At last summer’s Ham Radio in Friedrichshafen, I was offered a YIG-tuned oscillator at the suspiciously generous price of 5 Euros. Since I’m always on the lookout for cheap instrumentation-grade YTOs, I took it without a second thought. After a brief chat with the friendly operator who sold it, I learned that it came from a recently discarded HP spectrum analyzer, which appears to have been beyond hope. However, he claimed that the oscillator worked ’til the end. Should he read this: thanks for the chat, and for the part :-)

A few months later: Grabbing a spectrum analyzer and a bunch of power supplies shows an indeed very healthy part.

Continue reading →