been enormously helpful to me in the past)
needs to borrow an oscilloscope. It's to set up some complex thing; the
heads on some sort of video equipment I think. TBH I couldn't follow his
technobabble. Is there anyone not too far from Doncaster/Rotherham who
could lend him one? I'd do the running about.

Bill

If your friend is doing this sort of work on a regular or even just a
semi-regular basis, he might be better off investing a little of his hard
earned into a modern DSO that provides a comprehensive range of video
triggering options.

Modern 'entry level' Digital Storage Oscilloscopes (DSOs) are quite
cheap by the standards of the 2nd hand dual beam 50 and 70MHz BW
Tektronix 'Boat Anchor' oscilloscopes that were typically on sale at
prices I couldn't afford (over a hundred quid when that was 'real money')
at amateur radio mobile rallies circa 35 years ago.

You can now buy a brand new dual channel 200MHz BW Siglent SDS1202X-E
for a mere 360 quid (including free delivery) from two of the three
official UK Siglent agents (Telonic Instruments being one and Labtronics
the other - the less said about the third, the better).

I paid Labtronics 365 quid for mine just over two and a half years ago
(a year's worth of a pound a day savings - cheap enough that most ten
year olds could probably save the price of the 'scope in less than a
year's worth of their pocket money allowance).

I mention this model since it offers a comprehensive range of video
triggering options he might find very useful to his current task. He can
download the specification datasheet and the user manual pdf files to
check out this DSO model for himself.

Siglent provides access to all of their datasheets and user guides for
their entire range of test and measurement kit for anyone interested to
download as pdf files.

Another nice thing about modern oscilloscopes (DSOs) is their vastly
reduced bulk and weight compared to the boat anchors of yesteryear. That
SDS1202X-E model for example only weighs in at a mere 2.6Kg with
dimensions specified in mm as 312L, 132.6W and 151H where W is front to
back depth and L is the front panel width.

No longer do you need to decide where to semi-permanently locate most
modern day T&M kit in your workshop as was once the case with those
ancient, if venerable, boat anchors.

It's quite possible that such considerations as to where to make room
for such kit may well explain why he doesn't already possess a DSO of his
own if he hasn't kept in touch with all the recent developments in T&M
kit over the past decade or so.


Interesting post. Thank you.

Bill