Wavetek 183

[bandersen]

Here's another toy I picked up recently. It's a Wavetek function generator from the late 70s. I've owned several RF and sweep generators over the years, but never a decent function gen.

It was also another gamble purchase as the seller listed it as condition unknown. Probably why I was the only bidder.


I popped it open before powering it up and was surprised at all the 'stuff' in there. I thought it might be based on the good old XR2206 or ICL8038 single IC function generators, but it's all discrete op-amps and transistors.



Every looked OK so I powered it up. Unfortunately, the waveforms looked funky and distorted. Some modes weren't working right either. I figured it's repairable though so ordered the owner/service manual form Tucker Electronics.

When I received them, I saw just what an 'off the shelf' design this device is. All the parts are still readily available.

I dug into start troubleshooting and before too long found that the two socketed ICs weren't fully seated. I suspect those sockets may have been part of an old repair. Also the ICs in them had sort leads. Possibly PC board pulls.



I mushed them down good and fired it up again. Bingo! It's working perfectly

I'm amazed at the quality of the output. The frequency range is a ridiculous 0.0001 Hz(that's nearly 3 hours for one cycle!) to 5 MHz.
It can drive a 50 ohm load with coarse and fine attenuation.


But wait there's more! It's also a sweep generator. The top waveform is the ramp output you can feed to a scope's x-axis for doing visual alignments.


Finally, it has an crystal lock mode. That's what the daughter-board under the lid is for. What it does is lock the frequency at each tick mark on the dial. e.g. 10 kHz, 12 kHz, 14kHz,...
Which is neat, but it won't lock on any frequencies I really care about like the common IFs of 175 kHz, 455 kHz, 4.5 Mhz. Oh well.


There are several models in this series (180 - 185). If you come across one at a reasonable price, I suggest you take a chance on it.