ACtually, there is far more interest in the parts than the whole instrument. I've attempted to GIVE AWAY a working Tek 547 with 3 or 4 plug-ins and the original 'scopemobile' cart. Zero takers. But there IS a small fortune in tubes in there. There is a vast and growing interest in designing and building tube circuits these days. Even I got bitten by this bug and built a pair of radio receivers using tubes (not taken from the scope). Many of the needed parts for this sort of work are no longer made and any existing new old stock parts now carry hefty prices. The best solution is to take this fine, grand old test gear, and strip it for parts. Better that the hard-to-get parts are preserved (and used) then the whole instrument goes to the dump. This is clearly a lesser of two evils situation, but when the gear cannot be given away, it is the best option. David V. Corbin wrote:

ben> From what little I have seen on Scope parts it is the solid ben> state custom IC's and transistors that are hard to find. Things like the high voltage rectifier tubes as found in, say, a Tek 535, are also rare and expensive. I found this out the hard way... paul

FWIW, I didn't hear about this 547 (although I would not have been able to take it -- they are rather to heavy to ship across the Pond :-)) The 547 is not that big, but it's not small either. Regard it as a bench instrument, not a portable (for all it has a carrying handle...). Be careful. Tekky made a thing (I believe) that was a 'scope in 2 6' rack cabitnets. One of them had a set of bays for 7000-series plug-ins, and a special storage tube mounted vertically in the rack. The other contained a PDP11 (I want to say 11/40). The incloming signal was stored in the tube, then read out using a second electron gun, digitised and fed to the '11 for processing. In the fays before ns ADCs this was about the only way to do it. -tony

On Fri, 21 May 2004 01:00:25 -0400 (EDT) der Mouse <mouse(a)rodents.montreal.qc.ca> wrote: I would hold out for a newer solid-state but not 'digital' scope. I got a Tektronix 7000 series mainframe at auction last summer for $5 and a stack of plugins, including the sensitive differential plugin, several dual traces, and the fast (100 MHz) Differential comparator plug-in for $5 apiece at the same auction. Also snagged a 5000 series mainframe with plug-ins at the same auction for $5, and an old rackmount tube model from the 500-series era. Those old tube Tek scopes are what got us to the Moon, and they have fabulous construction. That silver-solder on ceramic construction is designed to last forever. People severely undervalue the old analog Tek scopes these days. And the 7000 series are some of the greatest scopes ever made. The old 500 series tube scopes are technological marvels, and items of beauty to collect, but the newer 7000 series scopes are items of beauty to use. I wouldn't be without either in my lab, of course. For non-collectors who aren't instrumentation-geeks, if you want just one useful scope, the 465 or 475 are highly recommended. I personally avoid anything in the Tek 2400 series because they used custom ICs, and quit producing said ICs years ago. If you have a pile of 2465 'scopes to scavenge from you're set up to keep one running, otherwise they're a risky investment. To keep it on topic, I used to own a 547. The greatest general purpose tube-type (hybrid, actually) tube mainframe Tek made. If you want to be a purist, though, you should stick to a 545, which is all-tube (when I had one I counted over 100 tubes just in the time base)