Hi Danny

The serial number says that it was manufactured between 1998 and 1999 is Scotland, so you should be lucky and have the electo-mechanical input assembly and it will go down to 400KHz

73 George G6HIG Dover UK

On Wednesday, 20 January 2021, 20:23:59 GMT, DANIEL RAFFERTY <daniel1967@...> wrote:

Hello George

The sticker on the rear has serial No 3427Uxxxxx and the start screen has the manufacture date as 1990-94.
Attached screen shot for the installed options, got at by using your instructions :-)

Best Regards

Danny G7TTR

On 19/01/2021 00:37, george edmonds via groups.io wrote:

Hi Danny

Do you know the first five characters of the serial number, Generally 8920A's manufactured before 1999/2000 have an electro-mechanical input assembly (attenuator) and will work down to 400Khz. After 1999/2000 they were "improved" with a PIN diode input assembly which HP specs down to 30MHz (it works down to about 11MHz and then falls off a cliff)

Option 055 in a later 8920A restores the electro-mechanical input assembly, so is critical if you want to work below about 15MHz. DO NOT BELIEVE THE FREQUENCY RANGE LABEL ON THE FRONT.

Options 001 and 102 are nice with 102 being essential.

ALL 8920B's, unless they have option 055 have a lower specified limit of 30MHz.

73 George G6HIG Dover UK

On Tuesday, 19 January 2021, 00:13:17 GMT, DANIEL RAFFERTY <daniel1967@...> wrote:

Hello George

Thank you, you've saved me from heaps of digging through pdf's
I think the instructions are fairly straight forward, so no need to dig out your 8920A.
I'll just cut and paste them into an email to the seller.

What options would you recommend that the 8920A be fitted with if you wanted to work on HAM transceivers and homebrew items.

The one I have purchased comes with the following options :-

001 (High stability reference)
003 (GPIB / RS232 interface)
004 (Audio Signaling)
005 I believe this is a 512K memory upgrade
011 (CCITT Filter)
102 (Spectrum Analyzer)

In time, I'm thinking of swapping out 003 for 103 (GPIB / RS232 interface / Parallel)
Possibly also swapping 011 for one of the other filters, not sure which one yet.
The final thought would be up the power i/p from the standard 60W to 100W with opt 016.

For the moment I just happy I'll get my hands on a HP8920A

Best Regards

Danny G7TTR

PS: I'll now have to look for "HP 11807A opt 100 (RF Tools)", instead of the "HP 11807E opt 100 (RF Tools)" I bought the other week thinking that I'd buying a 8920B later on.

On 18/01/2021 23:44, george edmonds via groups.io wrote:

Try this

To check your installed options:

1) Press the “TESTS” button,
2) Select “ROM” under procedure location
3) Select LIST_OPTS under procedure
4) Select RUN
5) The HP8920A will now list the included options on the screen


If necessary I can dig out my HP8920A and photograph the procedure

George G6HIG Dover UK

On Monday, 18 January 2021, 23:18:05 GMT, DANIEL RAFFERTY <daniel1967@...> wrote:

Hello HP8920 hive mind :-)

I am asking a seller to get me a photo of the installed options/firmware

screen of an 8920A i have just bought.

He has given me the options from the rear label, but the options could

have been removed and the label left unchanged.

To be on the safe side, I want to see a photo of the installed on the

instruments display.

How do I instruct someone remotely on how to get display installed

options screen on a HP 8920A? (see attached photo of a different 8920A

from an ebay auction)

I just need to know the correct chain of key presses on the instrument

to get to that screen.

Best Regards

Danny G7TTR