Which Avometer should I purchase?

Nice meter, quite a lot cheaper (about half) the price of the last AVO mark to be sold, I think it was £700 over a decade ago.

Sometimes a sting in the wallet is worth it, I wanted a spectrum analyser a while ago, went for a Rigol 1.5GHz machine with tracking generator, £1500 (gulp). You can't beat good test gear.

[MrBungle]

Indeed. Worth the money. I’d love a Rigol SA. The bottom end one would do. Better get saving. I’ve just finished paying for a Rigol scope and AWG. Joy to 0% credit cards

To put it in perspective, going out for dinner with SHMBO costs a bit too.

[MrBungle]

That is true!

[Phil G4SPZ]

Originally Posted by merlinmaxwell

Don't do that, distribute them round the house and vehicles, you never know!

A very valid point! Like spare pairs of reading glasses, you can't have too many multimeters. I have one in each toolbox, each car, the caravan, the lounge... my daughters have one each too, and can use them to identify a blown fuse!

[MrBungle]

My youngest, 5, has a Uni-T 33A. She uses it like a tricorder from Star Trek. She’s not allowed to have any probes or her sisters will get stabbed.

[Phil G4SPZ]

Originally Posted by MrBungle

My youngest, 5, has a Uni-T 33A.

You make me feel old! My youngest granddaughter is nearly six...

[G8UWM-MildMartin]

Whatever meter you buy, it is easy to improve the input impedance with an add-on buffer/amplifier and attenuator using a JFET or MOSFET-input op-amp as is now available for less than the postage cost.

[dseymo1]

Equally, it's no trouble use a resistor to load a DMM in imitation of an AVO for checking voltages against old service sheets.

[Radio Wrangler]

In the sixties, HP thought that developing a computer to control their instruments and process and print results would be a good idea. In the eighties, the computer side of the firm grew larger than the instrument side. In the nineties, the computer people decided that the old-fashioned instrument side was holding back their image as a thrusting young dot-com enterprise. So they split off the instrument divisions and floated them on NYSE as a wholly independent firm. Despite the reason for the sell-off, the computer people chose to keep the HP name for themselves. The spin-off (actually the origin of the firm) needed a new name.

"Agilent Technologies" was born and the people working there had to endure presentations on what the new name symbolised! Any manager presenting such twaddle to a roomful of highly numerate and logical thinkers is going to look like an idiot. Factor in that the audience had just found out that the name-change had voided all their stock options and it's surprising no-one got punched.

Agilent wasn't just the electronic measurement side, it included the medical/biological test divisions. The manager of Agilent thought there was more future profit in the biomed stuff than in wheezy old electronics. So he did it all over again. The company was split and the electronics instrument side was floated off, independent, on the NYSE. He kept the Agilent name, and the measuring instrument group went looking for a new name again.

"Keysight" was born. I assume they had new presentations on symbolism and probably the new Agilent stock options that Agilent had used as their incentive scheme were lost by the now-Keysight people. I understand that the hefty ($$$$) products are developed at Santa Rosa, about 60 miles N of the Golden Gate bridge) and the more affordable stuff is developed/made in Penang.

So that's the family tree of Mr Bungle's new meter.

None of the old electronics firms are what (or who) they once were. Tek have been through the mangle too, but we all probably got off lightly compared to the folk at GEC-Marconi.

David

[MrBungle]

I’ve got to be honest and say that the Keysight brand sold it for me in the end. Recently I was repairing an HP E3630 power supply for someone and they were still selling parts for it even though the line was discontinued.

Tek was a bit of a mess. They own Keithley now and the parent company owns Fluke as well. Whatever happened to independent companies?

I actually did work experience at Marconi in Chelmsford. Would have loved to have worked there. Ended up at a slightly less glamorous Cossor right in the middle of their Raytheon rebrand doing something unrelated to electronics

[Radio Wrangler]

Companies themselves, never mind their products, have become commodities. Brand names are traded around and bought by anyone who sees a quick buck in them.

Perhaps there is an optimum time to be a customer of any business, a time when it's trying to earn its living and grow by offering its customers things of real value, a time when the founder(s) are still at the helm and have a big stake in it.

Afterwards comes a phase of arrogance and resting on laurels, but worse comes when consortia buy firms for the laurels so that *they* can rest on them.

Keysight have lost their name recognition twice and are having to fight to get going again. I think they really are trying. Tek are still being messed with and I've recently got a keysight scope in our lab in comparison with the teks we've been using. It's good.

David

[MrBungle]

Tek is pretty dead in the water I understand. Rigol and Siglent have eaten their bottom and mid range and Keysight have eaten the mid to high end.

[Station X]

One post moved to a new thread here:-

http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/s...d.php?t=140453