[K4RY] Inexpensive electronic test equipment

[John Klingelhoeffer]

Hi all;

If you are like me, I try to put as little money into electronic test
equipment as I can, so the rest can go into my radios and newfangled
circuits I want to experiment with.

Here attached is one of my recent purchases (hopefully, the mail reflector
will accept the picture; if not, I have sent it directly to Kyle and he can
relay it to you).

If the picture is on its side, you can turn your phone 90 degrees or
download it and turn it in a photo editor.

Anyhow, the small board in the clamp in the picture is a function generator
for testing different types of equipment.  It can generate sine, square and
triangular waves from 10 Hertz to about 200 kHz.  It has a buffered, low
impedance output and the duty cycle of the square wave and the tilt of the
triangular wave is adjustable.  The output amplitude is adjustable from
zero up to about 10 volts.  It runs off of a wall wart power supply, and
came with two sets of output cables, BNC to BNC coaxial and BNC to test
grabber hooks.  You can see the square wave output on my scope in the
picture background.

Now the good part:  It cost about $15 *totally assembled* with the cables
included delivered to your door!  The power supply came from my junk box.
My intent is to remote some of the adjustment controls to the front panel
with potentiometers and switches and install on a small instrument case to
use on the bench, but it works just like it is if you like.  Just mount it
on a block of wood with four screws to keep it stable on the bench.  What a
deal!

There are similar small instruments on Ebay like a frequency counter that
goes to 60 MHz for $10, an RF power detector that works from 100 MHz to 2.5
GHz for $15, a 1A bipolar DC power supply for $20, and a 3.3 or 5V power
supply that mounts right onto a white plastic experiment board for a buck.
There is a low speed oscilloscope for about $18.  Very amazing prices.

It is true, they are not Agilent or Tektronix lab instruments, but they are
certainly good enough for a lot of ham lab uses, and you can't beat the
price.  Use the keywords, "DIY" and / or "KIT" when searching and see what
you too can find.

73

John...
WB4LNM
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