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oscilloscope recommendations?

+2 on the Hitachi recommendation. Acquired mine for $225 in fully working condition, and it runs circles around my TEK digital scope when it comes to things like waterfall displays. The auto function is a huge timesaver too.

I've owned Tek scopes on and off for years, including a 465B and my current piece and though I appreciate them for what they are, the reality is they are often overpriced largely because of sweeping generalizations such as were presented in this thread that "there is no other scope worth considering". That is simply untrue, and you end up paying for the perception instead of the reality.

FWIW my bench now has these brands on it: Tek, HP, Hitachi, Fluke, Kenwood, Sencore, Wavetek, BK Precision, Metcal, Meguro, Panasonic. If I'd followed blind brand loyalty recommendations as made here, I'd be well over ten thousand dollars out of pocket instead of a couple of grand at the most. That would have resulted in less capability, not better quality or better reliability. Who can afford that kind of investment as a hobbyist?

Listen to the people that use these devices and the ones being offered as the go-to that haven't used the better value alternatives, and make your own decision.

John
 
follow up

I've had the rigol for a couple of weeks now, haven't gotten around to taking it in to work to compare to our Teks but I can say it works well and the display is plenty big and easy to see. Analog scopes will always look "smoother" but it doesn't mean the waveform displayed on a digital scope is wrong, just different. It's nice that it has FFT capability for analyzing distortion - many higher end scopes don't have this function and I don't know if it's possible to have on an analog scope.

So far I've only used it (besides playing around) to check the output frequency of a function generator when I was aligning the tuner on an old radio - it's nice to be able to display pp voltage, frequency etc... live on the screen. As long as it proves reliable over the long haul I'll be a happy camper with this little unit.
 
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