Who Makes Top Quality Analog Oscilloscope?

Instek maybe? Don't know how good they are. Or Philips .

Mat Nieuwenhoven

If you don't mind buying second hand, look at:

E.g. the Philips PM3320A for digital (10 bit, 4k deep), or the PM3295/40 for analog. PM3... numbers appear to be scopes with Philips.

Mat Nieuwenhoven

I'd suggest a second hand Tek 7000 series. I bought a 7904 (500MHz) with plugins not long back, and after fixing the PSU, its a great scope. I paid GBP 180 plus about 30 in parts to fix. Probes of course need to be bought as well ...

A 78x4 is also a great scope with a BW of > 400MHz, in fact the 7854 will typically give a 7904 a serious run for its money, but make sure you get one with the keyboard and the right plugins. The storage versions (e.g. 7834) can be cranky and hard to fix I am told.

If you want portable, then for about USD 700 or so you can get a 2465B or

Dave

I think Hameg still makes good scopes with CRT for a fair price. Analog and Digital in one scope.

If you want to buy second hand watch-out with Philips scopes. Performance and quality is very good but the PM3xxx is very difficult to repair. Philips used a lot of potted sub-modules and there are no spare parts. Fluke took over the Philips measurement and killed the high-end The PM3320A is not a Philips I think. Its Philips out-side and Hameg in-side

KC

That was the reason why they took it over, to kill it. To sell Fluke. They probably didn't see that they were in a different market segment.

Philips even had a 8 1/5 digit multimeter, they killed that too. It was developed to be the best ever built, but never got to the market. I know somebody who has the first working ones that were made.

Pieter

I had left Philips Test and Measuring about a year and a half before this happened. Philips did have some nice stuff, like the PM3265 150Mhz scope with a 100 Mhz analog multiplier (though they dicontinued it around 1981). The 3262/63/66 were nice too (100Mhz) but the PM3265 was my favorite. The highend DVM i remember was the PM2527. The counters were great. They had several price ranges, the PM6654 was the top of the line when I was there.

It is a shame. The oscilloscope factory was in Enschede Netherlands, the DTE group was in Eindhoven, the counter group was in Jarfalla, Sweden, the signalgenerator group was in Hamburg, Germany. One did get to travel when you worked for them.

Thanks for all the leads. Hameg is looking like a possibility.

I'm not looking for used, BTW. I'm tired of fighting the old Tek 7K stuff that's no longer supported, switch contacts getting flaky, plastics going brittle. It was good stuff in its day, unfortunately its day was about 1975. And as a former Philips service tech, I know enough to stay away from their recent stuff. The last few years before we finally dropped them saw increasingly more complicated designs built with lower quality and much poorer service manuals. And it seems like the current management team leans toward playing middleman for crappy Asian goods rather than manufacturing their own. Too bad, I'll miss them...

I agree. Especially the frontends of the counters where nice designed and reliable working.

The older Philps scopes series (pm326x) are still in good reputation on the 2nd hand market. TV service techs like them too.

hth, Andreas

I have and use much of Philips myself. I have a PM6676 counter (1.5 GHz), a PM6650 programmable counter (512 MHz), a PM2525 multimeter, a PM5326 signal generator (125 MHz, I even have 10 of them, bought at an auction), and a lot more. It all still works.

The 8.5 digit multimeter was of the new white line. The man whoi has them lives and worked in Enschede. Small world.

If you need parts, just let me know. I know several people who still have old parts in stock.

Pieter email: snipped-for-privacy@hoeben.com without the NOSPAM

KC schrieb:

Nope, Hameg never made anything which even comes close to a PM3320A. The PM3320A is made by Philips.

Benjamin