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On 2/6/22 13:03, Greg Muir via groups.io wrote:

It’s a shame that around this time HP was starting to “dumb down” their product documentation.Aside from paying less people to do technical documentation (to some extent) I do understand the profit motive to push assembly level replacement instead of repair but the end user also faces a considerable increase in trying to keep their equipment alive.

Well, yeah, they "got suits". Their logic (if you can call it that) is "if it breaks, we'd be happy to sell them another one", and "we can't have people opening things up, they might do something stupid and sue us!"

Screw high-minded civic thinking, respecting your customer, and trying to be the best. Surely THAT won't get you a good quarterly bonus.

I love it when I see "NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE" on a piece of *test equipment*. "Wanna bet, bitch?"

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA

James,

The APC-7 is a so-called hermaphroditic connector; it is both male and female. If you screw the outer ring one way or the other, completely, it becomes the other sex. I hope that makes sense.

73,
geo - n4ua

On 2/6/22 13:18, Bob Albert via groups.io wrote:

In the old days, HP did a commendable job.? As the years went by they became more profit oriented.

Correction: "Short-term profit oriented". These suits can't see past the end of the quarter. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard were looking a lot farther down the line than that.

The decision to go public is often a big mistake when it comes to product value.

It's common knowledge that being publicly-traded is generally bad for a company's customers and encourages self-destructive corporate behavior, when viewed in the long term. If you think about it, it makes sense, as the company's true customers are no longer those who purchase its products, but its stockholders. Everything boils down to "shareholder value".

Disgusting.

No longer do managers attempt to create products; they now attempt to make money.? Not that money wasn't always the ultimate goal, but some outfits carry the banner a bit too much.? A lot too much.

Yes. And since suits typically have outsized egos, each successive generation of suits thinks they can "push things a little bit farther" than their predecessors, because of course they're better businessmen. So things deteriorate over time.

I recently looked at Keysight's offerrings regarding the present successor to the original HP200.? They no longer seem to offer a reasonably priced audio oscillator.
Very few analog scopes are available from anyone these days.? A digital scope is basically a computer with a screen readout, not an oscilloscope.

Analog oscilloscopes take real talent to design, digital oscilloscopes much less so. The former cannot easily be farmed out to India or China, while the latter can. Again, there's that short-term profit.

Further, the current crop of tech guys, while I think they're generally doing great things, seem to lack any real knowledge of oscilloscopes. They think that an oscilloscope can be made by slapping a display on a microcontroller and connecting a wire to an A/D input. Sure, you can generally display a waveform that way, but it's going to be garbage. And the market is FLOODED with finished products labeled "oscilloscope" that are little more than that.

These kids don't understand the difference, and they formulate assumptions based on incomplete knowledge, and then they vehemently defend those positions without being willing to learn about what they've missed.

-Dave

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Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA

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Thanks. Would you say that the 3611A... is likely to have the newest modifications then ? It also has a higher serial (last five digits).

Thanks for the info, I have searched for this but can only find what I think is called the Male APC-7 to SMA or N-Type, I cannot even find any photos for a Female version of the Adapter, Basically all of the adapters that I find seem to have the very same fitting that is on the front of the Analyzer.

James

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The prefix is related to the date that particular revision of the instrument went into production. The exact differences are usually outlined in the service manual, but there often isn’t a difference in operation.?

Hi,

I have two almost identical HP-8561E's.
One has a serial like 3425A00xxx and the other 3611A00xxx.?
What is the difference ? Thought the prefix was sort of a model number, but maybe not ?
Is there a website were these numbers can be looked up ?

BR Peter

Paul,
What is A160-0100? Is it a part number? I can't find anything related. Can you point me in the right direction?

I've already looked at HP cross reference files without any success.

Regards, Istvan

I’ll throw my hat in the ring and also suggest a 54504A CLIP if anyone has it available.? I have the service manual that is basically oriented towards use by chimpanzees to do go-no-go testing during a failure.

?

It’s a shame that around this time HP was starting to “dumb down” their product documentation.? Aside from paying less people to do technical documentation (to some extent) I do understand the profit motive to push assembly level replacement instead of repair but the end user also faces a considerable increase in trying to keep their equipment alive.

?

?

Thanks,

?

Greg

James, the connector is called APC-7. I recommend looking for for APC-7 to N or SMA adapters.
Best regards
Marcus

Hi, Can anyone recommend where I can get hold of 2 Connection Adapters for either N-Type, BNC, or even PL259 preferably in the UK, Cannot find what the model numbers are, so any help would be really useful as not sure what the connections are called that are fitted to this unit.

Kind Regards

James

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Hello,

my first message to this group.

I'm looking for a cross-reference for an HP 1858-0015. It consists of two differentially connected NPN transistor pairs in DIP-16. It is used in limiter circuit between a local oscillator and a double balanced mixer in my HP 3586B Selective Level Meter.

I've found two sellers on eBay but I'm trying to find a cheaper/local source.

Thanks,
Istvan

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Jared bravo for the find, and troubleshooting, had thought it was mint perfect....mine were like new..

Max Power 1/2 W rated, easy to overload.

Marvelous units, very useful.

Bon chance

Jon

Thanks for the info so far!

I have had a closer look and it seems someone has had their sticky fingers in here previously.
One screw and the 4 feet are missing, a BNC has been replaced, and one resistor had a crack at the end and the end-cap where the leg bonds to the body and just fell away. I think this may have been dropped at one point in its life probably.

I have measured all the resistors, and all but a few are way out of the 0.5% tolerane that is written on the resistor body, with the worst sitting at 10.5% high.
I also measured the microswitches and they all measure under 0.005 ohms with 4-wire measurement, so at least they seem good.
The cam action is perfect and the dial switches the microswitches properly too.

At this point, I think I don't have much to lose in replacing the resistors, I think there may have been water ingress as there was a little bit of corrosion of the aluminium inside, so maybe this has affected the resistors.

The trick is finding the correct resistor values... and a BNC connector, part number 1250-0254, and a screw and feet too... Anyone got some spare parts? :D

Jared, just pulled my 355C and D, was curious about your post.
Used HP network /Spectrum Analyzer 4195A, and 50 ohm Zo TR sets, with no cable, just BNC adapters.

Did TX cal, 10 kHz..500 MHz, at 0 db.

Every position 1...10 and 10..120 db was within 0.1 db or better.

I recall these use a thick film céramique laser trimmed attenuator résistance, like a scope wideband attenuator.

Suggest that you check your gen, meters and terminations resistance before attempting "repair"

Bon courage

Jon