Opinion of Wavetek 3000 series Signal Generator

[Scott Johnson]

IMHO, the 3000 series are OK, but tend to lack reliability, are full of
spurious junk, and the output attenuator is not the best.  The price is
appealing, buthe the performance falls short of the 8640 in many areas.
The 3000 is a synthesizer, whereas the 8640 is uses a tuneable
oscillator that is divided down and filtered to give multi band
coverage. The 8640 has a manual phase locking button that gives fair
frequency stability, with much lower phase noise, which makes it better
for receiver measurements. It also has much more versatile modulation.
For the hobby, I suppose either would do, but I think the 8640 is a
better generator.  BEWARE though, the 8640 has many custom ICs and
hybrids that are no longer available from Agilent.  The 3000 on the
other hand, uses common parts in all the modules.

Don Buska wrote:
>
> Hey BA Guys,
>
> I was reviewing the going prices on the WAVETEK 3000's series Signal Generators.  I
> was surprised to see them selling for around $100-$200 range quite often.  Does anyone
> in BA land have experience with these?  Are they any good?  How do they compare to the
> Hewlett Packard 8640B which usually sells for a couple hundred bucks more?  Seems like
> they have very close general specs.
>
> Looks like it will be a good replacement for my HP608C, plus get the added LF coverage
> need for BA alignment work.
>
> 73
> Don N9OO
>
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