In the past few years I've begun collecting test equipment; oscilloscopes, signal generators, and other items of technical merit that I drooled over early in my career. Items which were once prohibitively expensive for personal ownership, are now becoming affordable; thanks largely to eBay turning all of America into a giant garage-sale.

My first acquisition on eBay was this Tektronix 2465A portable scope. It has a bandwidth of DC to 350 MHz on four channels, has elaborate digital readout of measurement parameters, and is in absolutely mint condition. The probe pouches had never been opened, so this jewel saw very little use at the hands of its previous owner.

My next major scope-coup was this Tektronix 7904A 500 MHz oscilloscope mainframe on eBay for $385. It included a 7A24 350 MHz dual-trace vertical amplifier plugin, and both 7B85 and 7B92A timebase plugins. When I arrived to pick it up at a used equipment dealer in Orange County, I discoverd that it was in virtually unused condition. There wasn't even any dust on any of the internal components. Someone had bought it new for a small fortune, stuck it in a closet, and almost never used it. I also picked up the Tek Model 3 scope cart from the same dealer for $50. I've since augmented my plug-in assortment with a 7A13, 7A22, 7A26's(4), 7D11, 7D13, 7D15, 7M11, 7B80, 7D01/DF2, and a C50 scope camera; all at bargain-basement prices. Most of this equipment is in near-new to new condition.

Click each image for larger format