At 7/13/2009 19:38, you wrote: >I'd be leaning toward an HP. Even if you have to pay a little more up >front, you'll come out ahead of the game in the long run. I have three HP's >(two 8920B's and an 8921A, with various options), and in the last ten years >or so, only once have I had to get one of them repaired (spectrum analyzer >self-test wasn't passing). > >Up until fairly recently I also had an IFR 1500 (I think I got it in 1993 or >thereabouts). While I loved the 1500 in my regards, it became too expensive >to continue to repair. The death knell for it was when the CRT died (the >original CRT's are NLA, Aeroflex wanted something like $2200 to install a >different CRT and replace the power supply with a different type that was >compatible with the new CRT). Thanks but no thanks...
Have you ever tried KG Electronics (http://kgelectronics.com)? W.r.t. the CRT, some 3rd party vendors have developed replacement LCD displays for some of the old yet popular instrumentation, for example the HP8720 VNA: <http://www.ntecusa.com/sales/dsp_model.cfm?modelID=21273>. I wonder what it would take to develop such a retrofit for the older IFR monitors? Bob NO6B
