[Thomas] comes up with some unusual gear. In his latest teardown and repair video, he has a vintage 1943 Danish oscilloscope, a Radiometer OSG32 on the bench. It isn’t lightweight, and it certainly looks its age with a vintage cracked finish on the case. You can check out the tubes and high-voltage circuitry in the video below.
If you’ve only seen the inside of a modern scope, you’ll want to check this out with giant condensers (capacitors) and a slew of tubes. We love seeing the workmanship on these old chassis.
There was a significant amount of burned residue, likely from a capacitor inside the case. A visit to Radiometer headquarters netted a pile of old manuals, including one for this scope, along with schematics. However, the schematics may not have been totally accurate.
With power the CRT somewhat lit up, which was a good sign, although it had a smell. But there was at least one voltage deficiency. He eventually made partial progress with some modern substitutes helping out, but it looks like there’s still more to go. Given the appearance of the outside, we were surprised he got as far as he did.
This was actually a very nice scope for its day, if you compare it to some other typical examples. Did you ever wonder what people did for scopes before the CRT? We did too.
Looks like my old Heathkit I got from a hamfest for $5.
My first ‘scope was a vintage CRC model from some research lab around.
There were TWO handles on top, meaning two people were required to move it !
You had to carefully test the desk on which you wanted to place it.
Eventually some capacitors leaked and the beam moved away despite the offset setting, so it was replaced by a more recent (and lighter) one…
That vintage 1943 oscilloscope is definitely older than the Tektronix Type 511A Oscilloscope I have, which was manufactured between November 1948 and 1949 and had the new innovation of a triggered sweep.
Tektronix started in 1946 in Portland, Oregon, some fine scopes made!
Reminds me of the time, when I worked making instruments. The company was founded in 1943, and when I asked about the work from back then, I got “We do not talk about 1943-1945!”