As can be seen in the seller's pictures, those oscillators did not have HP's final model/serial number label. As such they would never have left the Santa Clara factory through normal marketing channels. Instead they were likely purchased at a HP (or Agilent) employee scrap auction or part of a scrap lot sold to dealers.
It used to be that such scrap was either destroyed or sold strictly for employee-only personal use, not to be introduced to the outside market, because HP didn't want inferior/non-standard product introduced to the outside world, for obvious and good reasons. But beginning about 10 years ago, HP began dumping scrap to outside dealers without regard for the above policy. I once saw some poor fellow pay $2200 for a HP prototype 3580A at a HP/DoveBid auction -- it never dawned on him that he was buying something sub-production. That particular unit was very "proto-trappy" inside, not anything like a production unit, and frankly worth maybe $40. I felt very sorry for him, but there was nothing I could do after the fact. Buyer beware! Look carefully for signs of pre-production or non-production stuff and bid accordingly. Best, Greg ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rick Karlquist" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement" <[email protected]> Cc: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, January 14, 2007 4:40 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Bad batch of HP10811's The one that is 80 Hz low sounds like it may have a cold oven. The one that is 500 Hz low must be one of the special units made to test short term stability by having a 500 Hz beat note. I don't see any way a bad crystal would ever leave the factory, and I have never heard of a crystal going bad in the field. Rick Karlquist N6RK Mark Amos wrote: > Time-nuts, > > Seems like a bad batch of HP10811's was dumped on e-bay over the > holidays... Some (at least > 2) won't tune up to 10MHz: one won't adjust above 9,999,530 and the other > peaks around > 9,999,920 after warming up for a day or so. It seems to stay on frequency > (albeit the wrong > one...) > > I did some preliminary checks (internal reference voltages, OK, etc.) I'm > thinking that it > must be a bad crystal to be this far off. > > C'est une cause perdue? (I.e. did I buy a "parts" unit?) > > Mark > > > > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list > [email protected] > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list [email protected] https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list [email protected] https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
