What inspired you to collect oscilloscopes?

[David Simpson]

If someone had suggested to me, 55 years ago, that when I was an old mannie I would have up to 6 vintage scopes(they wern't vintage back then) on display in my living room - I would have thought they were barmy. Back then, I'd started to service & repair RAF Scopes - mainly effing Hartley 13A's - almost a daily (un-enjoyable) experience. Then along came CT436's as their replacement - a much more pleasurable experience. Finally, by the late 60's - the HP180A's replaces the CT436's - a dream of a scope - much lighter to move about a workbench & easy to access inside for repairs. Even so, when I left the RAF in '75,I'd vowed never to be involved with electronics &/or avionics ever ever again. Other horizons beckoned. Not till 2007 did a smidgen of intereset re-ignite.
So, question is - what ignited those folk here on this thread to take an interest in collecting scopes ?

Regards, David

[Cobaltblue]

Moved from this thread

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...41#post1434941

I haven't "collected" 'scopes but during the last nearly 50 years have always had one or two. The first was an early Solartron (proper) dual beam given to me by my school physics teacher Tony Cornell (who smoked like a chimney during class), he really explained physics and made it fun. One of his "girls" went on to be at CERN.

I do have a 'scope ready and waiting for almost any measurement, one of the best instruments available, afterall we (humans) are visual creatures.

[Chris55000]

Hi!

I bought a tatty well used T.Q. D43 from Morecambe's only TV/Electronics shop before the chap retired, it had many bits missing and didn't reach anything like the 15 MHz claimed in the book, then I drooled over the 465s in Preston Polytechnic Electronics Laboratory, then TVs and industrials kept me out of mischief until February 2014, when I joined Eletroservices in Telford, and it was there, together with moving on to Lektronix Rockwell Automation in November 2015, when I had the pocket money to start collecting that the rot set in – as well as my Oscilloscope List in another recent thread I started, there is at least the same number of smaller pieces of T & M, that I still have to list!

Chris Williams

[David Simpson]

Yes - thanks Chris, for the background to your other most interesting thread - which this of of mine - the moderators have kindly moved from.
Right enough, my early interest stemmed from my time, back in the 60's, at RAF Cosford's Radio School - 'bout half-way between Walsall Wood & Telford.
No M54 back then, just the good old A5 & A41.
That part of the Salop/Staff's area must have certain vapours which affect electronics folk's brains - seeing that it wasn't that long ago that I had, for a brief time - nearly 25 scopes. Most of them decent/working ex lab types types - Hameg, Wavetek, Gould, Advance, etc., following a Uni clear-out.

Regards, David

[Lloyd 1985]

I never set out to collect scopes, it just kind of happened! Back in 2001 I was at college in Rugby, and they had a store room full of all sorts, I, being very cheeky back then, asked the guy in charge of the electronics/ electrical department if they happened to have any old scopes they were planning on getting rid of, and to my surprise he said I’m sure we can find one! So he went digging and came out with a Telequipment D61A! He took it into one of the class rooms and plugged it in, it fired up and looked sensible, he then said, ‘right, now I have to do this’ and he promptly walked out of the room with it and stuffed it in the bin, ‘it’s up to you now if you take it or not!’ Of course I did, and I still have that scope to this day.

A few months later they were having a really big clear out of a store room, and they told me that there were more scopes headed for the skip, along with a load of other stuff, so I acquired a few more! There was a nice valved Telequipment, and a couple of Scopex ones, and a big Russian thing in a green cabinet, so they came home with me (on the college bus!). There was also a complete, untouched R1155 and it’s matching T1154, which I also asked for, but apparently one of the lecturers was taking it. After the summer break it turned out he ‘changed his mind’ and it went in the skip….

I offloaded a few old scopes back in 2019, took them to the NVCF, some went on the bring and buy, but the valved Telequipment scope was given to someone who looked interested in it whilst I was waiting to give it to the bring and buy! He looked dead chuffed with it, so hopefully it’s gone to a good home.

I still have the first scope, it even has some car ‘L’ plates on it!! Then there is my trusty Hameg 203-7, which lives on the bench, I was given 2 of those, but again gave one away! I also have a tiny Philips scope which ran from a rechargeable 6V lead acid battery, that’s a nice scope, an ancient Cossor scope, one of those small ones who’s model number I’ve forgotten, and finally one of the ‘toy’ Jye-tech DSO 150 kit oscilloscopes, which was fun to build.

At work I have access to several very nice Lecroy scopes, nice big screens with all the bells and whistles! And also a couple of great little HP 54600b’s, I like those just because they have Tetris on them!! Great for passing the time on a vey boring night shift!!

Regards
Lloyd

[Joe_Lorenz]

The same with me: I never intended to have a collection of scopes! The first one I really bought new in 1979 or so, a Hameg 107, to be able to fix tellies faster. A bit later I got a Tek 516 that would have been binned otherwise, right away from Siemens Munich labs with cal certificate! Some years later I came across a Tek 545 B with smashed crt that would have gone the same way. It made its way to my bench, and well, a friend of mine donated a NOS crt for this one whereas I made a contribution to an animal shelter. Lately a nice, very early Tek 575 came in, and a mysterious 1940s AEG still waiting for some care.
I never wanted a collection of these, but can you let them go to the skip? Not me.
Joe

[6AL5W-Martin]

the same to me.
In kids time, we got a Hameg 207 as a kit for self solding, hundrets of D Mark this time. And a year later the wonder, a Tektronix 556 directly buyed in munich, half side was out of work, other side all ready. To me that was the mother of all instruments

In 2009 it was possible to me to repair that, so the 556 got back the Dual Beam.
It was the begin of collecting, 515A arrived, 531A, 535A, 502A... so I made decision to collect the glowing dual beam series. Now, this is done.

502A, 551 on cart, 2x 555 on cart, 556 on cart, 565, and finally the 7844 on cart. Beside them I got some single beams, now the room is full of

Actually I have a collection beginning with the little 200 series up to scopes what can eat 1kW from the plug

Martin

[Diabolical Artificer]

I don't think anybody sets out to collect scopes but I have a thing for Tek 500 series scopes like Martin. They are works of art inside and have big, chunky knobs and switches. I was playing with a 7704A yesterday, in comparison the controls felt plasticky and toylike. It's a bit like the difference between a Deltic and a modern DMU, I know which I'd like to drive.

Whether it's because a lot of us grew up watching TV sci fi , Quatermass, The Prisonner, Dr Who, Space 1999 etc where invariably a scope would feature in the set along with old transceivers, or that whole big knobs, dial's & scopey goodness speaks to something deep inside, to the inner space monkey as it were, I don't know. There's something about a bench full of scopes and test gear that's addictive. That and there's a surplus of old scopes and test gear, old mad women collect cats, we collect scopes... the look on their little faces, how can you resist a cute little scope.

Andy.

[6AL5W-Martin]

the christmas picture.

[David Simpson]

Back in the mid 60's, me & the other junior tech's in Cosford's t/eq. workshop used to have competitions to see how accurately we could read AF frequencies by using Lissajous figures. One 2 channel scope(can't remember what type) used to have cal markers, & one of the guys found a way to add an external pot to the X circuitry, thus producing a rudimentry "pokoman" type game.
RAF radio schools just used test equipment which had been rejects from front-line units. Hence it didn't matter how many were phooked by trainees - we just kept them going by xmas tree-ing the really knackered ones. Dozens of 13A's & AVO 7's, and TF144G's, etc., passed over our benches evey week.

Regards, David

[Diabolical Artificer]

the christmas picture

Sweet. I did think of making Xmas tree light's out of all the duff ECC88's & 6AU6A's pulled out of Tek 500 series scopes.

[Ted Kendall]

Originally Posted by Joe_Lorenz

I never wanted a collection of these, but can you let them go to the skip? Not me.

A position applicable to more than 'scopes...

[mole42uk]

I never wanted to collect oscilloscopes, but I seem to have rather more than is needed for testing purposes....a couple of Gould DSO's, one TEK, a Philips, a Chinese solid-state 'toy' and a Hameg spring to mind, but who knows what's lurking under the bench? Do I include the Marconi 2955?

[Chris55000]

Hi!

I haven't got anything like the amount of storage space Martin from Germany has, I only have one bedroom and a spare bedroom in my friend's small semi, I got my collection in by storing as many as I can on cheap racks with hardboard shelves, and the rest are all stacked in piles round my bed – if my friend buys some safe ali stepladders I can hide the ones in my bedroom in the attic, hopefully!

Chris Williams

[Radio Wrangler]

I'm outnumbered, so it looks like the oscilloscopes collected me.

David

[Red to black]

A scope is one of the most useful tools, I always reach for mine first as my weapon of choice!

I have had few over the years, first one was a really old valve jobby that I bought for about 6 quid, this failed and shame on me I didn't fix it.

Second was an old Hartley job that was advertised in the tv mag (CT6?) for 50 notes, this one I actually got free when a tv shop I worked for gave me it when I left, this I left at a Wallsend TV shop when I left there because it was so heavy to bring back to Sunderland!

Next I had briefly a TQ scope which wasn't very good for TV/VCR work as it was more like a college training scope which was fine and better than nothing at the time, I think I sold it for not much and bought a DSO which failed and again I never repaired!
I also had a portable battery powered scope about the same time which I don't know what happened to.

Next I worked with (but didn't own) an Hitachi V series 20 Mhz animal which was also fine for what it was and used for.

I then had the use of a Maplins 40 MHz triple trace Topward scope which was also quite good with PDA acceleration.

Lastly I worked with several Hameg scopes, one of which I acquired, a 203-6 which I was given on closure of said shop ( nice guy Jimmy btw, thanks!) and most recently given a Philips PM 3055 FOC from a mate that previously I had borrowed it from when I was caught short.

So now I only have two, the Hameg 203-6 which I find very easy to drive and the Philips PM 3055 50 MHz one which I only briefly used in the past

[Bear2Biker]

Radio wrangler David, I concur with that, over the years I've had many "buy 1 get 1(or 2/3) free" and neighbours leaving them out, a considerable number as gifts (offloading) from friends or acquaintances, it does make me feel like an oscilloscope magnet.

My first was the PW transistorised scope in the 70's never actually completed as teenagers do have many "interests" following that I got the bug as several spares & component shops in Hillgate Stockport had secondhand valvy goodies within pocket money range, at first being stripped down but moved on to trying to fix them & learning along the way, the high voltages didn't bother me at all.

And yes who can resist a green wiggly line or two (or even blue,orange,red,yellow,purple) all adjustable with a multiplicity of big black knobs (other colours are available).

I'll post my collection of nearly 150 on the relevant post

Merry Christmas all, Paul B

[Red to black]

The Hameg 203-6 was a good scope for TV work because of its 20V/per div Y amp input with a X10 input probe.

I also forgot my Wavetek 20 MHz model which I also sold cheaply to another TV engineer, this had the Z mod input that the Hameg didn't, the Hameg though had the smaller footprint on the bench which was more important at the time with the advent of 32" widescreens.

[avocollector]

it sort of started with just one - an ancient Cossor 339 double beam with a bandwidth of 1mhz, then there was about 2 dozen more - minature Philips one, telquipment D61a's etc etc.. Some still need fixing others are fine and maybe a couple are display only but they are so much fun. So it was all accidental/incremental in my case.