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HAMEG
Oscilloscopes
Why analog?
Beyond any doubt the oscilloscope is the most important measuring instrument if voltage signals are
to be characterized in the time domain. Hence the analog oscilloscope is frequently still the first
choice, even in the socalled digital age. This article describes some qualities of these instruments.
Often a limited budget may have been the primary rea- (No) false measurements by pressing a button
son to select an analog scope because, within the next DSO’s are superior for special applications like very low
years, the prices of DSO’s of comparable bandwidth will frequency phenomena (e.g. sub-Hz range) or single
not come close to their analog counterparts. This “ana- events, but they require an enormous knowhow of sig-
log investment“ done the user will be astonished by the nal processing theory. In most DSO’s the memory depth
simplicity and versatility of his instrument and the crisp is by far insufficient (e.g. < 10 KB per channel). With 10 KB
display of his measurement results, and, while his col- and a sweep speed of 100 ms/cm the sampling rate will
league is still bewildered by the complicated menu of be only 100 KHz or 10 us distance between points; if
his DSO and fumbling with the manual, he already there are any frequency components < 50 KHz in the
achieved first results and detected faults. Even the low input signal the display will be faulty. Analog scopes are
cost Hameg oscilloscopes (HM303-6, bandwidth 35 MHz, free from such aliasing problems; in the worst case the
price 550 E excl. VAT) excel by their sensitivity of signal display will be somewhat rounded because fre-
1 mV/cm, a vital buying decision feature for applications quency components beyond the – 3 dB bandwidth (e.g.
in industry, service, schools and hobby (Fig. 1) Fre- 35 MHz) will be attenuated. High-end analog scopes
quently, customers who came to like those features with bandwidths of 150 to 200 MHz will display fast sig-
decided later to buy higher bandwidth instruments from nals more precisely and also offer measuring comfort
150 to 200 MHz. like readout, cursors, auto-measure, counter functions,
1
and a 2nd time base. A 2nd time base allows e.g. the
expansion of signal details displayed at slow sweep
speeds, e.g. 100 ms/cm, up to the fastest time base avai-
lable, e.g. 5 ns/cm.
High resolution
With analog scopes the limits of resolution are given by
the trace width and the vision of the user, because the Fig. 2: DSO display of a signal superimposed by a second signal:
trace can reach any position on the screen, there are no false apparent low frequency „jumping“ superposition.
limitations to the resolution. In contrast to this, the res-
olution of DSO’s is always limited. The Y resolution is
determined by the a/d converter, with the usual 8 bits
there are 256 positions available. Some headroom sub-
tracted to allow for some overdrive e.g. 200 points dis-
tributed over 8 cm vertical will yield just 25 positions per
division. The analog scope does not suffer from such
limitations.