Picked up a used signal generator at a Hamfest and it changed my troubleshooting flow

Last month I went to the Dayton Hamfest just to look around, and I snagged an old HP signal generator for $40 from some guy cleaning out his basement. I figured it would just be a fun toy to mess with, but I ended up using it to track down a weird intermittent issue on a King radio that had been bugging me for weeks. The manual tune was way more helpful than relying on the digital stuff I normally use, because I could sweep through frequencies slowly and feel where the signal dropped off. I found a cold solder joint on a filter board that I had missed three times with my regular setup. It honestly made me rethink how much I lean on automated testers without double checking the basics. Has anyone else had luck with older analog gear for finding those tiny intermittent faults?

2 comments

2 Comments

rileyl9823d ago

Damn, $40 for an HP sig gen? That's insane. I'd be suspicious it was broken or missing half its guts at that price, but sounds like you got lucky. I gotta admit though, I'm more shocked you actually found a use for it right away. Most of the old junk I pick up sits on a shelf for a year before I even plug it in. That manual tune trick is smart though. I've never tried sweeping that slowly by hand on purpose, but I bet you can feel the exact spot where the noise floor changes. Cold joints are the worst too, they hide like ninjas. Makes me wonder how many bad boards I've tossed that could have been saved with an analog sweep.

mason_foster6822d ago

Ever find yourself sweeping a pot and just knowing exactly where the problem is hiding?