The Best Signal Generator Ever
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- Опубликовано: 16 сен 2022
- Sorry about the clickbait title, but I really believe that this is the best signal generator ever made, due to it's sheer endurance. A beautiful HP from the 60s which lived a hard life and made it to 2022. I've brought it to you for your viewing pleasure, I hope you enjoy the video.
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In the late 1960s and 1970s I worked in RF R&D labs. We rolled the HP606 and HP608 frequency generators around on wheeled carts from workstation to workstation. They were always reliable, stable, and with clean outputs, but they did weigh a ton!
Mine weighs 28.4 kg. That is like an obese toddler ;)
No electronics video is complete without a cat. Glasslinger, the signal path & el paso tube amps to name a few.
Mine unfortunately died a year ago & I still miss him.
Like you I believe hp produced some of the best test equipment ever made,
I had an hp 606 a I think it was rescued from the scrap heap at work. It was amazingly frequency stable for a valve(tube) oscillator, these days I wouldn't use anything that wasn't locked to a crystal.
Thanks for the video
While employed by the government as a civil service electronics tech, I repaired several of these generators. They are built like a tank and very heavy.
"just look at it, it's glorious" ... right on, it is a thing of beauty
Just to correct you on a couple of points. HP didn't sell the T&M business to Agilent. nor did Agilent sell to Keysight. In 1999, HP comprised: computer divisions, test and measurement, analytical (chemical analysis), medical and components. In November 1999 HP split into two companies: HP with all the computer stuff and Agilent Technologies with all the rest. Fairly soon after, Agilent spun off off the semiconductor test business as Verigy. Medical was sold to Phillips, and components spun off as a separate company, Avago. This left analytical (now life sciences and chemical analysis) and T&M. Just a few years ago these two elements split, with T&M taking the name Keysight Technologies. Meanwhile, Avago took over Broadcom,but kept the Broadcom name. Bottom line: Keysight is the original HP, but, as you say, things have changed as always happens.
Wow, I'm so embarrassed. I'll have to clarify that in the next video i upload! Thank you!
Glad you're feeling better. This is the first time I've seen your channel, so I just subscribed. Do take care of yourself. Everybody and everything else can wait.
What Scott said. Hope you're still doing better/ improving. Take care!
I have had two of these beauties but my shop is too small for these guys. I can't imagine how much it would cost to remake such an instrument today. On the other hand, I got in today a little oscillator the size of the palm of my hand that goes from, I think, about 137 MHz to 4.4 GHz and it works. Does a good 0 dBm output except at the 4 GHz level. Accurate amplitude and frequency is nice as these older magnificent instruments provided but even uncalibrated amplitude is often times OK. Frequency accuracy is amazing on the inexpensive instruments with digital readout. Hang in there. Communicate with your real friends and let them help you and then show them how you care for them by getting and staying healthy and happy. That is how you pay them back for their efforts in helping you and you showing your love for them as they have shown for you. I am going thru tough times also but I am getting better every day.
I absolutely agree with you that this is an absolutely wonderful piece of test equipment and history. It absolutely needs to be preserved irrespective of its current monetary value.
I love oversized test equipment with clunky switches and knobs.
It makes it feel like your doing something important when you change the settings.
Way cool! We called the external-anode triodes "pencil tubes". When our 608 got retired I couldn't bear to ditch it. It holds down one end of the shop's back room to this day.
That's great! It deserves to be appreciated by generations of engineers!
Wow, those rotary switches are really long. I love this tube technology. I took apart my fenderbassman and was amazed at the circuitry. This is even more impressive since its from a decade before and much cleaner. I love the risers on the "circuit board." Supreme level of assembly.
A person who is interested in such things can't be a bad person.
Really interesting stuff!
Wow, thanks, I just subscribed! When I was a young ham in the late seventies, I got to play with many fabulous instruments such as this.
Some I inherited from my grandfather, W1EA, who got his ham license in 1918.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge with the world!
(Oh, and do please be careful with the graphite pencil around the high voltage-safety-wise, it might as well be your finger;)
Those red writing Sprague caps are actually early film caps. I have came across quite a few and have yet to have found a bad one. So those are not the infamous paper caps, which probably explains why it's still working today
Thank you for your Video G&G? I love old equipment. My dad managed property years ago, and we'd find all kinds of equipment. I just didn't have a place to keep it. My daughter loves old cameras. Fruit doesn't fall far from the tree I guess. This is a great trait to have. Thanks again for the video.
Absolutely beautiful, I always see these old tube style things and im like "just amazing art and engineering, so much personality in every part :)
Excellent content. First time here. Very much appreciate your work. Take care and glad you are feeling better. Thank you for sharing.
Geat pice of analog RF technology. Here in Germany Rhode&Schwarz was the equal company. Best regards from germany.
Biggest thing I remember about these is the special Unubtanium oscillator tube and the fact that some models don't fully cover the 450 band. Too bad HP didn't stay with what it knew instead of building Chineseizationized printers
Found this in my recommended videos, love vintage test gear and all things electronic bench related. I don't understand alot of electronics to do my own stuff but enjoy seeing the journey others are taking. Please do take care of your mental health, I suffer from depression myself the meds do help some but it's a continuous struggle to want to be productive and healthy, already seen one person I followed on here who lost there battle. But sounds like your on solid ground! Liked and subbed for more gear videos! Keep at it as your self will allow!
Thank you very much!
First time viewer. Good to hear you are working for your health! Glad you are back online, in the mix
Good to have you back on yt, keep up the good spirits! The HP is indeed top notch, but Tek is too in certain niche markets like television broadcast AV where I work in. If you say 'WFM' (waveform monitor) there, it's a Tek. They made them for decades, from analog to the 601, to HD capable ones. Though with current changes to IP it's now under Telestream branding.
And answering your question about the length, it's not too long, the HP deserves such a detailed review. I actually like the bit longer videos with more in depth circuit explanations of more complex stuff. Do like the Apollo stuff from Curious Marc. Big Clive videos are a bit short, but yeah it's also enough for the relative simple stuff he shows. It's all about pace and story, and you have a good 👍 story to it.
Thanks so much, it means a lot to me!
@@algemeennut6683 I agree, I'll watch an hour long video if it's something I'm interested in. It doesn't bring in the "big bucks" on RUclips though - it seems most viewers have very short attention spans. Look at how many views the minute long "shorts" get, it's crazy.
I am always amazed at old test gear and the build quality. I would LOVE to have that vintage Amperex 12AU7 tube for my phono pre-amp!!!!
Love to see you back! Super interesting video as always.
Another great piece of HP pioneering equipment! Thank you for the exciting review and reminding us of its intrinsic significance.
Really good to see you back, wishing you good health!
Tektronix used to be the top company in oscilloscopes until LeCroy broke their back in the mid-1990s...then HP's Infiniium line stole the thunder from everyone else...
The 5675 and 5876 are "pencil" type disc seal triodes good to 3GHz and tested up to 100,000 feet. They were designed for airborne radar applications. The 5876, according to the data sheet, has useful output up to 5 watts at 500MHz.
You didn't even bother to pull the 5675 out of its carrier to look at the glass part.
I didn't, because i already feared I'd break it. Plus the mounting for it was far more convoluted. Apologies
Super Interesting Alex. Great to see you back. Keep em coming and stay healthy.
Those are not bumblebee caps! BBs have colored stripes. They are usually very leaky. The black tubulars with RED letters are high quality film caps, almost always still good. Very similar caps with YELLOW letters.are paper and oil capacitors, all bad by now. HP used the red ones, Tektronix, the yellow. HP kept on making very good, very very expensive signal generators. Their 8640B cost $12,000 in 1980!!! Unfortunately most of them are dead now, due to crumbling plastic gears and fragile,and unavailable ECL and custom analog IC’s. Sad.
Hope you are feeling better mate. Have had a lot of mental health issues myself.
very interesting piece of equipment, thank you for sharing!
You have a really nice workbench! Thanks for sharing
I have this firefox plugin called "pocket tube", it lets you organize your hundreds of channel subscriptions into custom categories, for instance I have "Auto", "history", and "tech" as some of those categories. So I'm able to essentially create custom cable channels comprised of youtuber content. Remember the "The Auto channel" on satellite TV?
I'm stumbling upon new channels like yours and I'm getting notifications of new content from channels that I haven't seen in years such as "Eli the Tech guy".
I recommend everyone at least organize their channels. I'm getting regular updates to channels such as Linus Tech tips who has nearly 15 million subs, but most of the channels that are recommended to me have typically subscribers in the low count.
Sorry if this sounds like spam, but I decided to speak out after getting so many recommendations to channels that are starting out. I've basically fixed the youtube aglo on my end.
At this point I don't care how many channels that I'm subbed to because I no longer have a huge mess of a list of channels on the left side of the screen.
Great content. Also glad to have you back. Stay strong dude.
Good for you....Welcome back....Stay healthy! Nice piece of kit...
I’m new here, thanks for the exploration video, very interesting. I love HP vintage test gear. I have a few on my bench.
Much appreciated!
great find and great video, thanks!
YT suggested your channel to me tonight. I like it. Do you ever watch Curiousmark? Anyway, You mentioned mental health. what kind? I have anxiety and depression, I enjoy this type of video. Hope you are doing ok I will check out your other videos in time.
Yes, anxiety and depression. I'm taking medication and finally found a good therapist. So everything is going well!
@@GearAcquisitionSyndrome glad you have found a good therapist; they are hard to find!
RUclips should require every video to include a cat.
Very interesting video.. thank you for posting it
Cool. Thanks for sharing.
Very interesting seeing an old bit of kit from my past 🙂 Those resistors look like Allen Bradley to me.
Also the O/P Attenuator is a type of waveguide ... common in RF equipment once ...
You're completely right, waveguide totally elapsed me for the entirety of the video. Thank you! My English has gotten a bit rusty since my last video
The transformer you are referring to as a filament transformer is actually a matching transformer matching the 2 stages.
Great video! What model number is this unit that is in your video? Thank you.
Keep the good work
Pesto is a modern flourish next to a classic like this device.
What month was this released in 1957 i was born April of that year and don,t keep reminding me how old i am.
awesome stuff
Thank you!
Correction Keep Up the GOOD work
I wish I could see more videos of this quality and topic , I have a vacuum tube machine I have been trying to figure out what it is since the day I got it . I hope someday I can work up the courage to do a video or get someone to do one on it I'm guessing it's a ww2 era transceiver
Keep the nuvistors from the scrap scope, those can be given to people who need them for repairs.
The tool you found is the spanner for removing the pencil triodes from the top.
Beat me to it. That is shown in Figure 4-4 found in the 608C Operating and Service Manual, showing removing V6 and V8 which in the RF oscillator and amplifier.
Not a fan of banging around vintage equipment with metal tools ;-) I'd suggest a soft pointer, perhaps a rubber-tipped chopstick?
Noted, next time I'll use a chopstick
I sincerely hope you feel better.
I really do! Thank you very much!
@@GearAcquisitionSyndrome Fantastic! And thanks for sharing. Cheers, mate
Thanks for all the kind words!
About the capacitors, even though everything seem to be working it is no guarantee those bumblebee or black beauty caps or what you chose to call them that are paper and wax internally will be bad 100%. They are not always paper and wax and can be Mica or poly caps which normally gonna be fine. the Electrolytics is probably pulling more current due to internal leakage but as long as the rectifier and transformer can handle this extra load it may be fine and this problem normally comes worst if the first startup after long storage been made without limiting the input power for some time. But for wax capacitors leaved in such a device it is a 1-way ticket to imminent destruction of components and tubes and they must all be tested for parallell leakage current with a dedicated tester. what happens to these caps are they will break down and start to pass DC current to the other side of the capacitor and they will never re-form or fix themselves, it will only get worse. what happens is that this leakage current especially when grid driving other tubes gonna make these waaaayyy of bias and eventually destroy your tubes. they may also burn resistors and other components as well on the way. because in their nature a capacitor should not pass DC current and components are not made to work with this extra load either. it is just a recipe for disaster to assume these old caps are working because no fuse been blown yet. it gonna be too late if you get that far and tubes are getting more rare for this stuff to find. I actually myself fixed a completely dead Signal generator myself from 1966, A Trio AG10. it got a full re-cap and overhaul of everything, the only cap I left in was the 4-in one bulk cap after I made a complete leakage test on it. the waxies was long gone in that
Algorithms sent you to me ,, I hit the sub button 👍. I’ll catch up on the rest of this later and check out your videos . 👋🏻 catchya later
"Made in Great Britain". There's something you don't see much these days.
That's true!
I have one of these units. To heavy to move. 😩
HP really the best?
Ever heard of Tektronix?
Oh no, I've started the holy wars. I did say I love tektronix, but HP just had a special place in my heart
That's all
@@GearAcquisitionSyndrome Oh yes.. By the way, I like your descrition of the unit. Reminds me of my early days of tinkering with electronics in the 6-ties.
@@GearAcquisitionSyndrome Hahaha, I love the Tektronix blue!
Don't forget General Radio Co.! They made a lot of RF instruments about the same time to.
How could they made a profit on this???!
Product in demand by the defense market, and also sold to the services (Army, Navy et al.)
I realize that this is a bit late but I’m in the process of purchasing a hp606a …. I’ve enjoyed quite a few of these older videos .