[time-nuts] R&S XSRM Rubidium Standard

[KA2WEU at aol.com]

Modern test and radio equipment have self calibration capabilities, older  
analog do not. Calibration is not always need for  just simple test, but  
for specification conformation it is useful. A bit  of luck also  helps.
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 9/17/2017 8:08:00 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
drkirkby at kirkbymicrowave.co.uk writes:

On 15  Sep 2017 10:45, "Scott McGrath" <scmcgrath at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
> Precisely my point,   But when purchasing i  expect to pay for a
calibration at a minimum.

I have on occasions  requested sellers to send an item to the manufacturer
(Agilent or Keysight)  for calibration *before* shipping it to me, offering
to pay the calibration  cost, but stating that I expect a full refund if the
item fails the  calibration.

If a test equipment dealer is confident that something is  working well,
they should not object to sending it to the manufacturer for  calibration,
as long as the buyer is willing to pay.

Of course if a  seller knows little about something,  they are not going to
do  this,  but the item should be appropriately priced.

One UK seller  (grace1403) declined to send an Agilent N9912A FieldFox to
Agilent, because  "Agilent were too fussy"., failing items for trivual
issues.    But he did agree to send it to one of the cal labs he uses. I
thought it  was a waste of time going to one of the less fussy outfits,   
but
bought it anyway. It was then clear on receipt that it was faulty.  (The
spectrum analyser functionality was ok, but it didn't work as a  network
analyzer).  He took it back,  but then advertised it on  eBay 6 months
later. When asked, he said nothing had been done to  it.

eBay rules about who pays the return shipping charge for an item  that is
"not as described' keep changing, and may be different on different  sites.
But on a heavy item shipped internationally,  the postage cost  can be
comparable or exceed the calibration  cost.

Dave.
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