[time-nuts] HP Reliability

[Scott McGrath]

When in the field and one of those cheap 'disposable' instruments fail and pointed questions are asked   That's when you miss the quality of the old HP gear   And I still use the old pre Carly gear precisely because it can be trusted to work in adverse conditions even though one needs to wash the data through a computer to get the measurement features that the new stuff has built in

The new gear had a name at one time we called it experimenter grade.  Much of the new gear these days reminds me of Eico equipment in overall build quality 

Content by Scott
Typos by Siri

> On Feb 14, 2016, at 2:20 PM, William H. Fite <omniryx at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> They don't wonder; they know very well. But they're stuck. Consider
> oscilloscopes. Why pay for a Keysight or Tectronix or LeCroy or, God
> forbid, a Rohde & Schwarz when, for the vast majority of applications, a
> Rigol will give you everything you need at 1/N the cost?
> 
> The hugely expensive, overbuilt gear that we grew up with is yesterday's
> news; that's why we can scarf it up so cheap on the 'bay. Lots of labs and
> manufacturing facilities now consider basic gear like DSOs, SAs, DMMs,
> PSUs, and sig-gens as disposable as cell phones.
> 
> I'm not sure that is a bad thing.
> 
> Bill
> 
> 
> 
> On Sunday, February 14, 2016, Scott McGrath <scmcgrath at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','scmcgrath at gmail.com');>> wrote:
> 
>> HP's greatest advantage of old was being the largest and best vertically
>> integrated technology company as innovations in one line of business were
>> often applicable to others.    This was right down to things as prosaic as
>> packaging and or hybrid  circuit design
>> 
>> Now Keysight is just another mid sized technology company who outsources
>> much of their production and wonders why Asian vendors can copy their stuff
>> so rapidly and undersell them.
>> 
>> Content by Scott
>> Typos by Siri
>> 
>>> On Feb 14, 2016, at 8:31 AM, Adrian Godwin <artgodwin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> HP built their reputation for quality and reliability with test
>> equipment.
>>> Computers were always considered a bit weird (in a nice way, in the case
>> of
>>> handheld calculators) but printers have followed the consumer race to the
>>> bottom.
>>> 
>>> It's sad to hear that the instrument division are no longer focused on
>>> keeping that reputation - perhaps that's why the medical division moved
>> to
>>> separate the names.
>>> 
>>> On Sun, Feb 14, 2016 at 11:28 AM, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave
>> Ltd) <
>>> drkirkby at kirkbymicrowave.co.uk> wrote:
>>> 
>>>>  On 14 Feb 2016 09:04, "Perry Sandeen via time-nuts" <
>> time-nuts at febo.com
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>> It is rather depressing to me to hear RK and others remark about the
>>>> unreliability of HP test equipment.
>>>>> There is one area where they had outstanding equipment.
>>>> 
>>>> I have a friend with a fairly large lab. He must have 50 signal
>> generators,
>>>> 15 spectrum analyzers, plus plenty of other stuff. Mainly RF. Most is
>>>> HP/Agilent, but he has Rohde & Scwarz and Anritsu too. He finds the HP
>> the
>>>> most reliable.
>>>> 
>>>> Also Anritsu seem to charge a lot for calibration.  A recent repair to a
>>>> modern 6 GHz Anritsu signal generator resulted in the repair bill plus
>>>> £1200 GBP (around $1800) for calibration. That particular sig gen, which
>>>> was sold for mobile phone use, has an electronic attenuator that will
>> blow
>>>> up if a mobile phone is transmitted into it.
>>>> 
>>>> He used to think he preferred R&S signal generators to Agilent,  but the
>>>> reliability of the R&S has been poorer so his mind has been changed on
>>>> that.
>>>> 
>>>> I am sure every company has some products that have been very reliable
>> and
>>>> some less so, but I would dispute that HP is in general less reliable
>> than
>>>> other decent makes.
>>>> 
>>>> Support on HP is generally good, with the forums which are answered by
>>>> Keysight staff. (An annoying exception seems to be LCR meters and
>> Impedance
>>>> analyzers developed in Japan. The Japanese engineers hardly ever visit
>> the
>>>> forums so questions on LCR meters and impedance analyzers generally get
>> no
>>>> response.)
>>>> 
>>>> There are instrument ranges where other manufacturers seem better (e.g.
>>>> Keithley for electrometers), but overall HP/Agilent seem the best
>> choice to
>>>> me.
>>>> 
>>>> I know someone who is looking for a 20.GHz VNA. He just lost out on a
>>>> Windows based R&S VNA that sold on eBay for a bit over $7000. There's no
>>>> way a 20 GHz Windows based Agilent VNA would fetch so little.  This is
>>>> reflected in their higher resale values.
>>>> 
>>>> At least with the older stuff,, service manuals for HP are useful,
>> though
>>>> modern service manuals are less so.
>>>> 
>>>> Just my opinion.
>>>> 
>>>> Dave.
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