I bought, for a token bid, a Gigatronics power meter on ebay from a test equipment vendor.
It was listed as will not power up.
Received it in good condition and placed it on the bench.
Plugged it in and sure enough it did not power up.
Checked the 110/220 Volt switch and it was in the 220 position.
Moved it to 110 and tried again.
Still no display.
I did not have a manual, but, noticed a contrast control on the back.
I moved the control and now have a very good display.
And, the power meter has worked fine since.
I was pleasantly surprised as this was from a test equipment vendor.
Glenn
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On 7/18/2017 10:23 PM, Bob Bownes bownes@... [hp_agilent_equipment] wrote:
I see so many folks post sad stories here or other places about buying something or other off of ebay, at a flea market, or wherever that didn't turn out well. So, I thought I would relate at least one happy tale.
A couple of weeks ago I spotted an HP 5351B on ebay listed as 'as is, fails on power up' for $150 or best offer. I made an offer that was refused, so I waited. It relisted twice with a 'buy it now' price a few $ lower each time. So I made an offer on it that was $30 less than my first offer, and it was accepted.
Based on the very loose description, the pictures of a nice looking unit with cal stickers in place, my thinking was that it couldn't be too much of oa project. Maybe re-cap, maybe replace a board, or if I was lucky, something even simpler. Even if it was a total basket case, the 10MHz ovenized oscillator was worth more than I paid for the unit.
I got lucky. Unit arrived, relatively well packed, though still with styrofoam peanuts, and undamaged. I dragged it up to the workbench and plugged it in. I was greeted with 'FAIL TIMEBASE' and a diag code. I poked at it for a few minutes, then got called away to dinner with $SPOUSE.
Over dinner, I got thinking about it and decided on a simple check. Got home, hooked the bench standard up to the 10MHz reference in and 990MHZ from the 8657A up and powered it on. Poof. 990.000.342 on the display. Looks like this unit wants to have the ref out looped back to the ref in or get a 10MHz reference. Not the first time I've seen this 'failure' mode.! So for under $100+rational shipping, I now have a 26GHz counter.
Not the first time one of these kinds of things has been found, sure won't be the last, but for me, I've had far more winners than loosers on this kind of speculation. In fact, I think the only boat anchor was the 8620 sweeper.
To, for every sad story, know there are a few happy ones. And feel free to bid on 5351Bs, I've got mine. ;)
Bob
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Glenn Little ARRL Technical Specialist QCWA LM 28417
Amateur Callsign: WB4UIV wb4uiv@... AMSAT LM 2178
QTH: Goose Creek, SC USA (EM92xx) USSVI LM NRA LM SBE ARRL TAPR
"It is not the class of license that the Amateur holds but the class
of the Amateur that holds the license"
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