Hi quite some time back or uh, several years ago. In fact, I did a DriveTime rant video where I recommended that beginners and those looking for a lowcost oscilloscope and if they can't afford one of the3 $400 modern digital Scopes to go out and get themselves a lowcost secondhand uh, traditional 20 MHz dual Channel or something like that uh, Crow Cathode Ray Oscilloscope the oldfashioned analog oscilloscope and I mentioned in that video that you can probably pick one up for about 50 bucks or something like that. uh, or even I mentioned that you can get them for free, but let's uh, you know that is certainly a valid uh' option, people. Just give these things away.

but if you can't find one like that for some reason, then you should be able to pick one up fairly cheaply. uh, for 50 bucks or so was the figure that I threw out there and ever since then, a lot of people have been been going. Oh, there's no way you can get an old secondhand uh, oscilloscope working like that for you know, 50 bucks or anywhere under a hundred bucks. It's crazy, you know.

I've been looking and looking forever. Well, you know I don't think you're looking hard enough And to prove it, let's have a go here. What I'm going to do is I'm just going to go to eBay Us of course. Yes, don't complain that I'm not going to do your country, etc etc.

I'm going to take the Us as an example cuz that's where a lot of my viewer base is. And that's where a lot of the uh complaints come from. So let's just search eBay for oscilloscopes and see what we can pick up. It shouldn't be too hard at all.

Now here we go. Let's go for oscilloscope now. I Haven't logged in at all cuz I don't have a US account. so if I log in under my Australian account, it screws things up and look at this.

Right off the bat, we have an analog oscilloscope dual Channel 20 MHz oscilloscope that a traditional for 50 bucks. Buy it now. let's have a look. There's 204.

look, six are available. They've got six of these things available. Theyve sold nine of them. Let's go down.

This sale is good for a used Easy Digital Uh, once again, it's one of those rebadged those old rebadged uh Brands I'm not sure how. uh good it is. Good physical and working condition with minor scuffing from normal use. There you go included.

Yeah, you don't get the probes. We'll have a look at that in a minute. Look first hit 5050 bucks us? Sure. Okay, postage.

this one's in Longwood Florida So, but if you're in Florida then you can. you know, presumably you can drop by I Don't know if they offer pickup? some of them do, some of them don't, But shipping and payments, you know. And then you can just get the shipping rates for us. Yes, If you send oscilloscopes overseas, they're big and heavy, so you're obviously looking for something, uh, local.

Now you can set up I Won't go into the details, but you can set up watch lists on eBay once you've got an account so that you can see um, or so that you can instantly get notified when a particular search Match comes within your particular area. So you might do like a 50 km or 50 m radius around your house for example. And then if an oscilloscope art pops up within that region, then you'll get identified. But look straight off the bat, we've got a working dual Channel 20 MHz Uh, you know, oscilloscope for 50 bucks plus postage? Okay, you got to include probes.

Probes are going to cost you another 10 bucks. Postage might cost you 10 20 bucks or something like that. Yes, there's a lot of eBay sellers which rip you off and you know stuff like that. But yeah, once you start talking about, say, a Tetronics triple 25 here we got 150 bucks.

but you know you, maybe you're not going to get one of the you know you have to be lucky to get, say, a tectronics. They're sort of Highly sought after for 50 bucks, but you can certainly do it. So now of course we can. uh, sort by price of course.

but let's uh, go into cuz we're just searching all categories here at the moment. Let's go into electrical and test equipment here. Test equipment: 9,700 Oscilloscopes Geez, 7,000 Here we Go 7,000 but that includes probes and everything else. And looky what we have here we have over here this analog uh type.

So there let's click on analog and we just get analog oscilloscopes. Now you can actually miss out on Bargains um if you, uh, just narrow it down to analog. but it's a good first pass result. And we've got 667 oscilloscopes in the US analog oscilloscopes by the looks of it.

and then we can go in here and we can possibly sort uh, lowest price first. and we got a Tectronics 4555 I Don't know if that one's working or not. Is it for found in garage? No idea if it's working? Okay, if you can't at least see a trace on the screen or something like that or they say it's working and uh, tested then you know you'd probably avoid that cuz the last thing you want as a beginner is to uh, you know, have a scope that's you know, not working at least one Channel's not working uh for example. So uh now yeah, we have to get through all the crud here cuz we have sorted by Price This isn't working too well at the moment, so let's narrow it down now.

it's got brand here, but it hasn't got all the brands. It's only got the majors here Agilant, HP uh tectronics and the TDS series. Uh tectronics. You can sort by bandwidth, but a lot of uh sellers won't actually put the bandwidth in and of course you can specify used only for example so we could do that.

We could narrow it down even further, but once again, if you narrow down to these categories, you can miss the occasional bargain. But often what I like to do is uh, search for let's go for a uh, a good old brand oscilloscope that's nonmainstream. it's not tectronics or HP For example, let's go Hatachi Oscilloscope and see what we can get. So let's go in and take a look at this one, shall we? We're looking at 80.

Hey, check it out. Look, we got free shipping Free standard shipping on this. Seven people are viewing this item per hour. There we go.

I Don't get that poppi it up on the Australian version of eBay But there you go. And look, there's four available on. there's four left. Okay, at 89 bucks and it's make an offer you know you wouldn't hit by it.

Now on that, you'd at least knock them down by at least $1 $15 there. I Reckon they'd easily take 80 bucks for that. maybe 75 so that's not a problem. Looks like we've got uh, two tracers on the screen.

Uh, unit has been fully tested and working. There you go, so they claim. Okay, yeah, we're not seeing a sine wave on the screen. That would be nice.

but hey, you know that's a pretty good bet really. And that's a 40 MHz uh dual Channel Hitachi uh V 422 and that is an excellent scope. Nice bright, crisp uh trace on these things Often you can't see the uh Trace very well cuz the camera uh, you know it, it won't be set very well. Yeah, it's got a few scratches and things like that, but those old Hatachi Scopes Very, very nice.

And that's free shipping anywhere in the US So there you go. I Reckon for 80 bucks there, you can easily get yourself a decent 40 MHz dual channel oscope. so don't tell me you can't get one under 100 bucks. There's four available for goodness sake.

Now we're back in. The search results here. and a feature that a lot of people aren't aware of in eBay is what's called completed listings down here. Here it is.

now. if you hit that, that will show you just what it says, the completed listings or the sold listings what these things actually have sold for in I Think it's the past 60 days or something like that. and here we go. There's 36 results for just.

we're still searching Hatachi oscilloscopes here, so we're just searching one particular brand. Let's see what they're going for. That one didn't sell at 99, didn't sell here. We go look at this.

didn't sell at 20 bucks. A lousy 20 bucks. And yeah, that's insane shipping $643 I Think it's determined from my IP address that I'm in Australia even though I haven't logged in. so it's given me insane shipping rates there.

But let's go in and have a look at that, Shall we? Here we go: Used Tested good working condition right? For 20 bucks, it didn't even sell. Okay, didn't even sell. Yeah, it doesn't have uh probes and then of course you'd have to uh, type in. then you ah well, we can't access the shipping down here cuz it's an ended option auction but you could go in there I'd be surprised if that was over.

You know, 20 30 bucks? uh, ground shipping in the US And if we scroll down here, look at this. isn't that a familiar picture? There you go. This guy tried to sell this scope twice for 20 bucks and couldn't sell it in. Tested good working condition at Hatashi V212.

Scope is an excellent scope. It triggers well. It's got a nice bright sharp uh Trace It's a really and it's nice and compact too. Really good little scope.

Look here's another: one: 30 MHz Uh, Hitachi Dens uh Deni Um, as they're often called. uh, 20 bucks? Look at that. $23 one. Bard Look, it's got the tracers up there, so presumably there's nothing wrong with the vertical.

$39 $49 Come on people, there's no excuses. And I've only searched one brand here. Hitachi I mean give me a break, let's try another another one. Kikui well helps if I spell kikui correctly.

Here's another old uh brand which was very good and uh, let's see what we can get here. Here we go: A Kikui Cosos 5020 This was my first uh, proper oscilloscope which I saved up all my money for when I was a teenager and I bought this I think I paid ah, 800 bucks for it or something way back in the uh 80s and there you go. 50 bucks. Buy it.

now. let's look at that working real nice. There you go in working condition for 50 bucks, so don't tell me you can't pick that up. Uh, pick up a scope for under 50 bucks? Yeah.

shipping. Some people rip you off on shipping, just ignore those. Sooner or later you're going to find one that gives you a good uh shipping cost. Oh sorry, that's sold.

Oh, there we go. It's sold. Sorry. I'm still on completed listings so you want to actually unclick those.

but oh, but no. hang on, you can see see what they sold for right? Let's go back. and here we go. Uh, 10 five, uh.

digital. Here we go. 14 bucks. There we go.

15 bucks for a Cosos 5020? Uh, there there you go. It sells a bit cheaper CU used and Power on. no further testing done. So yeah, you don't know as a beginner you would probably say avoid that one you want at least um their of you know verbal uh word that Yeah, it's tested and working and there's an art into choosing.

You know, looking up the history of uh Sellers and whether or not they have an experience with test gear and things like that cuz some are just you know coming out of Grandpa's garage and they have no idea others are Surplus test equipment sellers although they generally, uh, tend to sell them for a lot more. And yes, you can, uh, find people listing these old scopes for a couple of hundred bucks and you know, and they just just a ripoff. really? I mean let's go down here. You know there's a, well, that one 100 There we go.

125 bucks, didn't sell. it's a C71 100 series. Scope has got onscreen cursor readout 100 MHz 4 channel, right? Fantastic. And that didn't sell for 125 bucks.

So let's go into this. Uh, Kikui 60 MHz 3 Channel scope for 9. Okay, nobody's bid on it yet. 4 days left so it's been going for a bit.

Nobody's bid on it. Yeah, it might you know. it's probably not going to go for 9, but you know, have a go I mean here it is. Everything is tested before shipping and guaranteed to work.

Okay, and let's put in shipping: United States $65 economy shipping Okay, let's put in say the post code for Mountain View California I'm not sure where this one's Yeah, it looks like yeah, 65 bucks. so that's pretty pricey. that guy. uh, sort of gouging a little bit.

although this is an older, heavier uh scope. but still, you know I mean if you could get that for 10 20 bucks, you're still well under a 100 bucks. even with that expensive shipping and this obviously we got the same guy here is's selling quite a few. so uh, the same seller here selling these multiple Scopes You can probably be sure when he, um you know says that it basically powers on it works that you know you're at least going to get your Jewel traces up, the triggering is going to work and everything's going to be fine.

Although ideally what you want is a photo of you know, at least the test signal from the front panel on the screen. Let's go back to Hitachi scopes for a minute and it seems now to have picked up that I'm probably from Mountain View California so it's showing the shipping rates. Look, you know, $50 Buy it now with $27 uh shipping. You know this is not $39 shipping.

There are some that one's are free shipping. Of course we've had a look at that. There you go. $24 shipping $771 or best offer you're you know, making them offer of uh you know, 60 bucks or something like that.

Have a go. Why not? But the point is folks is that you can pick up these Scopes fairly cheaply and we haven't even I mean I could search for a few more hours searching all the major brands and you know we've already found decent deals. well under 100 bucks. and I've gone back to basics here: I've just typed in Oscilloscope I've selected the uh analog down here and of course, you could put analog as the keyword up there as well and you can you know or search for specific Brands If you're serious about getting one of these, Scopes set up multiple watch lists for different brands and different Uh scenarios.

just spend a couple of hours on eBay searching around and you'll eventually pick up. um, you know keywords and categories and things like that, especially in your particular Uh region. For example: Oh, look at this newly listed Tetronics 2465 Analog Scope for 26 bucks 200 185 By now, that's obviously not going to go for 26 bucks. Jeez, they're a dead bargain of the century there folks.

But look, here's a Tectronics 60 MHz 2 Channel Analog scope a 2213 worked previously currently does not display in squeals. Oh, there we go. Okay, power supply fault H Don't want to go there. Let's keep scrolling down here and have a look and Tada check it out.

Gold Star 20 MHz Oscilloscope, right? Nobody's going to be looking have search term set up for Gold Star? Hardly anyone, right? It's currently. well, it's it. Looks like it's just been listed 7 days left, but it's five bucks. 32 bucks shipping.

I mean hardly anyone's going to want a gold star. It's not going to go for like, you know, the same price as a tectronics one. There's probably hundreds of people out there with watch lists for tectronics oscilloscopes. They just love collecting them or they're trying to pick up because you know they want a tectronics.

but something like this. 20 MHz Dual Channel Gold Star Perfectly good. Here we go. Great Basic SC Powers Up and Displays works but hasn't been thoroughly tested, but hey, you know, eh? if it works, you would definitely take a chance on that.

There we go, looks like it's picking up some 50 HZ Hum there so you know it's at least triggering and and doing and displaying waveforms. You'd definitely take a chance on that. It wouldn't be surprised me if this sucker has no bids or only goes for you know, 10 or 20 bucks. Even with the $32 shipping, you're probably still going to be able to pick up this scope for 50 bucks or less, you know? God Come on.

and of course, you don't often get probes with these things. so let's take a look. type in oscilloscope probe here I've selected buy It Now over here. I've selected new so I'm not even looking at secondhand ones here I've had to go to the second page of course I've sorted by uh price, but look even directly from China is $670 for a switchable uh 20 MHz probe Free shipping.

You know, for six bucks. But of course if you don't want to get it for China for example, you could just go us only and that would show us there you go. Uh us. sellers are eight bucks for a single probe and I've even seen.

look here we go a pair look 100 MHz two 100 mahz switch I assume they're switchable for 10 bucks with free shipping. Are you kidding me? So who cares? If you you know you pay 50 bucks for your scope. Okay, you might pay an extra 10 bucks is two brand new probes. Yeah, they're probably a bit of a heap of crap and they may not last you a lifetime, but hey, it'll get you off the ground.

No problems whatsoever. There you go. So don't tell me that you can't get a scope plus probes for under 50 bucks because you can. and I haven't even scratched a surface.

I've only been here for 10 15 minutes searching I haven't even done you know any detailed art type search? This is just basic top level stuff. Now somebody on Twitter said that oh I can't get you know anywhere near that price in the UK you can't find a damn thing. Impossible. Well let's have a look.

I've gone to Ebay.co.uk I' I Really Virtually never search Uh eBay uh UK Of course they pop up occasionally, but anyway. I've typed in the generic search term oscilloscope here I've gone into the test equipment category into the specific oscilloscope category and of course you can narrow that down to UK Only if you don't want any overseas stuff, you can narrow it down to used. There's 103 used items so we can click on those, but look here we go: Uh, 99 uh Cent cents or Pence or whatever it is. okay.

one one lousy pound for this. HP Oscilloscope Duel Channel Reserve Not okay. They got a stupid Reserve General wear and tear so it looks like this one is going to be a winner in terms of in good working order, but could do with the Cali cration. Well, they often, uh, say that that's a very common thing to get because you know either they're bullshitting or they just don't know.

Oh, it might need a calibration, but I've bought Scopes like that before and they've just been bang on so you know, um, don't let that scare your door. Not sure why the image isn't coming up there and let's have a look uh tele equipment. You know that's a yeah and we get getting some old stuff. but here's a rapid Electronics one we can take a look at that.

there's a Hitachi There we go. V 525 50 MHz Oscilloscope used working or includes test probe full working order. Look at that 220. Okay, there's a few bids so 13, Postage and uh, the $50 is like uh 25 uh or uh, something like that.

So yeah, that one you know may not go for under that 50 us, uh magical dollar Mark with uh, the 30 postage there. but you know I mean we can click it once again. you can just have a look at the completed listings here and see what they've gone for. and look here we go.

Here's a Tectronics Oscilloscope 774a full working condition did not sell folks for1 including 25 uh well plus 25 Postage And that's cheap because it's This is a big old heavy monster. It really is. But this thing look in great working order comes complete with these modules 80 mahz Bright Focus Trace Yeah, this is like you know this is a real big scope. Okay so if you're you know, some student in your dorm room or something, you know you've just got a little bed sit and that's all you've got.

Okay, you may not have room for something like this, but jeez, come on. Full work in condition. This was a fantastic scope in its day. Absolutely unbelievable.

Full working condition didn't sell for1 so don't tell me you can't get in the UK a working scope that's a tectronics for goodness sake. Give me a break. and yeah, okay, we got some crustier ones down here, but here we go. Here's an Isotech one, right? Just one of those.

uh, rebadged 20 MHz dual beam bought a few weeks ago off eBay now Surplus Cosmetically, a bit ropey, but it looks like no handle. blah Whoop-de-doo it electrically sound and focus trace it. work works okay and that one went for 13. Give me a break.

Here's a current listing: Rapid: Electronics Just a rebadged uh, looks like a dual Channel 20 MHz Scope missing handles and stand. Whoop-de-doo No attachments or manuals. Whoop-de-doo Pick up one of those cheap uh scope probes due to its collection. Okay, they're not going to ship it.

What? There you go, Uh, parcel Force 22b Okay, this thing nobody's going to have a watch list on a bloody rapid Electronics Oscilloscope like this this. So you know it wouldn't surprise me if you picked that up for1 or5 or or it just didn't sell right? Unbelievable. Ah, I've only been at this for 5 minutes. It's not hard and yes I know I'll get a whole bunch of people complaining.

Well I can't find that in my country? Well, I'm not going to go through every country Australia is unfortunately one of those countries as well and let's have a look at: eBay Australia Shall we? I Search for oscilloscope in the oscilloscope uh section. there's 43 of them. Uh, you know it's not easy to pick up a cheap analog scope here, but it certainly is possible. Look at this.

Tell them their dreaming. 350 bucks, right? Buy it. Now for this. Yeah, it's a nice Old Phillips with the LCD read out.

Oh, come on, they dreaming look 350 bucks? look Ah, 50 MHz Two two channel GW for 35455 Buy it now. No wonder it's got no bloody bids with one day left. Unbelievable. Ah yeah, you know they can go for just really stupid prices, but um, you've seen in my video the Tetronics Triple 25 a very nice uh, dual channel 50 MHz Tectronics I think I Picked that up for under.

um, a well under a hundred bucks in Australia Here you know I'm not sure what postage I paid for it, but you know it was certainly a reasonable price. You've just got to wait and be patient and set up those watch lists, you know, So don't tell me it can't get scopes for that price In your country you most likely can. You've just got to keep watching and know how to use eBay and of course this is just eBay I haven't even mentioned. you know things like Craigslist in the US where that's huge and where you can pick up I hear a lot of people picking up good scope and other uh, test equipment multimeter Bargains on there things like that gum tree in Australia is a similar one and there's various auction sites and various other uh places on the internet as well depending on your particular country.

So there you go. I Hope I've proved that you almost certainly can pick up a traditional 20 MHz dual Channel analog oscilloscope in working condition for 50 bucks or less. You've just got to be patient. You got to know how to use.

eBay The completed listings know what things are worth. Get a feel for the brands, set up, watch list and things like that which I haven't gone into I Won't go into the technicalities of actually using eBay and things like that, it's not hard to figure out yourself. it it pretty much doesn't matter what country you're in I Think yeah, there might be some Okay, Yes, I'll admit it and I'll probably get lots of flame email. Oh I can't get any in my country I've done it searched a million times.

blah blah blah blah blah Yeah, Well, okay, keep searching. Maybe you'll get lucky. And as I've said, you can actually get these things for free. people.

Give them away. I've done it myself I Know many other people have given them away if you simply ask in the right places and ask nicely. It's not rocket science. I Don't and you know, get one of these old Scopes If you're a beginner, don't go out and buy one of those little you know DSO Nano pocket iPod Scopes or one of those little kits.

Like I said in my previous video, they just no get a real oscilloscope like one of these. You'll learn a ton and you can pick them up for reasonable prices or free. I Just proved it anyway. So please no more comments on this that I can't get a scope anyway if you want to discuss it evev blog for is the test equipment hangout of course and you can also follow me on Twitter where I rant about this sort of stuff all the time.

Catch you next time.