Need pointers on Oscilloscopes

woodelf wrote: unless you get a digital scope that holds calibration well, you will probably be wise to pick up a frequency reference, and voltage refreence to calibrate them with, unless you have access to such somewhere outside your home shop, such as at work. If you have a standalone operation, being able to check the voltage and triggering on your scope and recalibrate them is desirable too. a lot of bargain scopes will put up a nice square wave, especially tektronics showing the internal test square wave, and wont trigger on the crap you really see in your old computers worth a crap. triggering and reliable probes will probably be the the top two things you will not think of unless you keep them in mind in advance, and it will be hard to judge how good a scope is unless you know the vendors, and trust their description, and that they might let you return a dog of a scope. also, getting a good maintainence and calibration manual will help the above, you wont be doing that wo one. Dont go for some weird and wonderful bargain scope that you cant find a manual for. jim