At 04:44 PM 1/18/2007, J Forster wrote:
But before the 8620 came out I suppose we MUST have used 8690's!
No question about it. I have two of them (one incomplete). There was the
8690 MF and a PI holder for 3 heads. The systems went from about 100 MHz
to 18 GHz. 4x 6 foot racks of stuff.... 2 for the ANA and sweepers and
test sets, 1 for the 2100, display and keyboard, and 1 for the paper
tape reader and 2315 hard drive.
-John
My gosh! I wouldn't want one of those nowadays!
But I suppose that was what I used before the two rack 8620/9845 based versions. I do recall an automated spectrum analysis system based on 141T's that took up a couple of racks, darned if I can remember the controller though. Of course this was in the days when we still had 524 series counters in racks because the powers that be thought they were more reliable than 5245's. All the gear tended to be in racks lined up along the wall and we worked on castored trolley's that rolled between our individual benches and the test gear.
It's funny how much time and effort it took to plot out IF stage characteristics using a Boonton 250-A RX bridge. How glad we were to get rid of the GR 1604 bridges, how nice it was to measure crystal filters without doing it point by point and how totally spoiled we felt when we got things like 5345A's (replacing 5248M's), 8505A's (to replace 8405A's and a whole other pile of stuff) and the 8409C network analyser systems.
Hey does anyone out there remember the old HP803A bridge, I think it had a super-regen receiver to use as a detector. Or the 434A Calorimetric power meter? Of course we discoursed on teh 540A transfer oscialltor some time back.
Sorry, just feeling nostalgic.
John
