[yesterday: 3.4 miles, today: 0]
My main oscilloscope is sick. While I was in Colorado a few weeks ago I picked up a lesser model Tektronix scope of similar vintage at the CSU Surplus.
When I got it home, it had problems too. But today I did a bit of research on it and tore into the thing. And I am pleased to say that I was able to make an adjustment on the advice of the material I found online and got it working OK. It’s nowhere near new, but it will show me a signal and that’s what I need. (The adjustment was to turn up the power supply so that the -8.6 VDC source was back in line. It was running about -5.xx volts.)
I also worked some more on the nixie clock today. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get the 10 MHz signal from my lab standard GPSDO into the thing. It has a little divider chip which takes the 10 MHz and produces 1 pulse per second which drives my clock. I had been trying different connections and most of them were unsatisfactory for one reason or another. Today I worked up a toroid transformer of about 250 ohms reactance at 10 MHz (4 uH, 30 turns bifilar on a red T-50, 1:1 ratio). And I have it hooked up and it seems to be keeping time with my little atomic clock. (I like the atomic clock except that it won’t do UTC without twice-yearly juggling for DST.)