Albert,
A bit more info would be helpful—such as whether you are aligning a boat anchor with an analog readout, or something a bit more precise in readouts. This makes a HUMONGOUS bit of difference!
Scopes are great things—not so much for aligning frequency outputs of oscillators and such. Half the equipment on my bench came about for the sole purposes of aligning different types of gear—mostly tube type stuff. Things that have VCO circuits you need a good meter. IF circuits in tube gear can be gotten close with the trusty VTVM and the right signal—but for an old superhet nothing beats a good signal generator tied to a sweep generator and crossed to a scope. I have both—ranging from old Precision Electronics gear to 'slightly' out of date HP, Advantest, and Fluke decks.
The sound card with the appropriate program will be great for an input. A lot of things call for 400 & 1000 cycle audio. There are a few handheld meters out there that will get you frequency readouts (with the right probes) to enough accuracy for ham radio—in the under $50 range. Some great old lab gear out there too for the cheap.
Patrick
From: Amateur-repairs@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Amateur-repairs@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2016 10:53 AM
To: Amateur-repairs@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Amateur-repairs] substitute test equipment
I am starting to go through the alignment on one of my radios and don't have every piece of test equipment listed in the service manual.
So, I wanted to see if I could use the following substitutions.
For the frequency counter & RF voltmeter, couldn't I just use my oscilloscope? I have access to a scope that can internally measure all kinds of parameters including frequency, Vp, Vrms, etc. Any problem with doing that?
Audio signal generator: I have both a program on my computer and an app on my phone that will generate audio tones at adjustable levels. Any problem with that instead of using a dedicated audio generator?
I still need to get my RF signal generator up and running. I have an old wavetek that is a little persnickety...
Thanks,
Albert
KI4ORI
Posted by: <patrick@ae1pt.com>
| Reply via web post | • | Reply to sender | • | Reply to group | • | Start a New Topic | • | Messages in this topic (6) |
No comments:
Post a Comment