Re: NST resonance - Terry's testing

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>

At 07:19 PM 2/11/2001 -0500, you wrote: 


>
> Bart & All, 
> I'll second that! Many of my toys are of same vintage as Tesla himself.  The 
> hand-rubbed, dove-tail-jointed oak meter cases are beautiful, but the leather
>
> work has dry rot. Would anyone have a short list of what toys a modest (I'm 
> retired) but modern TC shop should have? On or Off-list answers OK to save 
> space. 
>
> Sparks in the Hills of West By G-- Virginny 
> Matt D.


Hi Matt,

First I would get a good multi-function meter.  The wavetek 27XT is highly
recommended by many (I don't have one) for about $120.  It does capacitance,
inductance, frequency, and the usual functions.

A scope of any vintage is really neat along with a sine wave generator, also of
any vintage, that will cover TC frequencies.  The "audio" signal generators
will work well.  My new tuner (not done yet) will find the same resonant
frequencies but a real scope and generator are great fun to play with.

I have a high voltage 40kV DVM probe I use a lot.  They are advertised for
color TV work but they can measure NST voltages easily where nothing else can. 
I think they run about $100.

One thing to be careful of is not to buy an expensive used device that is no
match for a new modern device.  My Tek TDS 210 cost $1200 (used to be $995!)
but you can easily find 10 year old scopes used for $5000 that can't do 1/10
what it can.  You can also find new analog scopes in the $1000 range new that
aren't even worth looking at anymore...  My arbitrary function generator cost
$1700 but I won't even mention what you can find the 10 years old used ones
costing!!  I don't know how they sell some of those old things...  It is just
like you wouldn't want to pay $3000 for a PC from the 80's that cost $10000 new
but is now really worth 10 cents...  My stuff may seem expensive, but ten years
ago the same stuff would have cost 10X that!  Unfortunately, trying to find the
modern toys used for a low price is very hard!!  One place actually wanted more
for a used 33120 arb than the new book price :-))

There are a lot of probe options too.  Current monitors and probes are neat but
hard to find.  I really like the Tek P5100 probe.  Probably hard to find used
and $250 new but worth every penny!  Current monitors you will have to try and
find used.  Pearson's are even out of "my" price range!

A digital camera is really neat too since you can take pictures of stuff and
share them electronically.  Some good basic ones work very well and they are
getting inexpensive.

My fiber probes and plane antenna's are cool too.  The antenna is very
inexpensive.

So I would start with the basics and work your way up and get the stuff you
want to satisfy your area of interest.

Don't forget that much of the stuff can also be made yourself very cheaply but
there are a few tools you will have to buy.  I have made a lot of homemade
signal generators but the new one I got beats them all 1000 times over...

Cheers,

        Terry