On Fri, Apr 1, 2022 at 11:17 AM, Pseudo wrote:
Yup, it shows a ripply, moving wave when i touch my finger to it...I can
never get it to be static though (even the square scrolls).
You might have the trigger coming from the wrong source. When you touch your finger to the probe tip you are coupling (capacitively?) to your house line power, so if you set the A TRIGGER SOURCE to LINE that should give you a steady trace. In general, however, you should have the TRIGGER SOURCE set to either NORM, or to CH 1 or CH 2, depending on which channel is taking the input signal (NORM takes the trigger from both channels in some way that I don't fully understand).
An even more general rule is that you can set the trigger controls to the top position for all controls (TRIG MODE = AUTO, COUPLING = AC, and SOURCE = NORM), then set the trigger level to mid-range, and that should give you a steady trace, assuming that your signal has adequate amplitude (or that you have selected the appropriate VOLTS/DIV range for the input channel).
These older scopes have a lot of interacting controls, and it is pretty easy to set them incorrectly (and there's no AUTO SETUP button, like there is with newer scopes, that will just do the right thing. The oldest Tek scopes, that I know of, with AUTO SETUP are the 2245A, 2247A and 2252, which are very nice scopes, but don't have the same feel as the 400-series). With even one control set incorrectly it can look like the scope is just not working, so it pays to double and triple check all your controls, and to have at least a basic understanding of what each control does (there's the rub).
-- Jeff Dutky
