Analogue oscilloscope choices

[Xfi]

I can't bear to throw out my VRDS10 but I can't justify keeping it just because it looks good on the shelf.

Also during my encounters with my MF X-Ray, one piece of advice I kept getting from the kind folk on here was that I should be using an oscilloscope.

The recommendations seemed to be for an analogue one. I do have an old Telequipment one but it has no X-Y facility which I need according to the Teac service manual.

I have made a shortlist of the ones below. Chosen because I have read good things about them online regarding build and seem to have been popular/good enough in their day to be well documented today with a good fanbase. I would appreciate any input.

Hameg HM-605 (with component tester built in)
Hameg HM-1005 (similar to the 605 but without built in tester but I imagine an external octopus would address this?)

Tektronix 2235/2236 ('ruggedized' scope supplied to military?)
Tektronix 465* (*not sure which version would be best suited)

I like the Hameg offerings as their support (even for scopes decades old) is reported to be good and helpful and parts are still readily available as much of them are standard 'off the shelf' items.

I like the look of the Tektronix scopes because of the nature of the environment they may have been expected to work in and therefore would hope that translates into 'reliable'. Also there seems to be a lot of knowledge out there about common issues such as power supply and how to fix it. I don't mind having problems so much if they can be fixed.

I imagine I wouldn't be working on anything much other than audio equipment, (CD, Amplifiers, Tuners, maybe DVD etc)

Any advice greatly appreciate.

 

[Osvaldo de Banfield]

My Kenwood 5140 is fantastic. I have it from zero km and about 30 years without more trouble than a pot/switch clean and a recap.

 

[mondogenerator]

I have a Hameg or two at work (Or think a HM604, or very similar), and a Telequip, all with faults to a varying degree.

The Hameg has some issues with PSU or a sticking relay somewhere, and either works or doesnt work, or spuriously act up. I havent bothered to try and fix it yet.

The (Tek?) TeleEquip has many issues, largely worn pots, concentric shaft issues, dirty lever switches, drifting out of cal.

But the CRT focus is pin sharp, and puts everything else to shame in terms of clarity, including the LCD screen of the DSO I mostly use.

My home Scope is an Iwatsu SS 5710 60MHz scope and it was a bargain at less than £100 GBP, it's a pretty good scope, in great overall condition, and electrically sound too. Its so called 4 channel scope but is really two channel plus 2 channel, I believe useful for TV tuning and the like, as well as audio.

 

[Xfi]

What about Tektronix 468?

 

[Xfi]

Gone with a Hameg 605............

 

[Markw4]

The recommendations seemed to be for an analogue one.

Why is that? I have gone digital with scopes for decades. In the early days of digital scopes sometimes an analog scope worked better for some applications. Hasn't been that way for a long time though. Low cost digital scopes such as Rigol are surprisingly good. Main downside is that the cheap probes shipped with low-cost scopes tend to go intermittent very quickly. Eventually bought a 10x Tek probe which solved that problem.

 

[Xfi]

Why is that? I have gone digital with scopes for decades. In the early days of digital scopes sometimes an analog scope worked better for some applications. Hasn't been that way for a long time though. Low cost digital scopes such as Rigol are surprisingly good. Main downside is that the cheap probes shipped with low-cost scopes tend to go intermittent very quickly. Eventually bought a 10x Tek probe which solved that problem.

Because of recommendations from this very forum.......(analogue vs digital)

I'd probably suggest you go for a good analogue scope initially. Something with at least 30MHz bandwidth. It really depends on your budget and whether you want to buy new or not.

If you just want to try a cheap scope then analogue gets you much much further along than digital. Looking at the RF in a CD player is a piece of cake for an analogue scope, even a very modest one whereas you need a very highly specified digital scope to display the complex waveform accurately and without digital artefacts.

 

[Markw4]

Because of recommendations from this very forum.......(analogue vs digital)

Are you planning to primarily use the scope to repair CD players? Looking at eye patterns is what I sort of presume Mooly is getting at. A 100MHz, 2-channel Rigol digital scope (or better) should work just fine. You can set it for infinite persistence if you want, or real-time. Some early digital scopes had limited capabilities and were slow to process data once digitized. Don't think its a problem now, but it does depend on how much you want to spend. If you are looking for the lowest possible cost entry-level scope, then a fast analog scope might be best. Depends what you are planning to mostly use it for. With a digital scope you can run real time FFTs on data coming in at several tens of MHz. Also, many other powerful features.

So...please state what you expect to mostly be using the scope for, and how much you can afford to pay for one. That should help people better understand what would likely be best for you.

Also, how much do you know about using scopes so far?

 

[Xfi]

Hi Markw4, thanks for your input/help so far.

I'm hoping to learn how to repair audio equipment primarily (as mentioned in my first post). When my much loved machines inevitably need attention I hate to throw them out without knowing they really can't be saved.

To this end I am at the bottom of a very steep learning curve and as a result very grateful for help and advice from the likes of Mooly, yourself and other friendly folk on this forum.

I am looking primarily for a scope to cut my teeth on and saw the Hameg 605 (x2 bandwidth recommend as a minimum) for next to nothing so I took a chance on it as I thought it should be decent enough for what I want at the moment. However I would not be against buying a digital/better scope if/as my knowledge grows later.