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Old 05-26-2017, 02:39 PM
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Tubejunke Tubejunke is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Martinsville, VA
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Checking Signal Generator Accuracy With A Frequency Counter and Scope

Hello all! It seems the more I learn about electronics, the more I need to know. Too bad none of it makes much money these days! Anyway, I do a lot of my radio and TV work with vintage test equipment. I do it because I like the stuff which I understand causes me to have to repair my repair equipment. It would be ludicrous to many, but I have a lot of fun with it.

Anyway, I have had an old Heathkit SG-8 Signal Generator for quite a while. It's great. It needed a .1mfd cap to get going real well and operates on it's 2 original Heathkit tubes. Not long ago I purchased a cheapo frequency counter to use mainly to see how accurate the generator is. My problem is that I don't get any kind of steady reading on the counter at all, or one that coordinates with what I should be seeing. SO, I hooked the output of my function generator to the frequency counter and I get normal readings. Then I tried connecting my Oscope to the Signal Generator and I get a sine wave. The trick for me is that moving the range knob on the generator only changes the amplitude of the sine wave.

Even that change isn't a lot and the bandwidth isn't changing much if at all. I'm willing to bet that this is caused some rudimentary of fundamental of electronics relating to RF that I haven't studied enough. It has to be as I know that the Heathkit works fine and the dial accuracy can't be off by more than about 5Khz. I've seen guys in YouTube vids do what I am trying to do, but I don't think they showed how to connect everything.. I know somebody here can set me straight as the always do. Thanks in advance!
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