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Old 08-19-2018, 11:25 AM
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AlanInSitges AlanInSitges is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: Sitges, Catalonia, Spain
Posts: 446
Old vs. New Scopes

Well I made it back to Spain with two huge suitcases packed full of vintage Murrican test gear, all with no damage (though the TSA went through them both), including a new-in-the-box Sencore CR161.

One thing I didn't buy back home was an oscilloscope, since there are plenty for sale used online here in Europe. As I'm browsing around what's on offer I'm seeing plenty of Tektronix, HP and Hameg scopes like I want in the 250€ range. There are cheaper ones, but I think it'll be worth it to have one new enough to display voltage and frequency measurements on the screen. The thing is, none of these come with probes, and the Textronix-or-HP-branded probes I see for sale cost almost as much as the scope does.

So this leads me to start thinking:

- Is there an operational difference between the 100+€ Textronix-branded probes on ebay and the 7€ Chinese ones I can buy on Amazon? Consider I'd be using them with something like a Textronix 2445 or TDS420A.

- Given that one of these cheap-o probes will work OK, and knowing that the scope I'm buying is probably 20 years old and hasn't been calibrated in a decade, would I be better off just spending the money on a new one of the many cheap Chinese scopes like a Rigol, Hantek, Siglent, or UNI-T?

My interest in the older Tek scopes was that I understand for certain uses (like IF alignments that need a sweep/marker) they are more useful. I am aware that I'm unlikely to spend much/any time doing said alignments but still.

What do you guys think?
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