Edgardo, The 5065A is a great unit but the price is over the top for a questionable unit. If fully meeting specs, the price is still very high, IMO.
The observations you report are likely simple repairs. The great unknown is whether it will 'lock' or not? That is to say will the Continuous Operation light come on? The 'ovens' all typically go full scale pegged when initially turned on then come down 'on scale' when warm. Photo I will be 0 then come up as the lamp warms up. 2nd Harmonic comes up as the Rubidium Vapor Frequency Reference unit warms up. Once things are on scale, switch from Loop Open to Oper, push the Logic Reset button and the Continuous Operation light should come on, assuming the 5 MHz oscillator is close to being on frequency. Also, the indicator lamps are commonly burned out or the lenses are missing. There are easy to replace indicators that use the same bulb that you can install in place of the lamp assemblies if needed. I can send you the part numbers for these if needed. Hope this helps. Joe -----Original Message----- From: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Edgardo Molina Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 1:27 AM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] HP-5065a advise and purchase decision Dear Group, Good morning. I wish you well. This is my first post to the Time-Nuts group. Please be gentle with the newbie ;) I have been offered an HP 5065a Rubidium Frequency Standard recently in what I feel, a bad operational condition. I need a reliable rubidium standard for my time/frequency experiments, still I am in doubt to invest in buying such and old beast. The general situation of the instrument (for what I have been able to see from the first inspection) is: 100 Khz output: Not working, noise coming out of it. 1Mhz output: Working, sine wave clean and not distorted, a couple of frequency meters showing 1.0000030 Mhz in frequency, the oscilloscope shows a transient pulse on top of the sine wave signal and affecting the frequency readout instantly and then returning to the value previously mentioned. Last digits vary sporadically. 5Mhz output: Working. sine wave clean but a little bit distorted when ramping up. A couple of frequency counters showing 5.0000014 Mhz in frequency. No transient pulses or other glitches around the output signal. Last digits vary sporadically. No lights coming up when the instrument turned on. No physical damage of abuse on case or internal components. No options installed . A couple of electrolytic caps replaced on some boards, no trace of burnt PCB traces or visible damage to electronic components or physics package. Haven't got the manual until today and was unable to check on the front panel voltages to check on general health. As turning the voltage test selector knob, voltage is shown for most positions, except of course battery and the 100 Khz oscillator output. Some voltage test positions get the instrument needle to go full scale and out of range, other appear to be within scale. I can perform a second visual and operational inspection today, this time with a copy of the instrument manual. I will take my own trusted frequency counter and portable digital storage oscilloscope. Would really appreciate if I could receive comments from you experts to evaluate if such a unit could be worth buying. The asking price is $1K USD. Should I consider it an instrument that can be repaired and serviced to show some decent performance? Or should I look somewhere else to get a decent rubidium frequency standard. Thank you beforehand for all your kind and expert comments. Respectfully, Edgardo Molina Mexico City, Mexico _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there. _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.