Brads Electronic Projects Forum

The New Jersey Antique Radio Club, continuing a long tradition of technical training for the electronics hobbyist, conducted the club's first Oscilloscope School in March, 2011. This hands-on "boot camp" introduction to using oscilloscopes was presented at the historic site of Marconi's 1914 Transatlantic Receiving Station, later home of the U.S.Army's Signal Corps Laboratories at Camp Evans, and now the home of the InfoAge Science and History Learning Center.

The program is presented in three parts:
Part 1: History of Oscilloscopes, by Al Klase, Technical Coordinator for NJARC
Part 2: Basics of Oscilloscopes, by Alan Wolke, Application Engineer at Tektronix Corporation (begins at 15 min. 42 sec. into the program)
Part 3: A Brief History of Oscilloscope Tubes, by Nevell Greenough (begins at 2 hr. 13 min. 35 sec. into the program.)

The textbook for this seminar is available at http://www.njarc.org/scopes4dopes

Index:
0:00:00 Opening and Agenda

0:02:50 Brief History of Oscilloscopes -- with Al Klase

0:15:00 Start of Basics of Oscilloscopes -- with Alan Wolke

0:19:00 Basic Block Diagram of an Oscilloscope

0:19:50 Oscilloscope / Display Overview

0:23:00 Display Section Functions and Controls

0:28:10 Vertical Section Description

0:33:17 Vertical Scale / Coupling Controls, Input Impedance

0:38:04 Vertical Mode Controls

0:48:05 In-circuit Example of using two traces on the oscilloscope

0:52:41 Horizontal Section Description

0:53:48 Horizontal Sweep Types & Controls

1:10:15 Triggering (Synchronization) Section Description

1:13:19 Trigger Source, Mode and Coupling Controls

1:19:56 Trigger Level and Slope Controls

1:23:29 Introduction to Oscilloscope Probes

1:31:45 1X and 10X Passive Probes

1:34:00 10X Probe Compensation and Use Considerations

1:48:48 XY Mode of Operation

2:00:12 Front Panel Control Layout

2:02:20 Pop Quiz!

2:03:00 Wrap Up: Oscilloscope adds Intuitive Feel to circuit operation

2:04:45 Questions and Answers

2:13:35 Brief History of Oscilloscope Tubes

Video by Dave Sica
http://www.njarc.org
http://www.infoage.org

Nice set of tutorials Chuck - thanks for posting!

I knew scopes were expensive but didn't realize how expensive they were until I looked up 2 GHZ and 3 GHZ scopes. I didn't realize they went up to 33 GHZ and a Techtronix DSA73304D cost $282,000. A 500 MHZ Rigol DS4054 is more than $5,000 USD.

http://www.tek.com/oscilloscope/dpo-dsa ... ov134p5691

http://www.rigolna.com/products/digital ... 00/ds4054/

You should see some of the test equipment we have at work (and the price tag that goes with them!) spectrum analyzers are probably the most expensive and we have classrooms full of them!

Tektronix "XYZs of Oscilloscopes"

http://aries.ucsd.edu/najmabadi/CLASS/C ... -Scope.pdf