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Author Topic: Somebody just dropped off all this stuff!  (Read 1266 times)
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Opcom
Patrick J. / KD5OEI
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« on: January 07, 2025, 03:05:07 AM »

It's been a long time since this kind of thing happened, but these seem an upgrade considering much of the test gear is in the 'quaint' category.

HP 8648C 100KHz - 3200MHz signal generator

ENI 525LA RF amp, 25W broadband 1-500MHz

HP 8714ET 300KHz to 3000MHz network analyzer

HP 8714C 300KHz to 3000MHz network analyzer

Pretty nice stack of stuff The first two, not sure how I will make use of the full range of their performance. The last two, I used soemthing like that butit's been >10 years, so i have to learn again. Already though I am seeing better ways to test circuits and things with each item playing a part.

The 8714C I was told has one channel out. I'm not sure what that means - these things only have what looks like the signal output and the signal input.


* HP 8714ET nertwork analyzer.jpg (169.86 KB, 1347x620 - viewed 35 times.)

* ENI 525LA and HP 8648C.jpg (449.24 KB, 1344x1700 - viewed 40 times.)

* HP 8714C nertwork analyzer.jpg (160.09 KB, 1347x579 - viewed 40 times.)
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Radio Candelstein
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« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2025, 09:28:19 AM »

  Old HP is like old money. Two of my favorite and most often used pieces of gear are an HP 3314 and an HP 8656. Both are nearly flawless. I've got a couple of 8640s, too, but they're a bit more crotchety in their old age.
  There's a guy up in MA, not that many miles north of here, who repairs the 8640's, and I've considered sending him my two, but I understand that he won't accept drop-off deliveries by customers—UPS or FedEx only—and those units are heavy and expensive to ship even over short distances.
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"Gosh, Batman, I never knew there were no punctuation marks in alphabet soup!"
—Robin, in the 1960's Batman TV series.
W1ITT
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« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2025, 10:05:49 AM »

My 8714C has traveled the world with me in its Pelican case
 and put a lot of vittles on my table.  One nice thing about the 8714C is that it can run about +13 dbm source power which is helpful for blasting through the QRM at multi transmitter sites where the neighbors can't be convinced to shut down for a few minutes..  I have an HPIB to Ethernet converter that helps with interfacing to modern information storage gear.  I think the 8714ET may have a buss so that it can doing the same and store results directly off the production line.
I have a couple more modern network analyzers but the 8714 is still the workhorse.  Make room on your porch in case your benefactor needs to drop off more such goodies.
73 de Norm W1ITT
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KA3EKH
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« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2025, 02:26:03 PM »

Have some small experience with the 8714 and 8648 being several years back had a microwave engineering lab on campus where each student had both. The 8714 can be configured to generate or sample both ports and dose a fair job looking at things like return loss. Has a mode where you can show things like VSWR on each port and will do smith charts. The weakest point and what I think you will have there is the input are prone to damage when more then a watt or so is pumped into them. We kept 3 db pads on all them because it was easy to replace a pad as opposed to having to repair the input stage. We did many a slotted line and cavity sweeps with them. One of the first labs was getting students to read attenuation at different frequencies on different lengths of coax just using the 8648 at -10 dBm @ 50,150 and 400 MHz to port 0 on the 8714 and charting loss for 50 and 100 foot of cheap RG-58 and good RG-213 and having them write up why that happens. Great way of teach them about frequency, Span and Level buttons.
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Opcom
Patrick J. / KD5OEI
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« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2025, 10:26:33 PM »

Sounds like pretty good stuff. Time to RTM and give it all a test. I literally have had no time, and now the weather's below freezing - no heat in shop except a space heater.

P.S. on the coax attenuation stuff - I have one friend who is a non-believer. Either very cheap or does not want to believe the attenuation charts. The run is about 100 FT and  lets just say the results on UHF are very poor with RG-58, 8X, etc. darn CB radio shop cables! and also as bad or worse with RG-213 - but I know for sure he has a bad cable. I'm trying to get him to replace them with LMR400 but it's $$
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Radio Candelstein
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