LeCroy 9450 disappointment and close call

[Opcom]

I received a message from one of the local ham club directors that a fellow had a LeCroy 9450 to sell. Such messages show up from  time to time whenver a member of the ham club or basically anyone else that is known in the small community has a test instrument or radio /parts to sell. The club has nothing to do with it, all they do is forward such opportunities to the list and then it is up to the individuals.

Well, so there is this LeCroy. dual channel 350MHz scope and the guy says has no known issues and has the math functions. Good. FFT. I could use that. He wanted in partial trade an HF set. OK, I have some IC735's sitting around. So I go drive 25 miles, get one from storage and wait, as he said he would call after running an errand. It got to be 10:30 PM, no call, so I blew it off after 3 hours was wasted..

Fortunately.

I get home and find an e-mail. "sorry I missed you it got late putting up an antenna.."  OK, well I did not have any more time to drive across town again. So, I asked the seller to bring it over to my place the next night and I would check the scope in my shop and also show him the HF rig.

Fortunately.

At first it looked fine and passed internal tests. After about 30 minutes, the scope had one channel out (busted front end or ADC?), kept failing tests, and in the end did not have any options at all, let alone the two math options necessary for FFT (once the cover was removed, the sockets were empty).

The guy didn't know anything about it. It was "so and so said it had the math..", as it turns out seemed to actually belong to someone else and I was dealing with a middle man. Very strange dealings as it turned out. I could have got taken on a piece of junk from who knows where. I know the seller is OK, just lacking knowledge, as he is well known and at all the hamfests he works for a certain dealer to sell, but as for where he is getting this equipment, and as he does not know much about electronics really, it tells me the other person involved was basically lying his head off to stick someone with that piece of junk for cash and "using" this uninformed guy to do it. that is a bunch of crooked business. I don't know who it is that is pushing the 9450, but if I did I would stay away from them.

beware a LeCroy 9450 around Dallas and around hamfests within a 2 days drive of Dallas, and on ebay. It has the topmost right hand small knob missing the cap, otherwise looked OK but a little smudgy. No cal seal on the top cover, a countersunk machine screw's head was broken off in the center of the rear panel leaving the shank in the hole. Just don't want anyone to get a surprise with this thing as it is bound to pop up as a seemingly desirable test instrument. Unless someone wants it for $200 for parts, that is what it is worth.

[K5WLF]

I had a similar experience at (IIRC) the Weatherford (TX) 'fest this year. I was looking at an obviously used Bird peak-reading wattmeter on the table of a guy that's at all the area 'fests. The price seemed a bit high and I asked him what his bottom dollar was. He said that was firm and that the piece new was X number of dollars. I forget the number he quoted. I took a pass and looked the item up on the net when I got home. The "new price" he'd quoted was over $200 more than I could get one NIB from any Bird dealer. Gotta remember -- not all ham vendors are honest and/or experienced in what they're selling.

ldb
K5WLF