[time-nuts] Looking for insight with an hp 5350B 20GHz counter

[paul swed]

Walter your insight is most likely the issue. The same thing happens on EIP
counters. The front end is blown. But before jumping to that conclusion its
good to confirm that the sampler injection levels are good at the higher
frequency.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL

On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 11:48 AM, walter shawlee 2 <walter2 at sphere.bc.ca>
wrote:

> I recently got a nice looking 5350B counter, but bench tests showed a
> strange problem.  the low frequency section is fine, but the high frequency
> section only runs to 14Ghz, and is about 20dB less sensitive than it should
> be (-10dBm v. -32dBm).  the manual shows that there is nothing between the
> input and a mysterious undocumented circle labeled U1 Sampler.
>
> There are no real diagnostics for this portion other than a live signal,
> and it appears to a non-user service item. Overloading the input is a
> tragically common way to damage the front end, so I am a bit worried that
> is the problem here. Is there anyone with some similar experience with this
> counter that can give me a bit of good troubleshooting advice?  there is a
> very good and detailed set of diagnostics for this unit, except this one
> input portion, but it would be helpful to know if this is symptomatic of a
> damaged input sampler before I burn up many bench hours testing everything
> else.
>
> all advice welcome,
> regards,
> walter
>
> --
> Walter Shawlee 2, President
> Sphere Research Corporation
> 3394 Sunnyside Rd.,  West Kelowna,  BC
> V1Z 2V4  CANADA  Phone: (250) 769-1834
> walter2 at sphere.bc.ca
> WS2: We're all in one boat, no matter how it looks to you.
> Love is all you need. (John Lennon)
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>
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