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Re: 7S/7T Sampling System
Dennis Tillman
It is apparent to me now that a 7S14 would not meet Dan's (Dan Tulloss,
Senior Metrologist, National Test Equipment, Inc.) needs. I have one of each of the Tek sampling plugins: 7S11/7S12/7S14/7T11/7T11A, and all but one the sampling heads: S1/S2/S3/S3A/S4/S5/S6/S50/S51/S52/S53/S54) and I've used them all. From personal experience the 7S14 is my favorite because it is so simple. But because it is less capable than the others it is often overlooked. The 7S14 was a sampling system designed for people familiar with dual trace, dual timebase real time scopes. I recommended it for someone that has never used sampling before because it is easy to use and it is self contained. It works well up to 1GHz. They are available on eBay from time to time at a reasonable price (under $100). There is one auctioned right now (item #3801463517, current price $11.00) at < By the way, the only sampling head I am missing in my collection is the S42 (55pS Optical Sampling Head). Does anyone know where I can buy one? Thanks, Dennis -----Original Message----- From: Stan & Patricia Griffiths [mailto:w7ni@...] Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 12:42 PM To: Dennis Tillman Cc: TekScopes Subject: Re: [TekScopes] 7S/7T Sampling System After reading Dennis's message, it occured to to me to look up the 7S14 in a Tek catalog. This is just a 1 GHz, two channel, 50 ohm sampler. Tek made a lot of earlier versions of this technology that are a LOT cheaper on the market than the 7K stuff. So if the 7S14 is really up to this job, you might want to consider the following: 661/4S1/5T1A (there are other plugins you could use in this system: 4S2, 4S2A, 4S3, 5T1, 5T3) 561A/3S76/3T77 (and lots of other plugins and mainframes you could use here, too: 561, 564, 561B, 564B, 3S3, 3S1, 3S2 [sampling heads required}, 3T77A, 3T2) There is also a 5000 series sampler: 5S14 The important thing to keep in mind is that you generally need some mainframe, a sampling vertical, and a sampling timebase to work as a system. Virtually all of the 661 system plugins will work together and virtually all of the 561A mainframes and plugins will work together. It may be tricky getting a system up and running, however. Fixing those old sampling systems was sort of "black magic" even when all the parts (tunnel diodes and GaAs diodes) were available new from Tek. Now, I suspect, you would need several "donor" instruments to find enough good parts and then there is still the "black magic" . . . I have read postings about using some fast Schotky diodes in place of some of Tek's GaAs diodes but I have no personal experience with this . . . Regarding the "black magic", I can say this. In the late 60's, I was one of the founders of an independent service company that specialized in only Tektronix stuff in Southern California (it was called Mobilscope, Inc. and we were based in Van Nuys, CA, and traveled Southern California in several "calibration trailers" right to the customer's doorstep.) Anyway, fixing and calibrating Tektronix sampling was our strongest suit and we used to do them for most of the other cal labs in LA who had to farm them out when they got stuck. We did a ton of them for large companies all over So. Cal. (No, I am NOT interested in doing any for anyone else at this point in my life! I have a bunch of old Tek sampling instruments and I hope to get several systems running eventually, for my collection.) I would consult with people who own some of this old sampling stuff and are trying to make it run, however. Email me about it and I will see if I have any advice for you. Stan w7ni@... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dennis Tillman" <Dennis@...> To: "TekScopes Yahoo Group" <TekScopes@...> Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 4:16 PM Subject: RE: [TekScopes] 7S/7T Sampling System Hi Dan,is slower (500 Mhz I think). I think the -00 is slower still. I ask becauethat will determine how fast the sampling heads need to be.with the 7T11. You will need a sampling head to go in the 7S11 such as anquite nice. They can be had cheaply. It occupies two slots. So on a 4 slotthat is in good condition. Need a good one to do some 067-0587-XX's. Notbeing re-sold...for my use...saw that being asked this morning. Yahoo! Groups Links |
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Re: 647 cal fixture on ebay
Stan & Patricia Griffiths
I've been a "ham" for 51 years and "IIRC" is a new one one me!
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My guess: "IIRC" = "In the Instance that you Really Care . . ." Stan w7ni@... ----- Original Message -----
From: "Miroslav Pokorni" <mpokorni2000@...> To: <tekscopes@...>; "Tim Phillips" <t.phillips@...> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 12:41 PM Subject: Re: [TekScopes] 647 cal fixture on ebay What does 'IIRC' mean? I presume, that is one of those cute ham operators |
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Re: 7S/7T Sampling System
Stan & Patricia Griffiths
After reading Dennis's message, it occured to to me to look up the 7S14 in a
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Tek catalog. This is just a 1 GHz, two channel, 50 ohm sampler. Tek made a lot of earlier versions of this technology that are a LOT cheaper on the market than the 7K stuff. So if the 7S14 is really up to this job, you might want to consider the following: 661/4S1/5T1A (there are other plugins you could use in this system: 4S2, 4S2A, 4S3, 5T1, 5T3) 561A/3S76/3T77 (and lots of other plugins and mainframes you could use here, too: 561, 564, 561B, 564B, 3S3, 3S1, 3S2 [sampling heads required}, 3T77A, 3T2) There is also a 5000 series sampler: 5S14 The important thing to keep in mind is that you generally need some mainframe, a sampling vertical, and a sampling timebase to work as a system. Virtually all of the 661 system plugins will work together and virtually all of the 561A mainframes and plugins will work together. It may be tricky getting a system up and running, however. Fixing those old sampling systems was sort of "black magic" even when all the parts (tunnel diodes and GaAs diodes) were available new from Tek. Now, I suspect, you would need several "donor" instruments to find enough good parts and then there is still the "black magic" . . . I have read postings about using some fast Schotky diodes in place of some of Tek's GaAs diodes but I have no personal experience with this . . . Regarding the "black magic", I can say this. In the late 60's, I was one of the founders of an independent service company that specialized in only Tektronix stuff in Southern California (it was called Mobilscope, Inc. and we were based in Van Nuys, CA, and traveled Southern California in several "calibration trailers" right to the customer's doorstep.) Anyway, fixing and calibrating Tektronix sampling was our strongest suit and we used to do them for most of the other cal labs in LA who had to farm them out when they got stuck. We did a ton of them for large companies all over So. Cal. (No, I am NOT interested in doing any for anyone else at this point in my life! I have a bunch of old Tek sampling instruments and I hope to get several systems running eventually, for my collection.) I would consult with people who own some of this old sampling stuff and are trying to make it run, however. Email me about it and I will see if I have any advice for you. Stan w7ni@... ----- Original Message -----
From: "Dennis Tillman" <Dennis@...> To: "TekScopes Yahoo Group" <TekScopes@...> Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 4:16 PM Subject: RE: [TekScopes] 7S/7T Sampling System Hi Dan,is slower (500 Mhz I think). I think the -00 is slower still. I ask becauethat will determine how fast the sampling heads need to be.with the 7T11. You will need a sampling head to go in the 7S11 such as anquite nice. They can be had cheaply. It occupies two slots. So on a 4 slotthat is in good condition. Need a good one to do some 067-0587-XX's. Notbeing re-sold...for my use...saw that being asked this morning. |
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475A filter, protective cap availability?
Got a nice working 475A, would like to replace the original blue/green CRT
filter with a nice sharp new one. Ar they commonly available? Also needs the protective cap that fits over the face of the scope - what do these go for, and are there any better sources for them? Thanks Tim N5IIT Washington Council Ernst & Young ________________________________________________________________________ The information contained in this message may be privileged and confidential and protected from disclosure. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, or an employee or agent responsible for delivering this message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by replying to the message and deleting it from your computer. Notice required by law: This e-mail may constitute an advertisement or solicitation under U.S. law, if its primary purpose is to advertise or promote a commercial product or service. You may choose not to receive advertising and promotional messages from Ernst & Young LLP (except for Ernst & Young Online and the ey.com website, which track e-mail preferences through a separate process) at this e-mail address by forwarding this message to no-more-mail@.... If you do so, the sender of this message will be notified promptly, and messages designated as advertising or promotional will be automatically blocked once necessary modifications to our e-mail system have been completed. Our principal postal address is 5 Times Square, New York, NY 10036.Thank you. Ernst & Young LLP |
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Re: Another horror story
Had a job about 10 years ago which was much worse.Tech had run into a tree. The 2 items had become missiles and punched through the tech.wanted to recover the instruments. I had the most unpleasant job of stripping and cleaning every part of theunits and getting them operational. The smell was not good - not something you wanted to be doing just afterlunch. Both instruments are back in service and looking for their next victim.That must have been pretty gruesome and I would say your work was above call of the duty. At the very least, units could have been steam cleaned before they were handled. I understand, that was way before AIDS, but hepatitis or any number of things known at the time, can be just as deadly. There is a lesson here for those who do not secure heavy equipment in carsor vans. I also had one just like the other one - tailgate flew open around acorner and the scope made a break for it! Had a unit sent back to Tek in Beaverton once - run over by a 747 frontwheel - ended up about 1" thick - Tek said it was my problem as once it left them I carried the risk. Of course the carrier said it was also not their problem either so we hadto carry the can on that one with the customer. Strange things happen in this world.My experience in 'run over by gorilla' department was with underwater cameras that company I worked for in Vancouver made for an oil company. Two pieces were ordered with an option for a third; I guess, option consisted of buying parts for third camera, a pocket change comparing with finished unit. The first camera was delivered and we worked at leisure on the second piece, as per contract. Before first camera was taken out of shipping crate at the work site, it was run over by a caterpillar. Camera was housed in 6" aluminum pipe with 3/8" thick walls. When pipe lost argument with caterpillar it was rather flat. The oil company did not blink, they just asked how much are expediting charges for second camera and exercised option for third. Some months later, I was on a drilling ship that this same oil company leased at ??? million per day. Skipper spent 4 hours trying to position all four anchors (required for dynamic positioning) and then found out that he was on a wrong spot; rumor was that skipper was half way into the bag, though official position was 'no alcohol on work site'. Regards Miroslav Pokorni |
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Re: 7S/7T Sampling System
It appears he has two nearly identical sites.
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The site including the paper is: The link to the paper is: - greg -----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Tillman [mailto:Dennis@...] Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 3:42 PM To: TekScopes Yahoo Group Subject: RE: [TekScopes] 7S/7T Sampling System The article, by Mark Kahrs, on sampling systems that was just mentioned yesterday on the TekScopes site covers the entire history of sampling systems and sampling test equipment. It discusses in some detail the differences between the S1/S2/S3/S4/S5/S6 and the pros and cons of each design. Its worth downloading and reading up a copy if you want to know which plugin is best for which application. Unfortunately I no longer have the link. The link to Mark Kahrs web site is but I can't find the paper there at the moment. It is on his site somewhere. Dennis |
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Re: Anybody know what this is?
Good evening,
* REPLY SEPARATOR * On 02-Mar-04 at 22:38 nn2027299 wrote: Hi Guys,The 11401 is a 500MHz bandwidth digitizing mainframe, and the 11A32 is good to at least 350MHz if I recall correctly. The combination makes for a pretty nice instrument. The 'potrait' orientation is normal. What you have there is a touch-screen configuration that literally draws its graticule, and associated traces, on a standard video monitor-type CRT. Enjoy. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Bruce Lane, Owner & Head Hardware Heavy, Blue Feather Technologies -- kyrrin (at) bluefeathertech do/t c=o=m "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?" |
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Re: I couldn't stop the tears...
Rex W. Athey
I once was given a Tek 212 portable oscilloscope that was dropped from a power pole and was in many pieces. The amazing thing was that the CRT was un-damaged. I managed to get it all back together, got some replacement knobs and probe tips, and after a brief miniature "4th of July" on one of the boards - replaced some burned up resistors and the para-phase vertical IC, cleaned up the charring on the boards real good and when powered it up with an external reg 12volt supply, built just for the unit; it works really nice. Then there's the time when I was working on one of those dreaded Tele-equipment S51B's and while I had the CRT in my hand and it bit me and went down on the cement floor - I couldn't put that one back together. They were great, when they worked, for what they were, but major pain to service, and the post accelerator was not meant to be handled bare handed.
Rex W. Athey |
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Re: 7S/7T Sampling System
Dennis Tillman
The article, by Mark Kahrs, on sampling systems that was just mentioned
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yesterday on the TekScopes site covers the entire history of sampling systems and sampling test equipment. It discusses in some detail the differences between the S1/S2/S3/S4/S5/S6 and the pros and cons of each design. Its worth downloading and reading up a copy if you want to know which plugin is best for which application. Unfortunately I no longer have the link. The link to Mark Kahrs web site is but I can't find the paper there at the moment. It is on his site somewhere. Dennis -----Original Message-----
From: Craig Sawyers [mailto:c.sawyers@...] Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 2:29 PM To: TekScopes Yahoo Group Subject: RE: [TekScopes] 7S/7T Sampling System While on the sampling gear subject, could someone tell me more about S4. IWell, there are some reports on the Picosecond Pulse labs website that they produced during the 80's and early 90's with tests on sampling systems. They found that there was a problem with the S4: "The old Tek S4 sampler had the worst settling time performance. It showed a gradual rise in 4ns to a max overshoot of 5.5% followed by an exponential decay back to the 100% level requiring an additional 25ns." "We found that the 200ps wide strobe caused a unique problem for the S4. When a tunnel diode pulser was mounted directly on the input connector of the S4, the leakage of the 200ps strobe was enough to cause false triggering of the TD. The falsely triggered TD pulse would then enter the S4's diode bridge during the 200ps on time. The resulting CRT waveform was quite unstable, with sometimes a negative risetime display. The simple cure for this is to introduce a delay line between the pulse generator and the sampler. The delay must be greater than the strobe pulse duration. Thus for the S4 a 500ps, 7mm (diameter) air line was used." "Close inspection revealed that the S4 response had a very fast rise time, with flat response for 200ps. At 200ps it has an abrupt +7% step. Then the waveform continues to rise up to the 105.5% level in about 4ns. It then slowly recovered back to the 100% level in 25ns. The Tek spec is <=10% and some units used by the author in the past have been as bad as 10%." By contrast, the S6 gets a much better write up - a mere single paragraph that says it it much better than the S4. The other head that gets a really good write up by PPL is the SD24. The benchmark for their tests was the Hypres superconducting Josephson Junction sampler, which boasted a pulse response of 5ps (70GHz). Craig Yahoo! Groups Links |
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Re: Anybody know what this is?
Denis Cobley
It's 500Mhz mainframe 300Mhz plug in
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It has a sample rate of 20MS/s (slow by today's standards) 10 bit Vertical accuracy (up to 14 bit with averaging).(better than 1% with some plug-in's) 10K record length. (100K with option 2D) The 11K,DSA,CSA series is still the most accurate scope range developed by anyone - it is still not surpassed) The only down side of your unit is it's the base model digital - the 11402 was 1GHz as were the DSA series) You can use all the 11K plug-in's except the 11A81 which was a 3GHz plug-in specifically for the 11403A. The above data is from the 1988 catalogue. Regards Denis Cobley ----- Original Message -----
From: "nn2027299" <silvermoon.group@...> To: <TekScopes@...> Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 9:38 AM Subject: [TekScopes] Anybody know what this is? Hi Guys, |
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Re: 647 cal fixture on ebay
Craig Sawyers
What does 'IIRC' mean? I presume, that is one of those cute ham operatorsNo - it goes back to the early days of e-mail. There are dozens of these, which you can check up on the web. IIRC means If I Remember Correctly. LOL is Laughing Out Loud. ROTFLMAO is Rolls On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off. And so forth.... Nothing to do with radio hams. Craig |
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Re: 647 cal fixture on ebay
Jeff W
Actually, it means "If I Recall Correctly"
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(& it's not Ham lingo, it's "internetese") Jeff Dan Kerl wrote: |
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Anybody know what this is?
nn2027299
Hi Guys,
I've recently acquired a Tektronix 11401 Digitizing oscilloscope, with 11A32 2 channel amplifier module. Does anyone have any more information about this unit please? It doesn't look entirely standard in that it's CRT is in 'portrait' orientation. Any help much appreciated! Best regards all, Ed. |
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Re: 7S/7T Sampling System
Craig Sawyers
While on the sampling gear subject, could someone tell me more about S4. IWell, there are some reports on the Picosecond Pulse labs website that they produced during the 80's and early 90's with tests on sampling systems. They found that there was a problem with the S4: "The old Tek S4 sampler had the worst settling time performance. It showed a gradual rise in 4ns to a max overshoot of 5.5% followed by an exponential decay back to the 100% level requiring an additional 25ns." "We found that the 200ps wide strobe caused a unique problem for the S4. When a tunnel diode pulser was mounted directly on the input connector of the S4, the leakage of the 200ps strobe was enough to cause false triggering of the TD. The falsely triggered TD pulse would then enter the S4's diode bridge during the 200ps on time. The resulting CRT waveform was quite unstable, with sometimes a negative risetime display. The simple cure for this is to introduce a delay line between the pulse generator and the sampler. The delay must be greater than the strobe pulse duration. Thus for the S4 a 500ps, 7mm (diameter) air line was used." "Close inspection revealed that the S4 response had a very fast rise time, with flat response for 200ps. At 200ps it has an abrupt +7% step. Then the waveform continues to rise up to the 105.5% level in about 4ns. It then slowly recovered back to the 100% level in 25ns. The Tek spec is <=10% and some units used by the author in the past have been as bad as 10%." By contrast, the S6 gets a much better write up - a mere single paragraph that says it it much better than the S4. The other head that gets a really good write up by PPL is the SD24. The benchmark for their tests was the Hypres superconducting Josephson Junction sampler, which boasted a pulse response of 5ps (70GHz). Craig |
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Re: 7S/7T Sampling System
Without knowing details of calibration, let me point to a power
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supply/fixture 283 (I think) that supplies power to S52 and feeds trigger signal to front panel. Something like that could be used to get signal out of S52 when 7S12 is not available. Alternatively, a 284 can be used as a pretty good signal source. While on the sampling gear subject, could someone tell me more about S4. I have been told that construction of S4 is quite terrible, so sampling pulses blow by on the bridge is significant and low level signals can be drown in that noise. I gentleman who told me about that, said that he almost scrapped amplifier that he was building, but power meter showed no noise, so he went out and found S6, which confirmed that amplifier was all right. The S4 has marginally higher bandwidth, but because of that rumor I stayed away from it and opted for S6. Regards Miroslav Pokorni ----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Sawyers" <c.sawyers@...> To: "TekScopes Yahoo Group" <TekScopes@...> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 8:24 AM Subject: RE: [TekScopes] 7S/7T Sampling System 1Have you considered a 7S14 instead of a 7T11/7S11/Sx. The 7S14 is often cleanGHz Dual Trace Sampling plugin with the sampling heads and a delayedI don't think that necessarily helps - the full cal procedure for the test and fast pulse and the two sampling heads look at the + and - differentialprocedure for the -02. |
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Re: 647 cal fixture on ebay
IIRC = "if I recall"
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Miroslav Pokorni wrote: What does 'IIRC' mean? I presume, that is one of those cute ham operators |
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Re: I couldn't stop the tears...
'did CRT survive', my, is that a long shot. I have seen some optimists, and
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heard of school of positive thinking, but Don beats them all. Regards Miroslav Pokorni ----- Original Message -----
From: "jeans" <jeans@...> To: <djconniff@...> Cc: <TekScopes@...> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 5:08 AM Subject: Re: [TekScopes] I couldn't stop the tears... looks like evil was trying to jump the Grand Canyon when it fell out.Ouch!! There does seem to be some good parts though. If anyone buys it can youlet us know if the CRT survived, the shield is battered so it's unlikely but maybe...? Don Black.violence en ebay now? Check out #3800482167 on ebay. Make sure you are sitting down when you go to look at it. Get the rope! |
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Re: 647 cal fixture on ebay
What does 'IIRC' mean? I presume, that is one of those cute ham operators
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abbreviations, that even few of them know what they mean. Not all of us on Tekscope are ham operators. Regards Miroslav Pokorni ----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Phillips" <t.phillips@...> To: <tekscopes@...> Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 5:00 AM Subject: [TekScopes] 647 cal fixture on ebay Hi, all; |
Bruce Lane
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