That Sencore is tops. Very useful and hard to find an isolated variac, I've been looking recently. (anyone?). Lovely scope, it is so nice to find such a perfect piece.
Short time lurker just subscriber.... I bought a "lot" of electronics. I accidentally bought an entire house of older equipment and a guys lifetime collection of stuff. Included are at least a dozen oscilloscope including a RCA WO-33B. It doesn't have any probes. I don't even know what to search for. I think its brand new. I appear to be the first one to have cut the tape holding the box together.....
Great to come across this old video. I was just given one of these scopes. It came from my dad’s old trade school John O’Connor trade school in San Francisco California, California in 1962 when my dad was an electronics lab.. It turns on it works. I’m gonna recap it put it back into brand new operation. . I just need a simple scope to work on old class a amplifiers or class a amplifiers that I make just to see the form and adjust the biased. That’s all simple.
These scopes were Ok for low level Audio work, Basic E teaching, and TV repair. today though they are just gentle reminders of the way we were. How simple life was .
I have two all-original WO 91-B's sitting about ten feet from my carcass at this very moment. Thinking about dragging out the Variac tomorrow!! Thanks, Bob!!
My nephew just gave me one of these. Although it works to some extent, it seems to be in need of some repair. I think I will open it up and make sure all the tubes are fitted in properly. Thanks for the vid and pointer to where to get the manual.
Bob, I wouldn't sell your HP scope so short. The cheaper new DSO's are abysmal on x-y mode, you have to really spend some cash to get one that is usable in that mode. My old Heathkit 5mHz scope is magnitudes better than my Rigol DS1102E for x-y mode. Also, they can have a bit of "lag". I use a Tek 453 and 475 where x-y and real time are important. Your hybred HP seems to have an ideal feature set for vintage electronics restorations. All the math functions, especially FFT -etc are great on DSO's, but then again -the freq counter in my Rigol is much inferior to my bench counter. That RCA you have is behaving very well! Nice score! Would make a nice little dedicated station or modulation monitor for ham work. Years ago, a lot of the magazines published circuits you could build to add a time base and triggered sweep, etc. to these old recurrent sweep scopes
Points taken. I'd like my HP better if it had a couple more bits of resolution and deeper memory. Other members of the 54600 family do, but go for quite a bit more.
bandersentv Yeah, I understand. Still, I think you will find that you would have to spend North of $1K to get a new DSO that would match your HP's usability for your application.
Bob, I have the same exact scope. With probe too. I recapped mine already, but have never used a scope. Would love to see a future video or two of you actually showing how to use this scope to show TV signal waveforms on a chassis. Mine is in good shape too. Not as good as yours, but decent. Thx for posting, looking forward to seeing you using it on a set soon. -Al
Looking good Bob, you made me chuckle when you said it would not be too far in the future before you were working on a TV and using it, that was an understatement. I just bought a Tektronix 466, that I am waiting for delivery on, never saw you use your 465, do you like it? Tom
Your 466 is a great scope, my 453 and 475's are my daily drivers. I use my DSO for FFT, digital and some analogue development -but not for troubleshooting vintage equipment, filter sweeps, etc.
I rarely use my 465. Last time was when I aligned by Philco 15DX using a HP 3336A and I needed a scope with z-axis intensity modulation. It works OK, but needs calibrating. I find the service manual a bit intimidating - there are so many trimmers insde!
Hi Bob, I am starting to work on that very same scope. Haven't done anything to it yet. Powers up but no display....Bob, I notice when I plug the unit in, the power comes on whether the intensity is off or on. Wasn't the A version sold as a kit, and I wonder where I could get the assembly instructions....thank you.
+Mike DeVita, I purchased my RCA WO-33A brand new from a large electronics distributor in 1972 for $162, and although it now looks like it could have been a kit due to the old style terminal strips and PC board etching, mine was already assembled. I never knew of an option to purchase it as a kit.
I know it's been awhile but at time 6:11 where your right thumb is near the bottom of the filter capacitor and a 1500 ohm power resistor, is there another resistor between the 10uf and 20uf tabs? 4700 ohm maybe? I have a loose 820 ohm 1 watt resistor that came with my wo-33 and I'm trying to find where it goes if you can provide any help. I think the 820 ohm is from the rear. my schematic is a poor copy. thanks
I have one of these, I bought mine for 5 bucks at a Goodwill.. here's the manual for it: rhetoricity.com/misc/tubes/oscope/RCA-Oscilliscope-WO33A.pdf I opened mine too just out of curiousity. About the only thing I've ever done with mine was connect it to music speaker output to see the output.
That Sencore is tops. Very useful and hard to find an isolated variac, I've been looking recently. (anyone?).
Lovely scope, it is so nice to find such a perfect piece.
Short time lurker just subscriber....
I bought a "lot" of electronics. I accidentally bought an entire house of older equipment and a guys lifetime collection of stuff.
Included are at least a dozen oscilloscope including a RCA WO-33B.
It doesn't have any probes. I don't even know what to search for.
I think its brand new. I appear to be the first one to have cut the tape holding the box together.....
Great to come across this old video. I was just given one of these scopes. It came from my dad’s old trade school John O’Connor trade school in San Francisco California, California in 1962 when my dad was an electronics lab..
It turns on it works. I’m gonna recap it put it back into brand new operation. .
I just need a simple scope to work on old class a amplifiers or class a amplifiers that I make just to see the form and adjust the biased. That’s all simple.
These scopes were Ok for low level Audio work, Basic E teaching, and TV repair. today though they are just gentle reminders of the way we were. How simple life was .
I recently obtained one of these units, albiet, not as pristine as yours and this will help me get it restored.....Thanx
Ed Allen~N4TYX~
I have two all-original WO 91-B's sitting about ten feet from my carcass at this very moment. Thinking about dragging out the Variac tomorrow!! Thanks, Bob!!
My nephew just gave me one of these. Although it works to some extent, it seems to be in need of some repair. I think I will open it up and make sure all the tubes are fitted in properly. Thanks for the vid and pointer to where to get the manual.
brings back old first scope I had around 1963
That scope is new. That was a great find Bob. I'll be looking forward to seeing you use it on future TV restorations. Gary
Bob, I wouldn't sell your HP scope so short. The cheaper new DSO's are abysmal on x-y mode, you have to really spend some cash to get one that is usable in that mode. My old Heathkit 5mHz scope is magnitudes better than my Rigol DS1102E for x-y mode. Also, they can have a bit of "lag". I use a Tek 453 and 475 where x-y and real time are important. Your hybred HP seems to have an ideal feature set for vintage electronics restorations. All the math functions, especially FFT -etc are great on DSO's, but then again -the freq counter in my Rigol is much inferior to my bench counter.
That RCA you have is behaving very well! Nice score! Would make a nice little dedicated station or modulation monitor for ham work. Years ago, a lot of the magazines published circuits you could build to add a time base and triggered sweep, etc. to these old recurrent sweep scopes
Points taken. I'd like my HP better if it had a couple more bits of resolution and deeper memory. Other members of the 54600 family do, but go for quite a bit more.
bandersentv Yeah, I understand. Still, I think you will find that you would have to spend North of $1K to get a new DSO that would match your HP's usability for your application.
Bob, I have the same exact scope. With probe too. I recapped mine already, but have never used a scope. Would love to see a future video or two of you actually showing how to use this scope to show TV signal waveforms on a chassis. Mine is in good shape too. Not as good as yours, but decent. Thx for posting, looking forward to seeing you using it on a set soon. -Al
Looking good Bob, you made me chuckle when you said it would not be too far in the future before you were working on a TV and using it, that was an understatement. I just bought a Tektronix 466, that I am waiting for delivery on, never saw you use your 465, do you like it? Tom
Your 466 is a great scope, my 453 and 475's are my daily drivers. I use my DSO for FFT, digital and some analogue development -but not for troubleshooting vintage equipment, filter sweeps, etc.
I rarely use my 465. Last time was when I aligned by Philco 15DX using a HP 3336A and I needed a scope with z-axis intensity modulation. It works OK, but needs calibrating. I find the service manual a bit intimidating - there are so many trimmers insde!
pardon my french, but that's fucking sweet and cool.
Hi Bob,
I am starting to work on that very same scope. Haven't done anything to it yet. Powers up but no display....Bob, I notice when I plug the unit in, the power comes on whether the intensity is off or on. Wasn't the A version sold as a kit, and I wonder where I could get the assembly instructions....thank you.
+MIke DeVIta I'd check the power supply first. Make sure you have high voltage going to the CRT.
Thanks, I edited my previous message to include that the unit powers up after plugging in whether the intensity switch is off or on.
+MIke DeVIta that's the power switch. sounds like yours is shorted
+Mike DeVita, I purchased my RCA WO-33A brand new from a large electronics distributor in 1972 for $162, and although it now looks like it could have been a kit due to the old style terminal strips and PC board etching, mine was already assembled. I never knew of an option to purchase it as a kit.
.........neat encased power transformer in there and nice shiny looking electrolytic caps....
one Oscilloscope in every home
Like new, works well, not bulky...sweet!
I know it's been awhile but at time 6:11 where your right thumb is near the bottom of the filter capacitor and a 1500 ohm power resistor, is there another resistor between the 10uf and 20uf tabs? 4700 ohm maybe? I have a loose 820 ohm 1 watt resistor that came with my wo-33 and I'm trying to find where it goes if you can provide any help. I think the 820 ohm is from the rear. my schematic is a poor copy. thanks
Sorry, I have no idea. I haven't had the scope open since I made this video. I suggest you ask on the Antique Radio Forum in the Test Equipment area.
Thanks, I knew it may be a long shot. Thanks for responding.
Nice find, I'm sure that it will be useful...
Bud...
I have one of these, I bought mine for 5 bucks at a Goodwill.. here's the manual for it:
rhetoricity.com/misc/tubes/oscope/RCA-Oscilliscope-WO33A.pdf
I opened mine too just out of curiousity. About the only thing I've ever done with mine was connect it to music speaker output to see the output.
.that's cool............