Back in the
late '70s and early '80s, I used a particular
oscilloscope, a "TYPE 304 H" "CATHODE-RAY OSCILLOGRAPH" from
"ALLEN
B. DUMONT LABORATORIES, INC., PASSAIC, N.J., U.S.A." (all quotes
come from the front panel markings).
Before the days of Tek and HP, Dumont scopes
were some of the best
available. At various times, I've had Eico and RCA scopes, and both
brands had serious warm-up drift. Supposedly, the Dumonts were among
the most stable.
I can easily believe that. Despite being at least three decades old,
during most of which it has received absolutely no maintenance
(possibly excepting tube replacement), it is still usable (or would be
if the power transofrmer hadn't fried). It now has a bit of warm-up
drift, and some of the knobs interact with others in undesirable ways
(for example, the X amplitude knob introduces a DC offset that I have
to compensate for with the X position knob). But for it to even *work*
after that long, especially with the total lack of care it's received,
is pretty impressive.
It's also notable that much of the circuitry is caked with dust to the
point where I have to clean it to read resistor values even with the
help of a flashlight - and the resulting leakage paths haven't rendered
it nonfunctional either. It took the power transformer roasting itself
to do that.
No, I'd say that the good Dumont reputation you describe is deserved.
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