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Telonic 4053 sweep generator
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Dave Platt
Oct 19, 2015, 11:05:13 PM10/19/15
to
Just posting a brief note to perhaps save somebody else some research
effort.
This weekend, at the Pacificon hamfest, I acquired a Telonic 4053A RF
sweep generator. It's a nice, compact little box with three bands
(0-450 MHz, 450-900, and 900-1350), sweep widths from 200 kHz to 500
Mhz, slide-switch and vernier attenuators, a bunch of crystal-
controlled frequency markers, and rated output of +7 dBm.
Naturally, I wanted a manual. Initial searches came up empty, with
little information other than that this is a "special model" built to
FAA specifications (and mine has an FAA stamp on the back). A few
postings from years ago suggested that other buyers of these surplus
sweep generators also failed to find manuals.
After digging a bit deeper, I seem to have lucked out. At KO4BB's web
site, I found a couple of Telonic manuals in the "miscellaneous test
equipment" section. One was for the Model 1205 sweep generator, which
appears to be the same device - identical physical appearance, and the
internal layout seems to match mine. The 1205 is described as being
able to take a set of up to 7 marker-generator crystal-oscillator
sub-boards, and I suspect that the "4053" may simply be a 1205 with an
FAA-specified set of marker boards and a front panel silk-screened
accordingly. There may be other differences but, if so, they don't
seem to be profound ones, and the 1205 manual and schematic and
alignment procedures should still prove useful.
My new acquisition seems to work, making the $20 I paid for it a real
bargain.
effort.
This weekend, at the Pacificon hamfest, I acquired a Telonic 4053A RF
sweep generator. It's a nice, compact little box with three bands
(0-450 MHz, 450-900, and 900-1350), sweep widths from 200 kHz to 500
Mhz, slide-switch and vernier attenuators, a bunch of crystal-
controlled frequency markers, and rated output of +7 dBm.
Naturally, I wanted a manual. Initial searches came up empty, with
little information other than that this is a "special model" built to
FAA specifications (and mine has an FAA stamp on the back). A few
postings from years ago suggested that other buyers of these surplus
sweep generators also failed to find manuals.
After digging a bit deeper, I seem to have lucked out. At KO4BB's web
site, I found a couple of Telonic manuals in the "miscellaneous test
equipment" section. One was for the Model 1205 sweep generator, which
appears to be the same device - identical physical appearance, and the
internal layout seems to match mine. The 1205 is described as being
able to take a set of up to 7 marker-generator crystal-oscillator
sub-boards, and I suspect that the "4053" may simply be a 1205 with an
FAA-specified set of marker boards and a front panel silk-screened
accordingly. There may be other differences but, if so, they don't
seem to be profound ones, and the 1205 manual and schematic and
alignment procedures should still prove useful.
My new acquisition seems to work, making the $20 I paid for it a real
bargain.
Michael A. Terrell
Oct 20, 2015, 7:52:31 AM10/20/15
to
selling obscure manuals. They took about 25,000 manuals that will be
scanned, and put online for free. I haven't seen a timetable, or if
there iss even a completed inventory of what they have, but I would
check their site from time to time to see if they have it.
They have added a lot of old semiconductor data books. If you are going
to download a lot of them, use bit torrent or other software to reduce
the loading on their servers. There is also an area with a lot of old
electronics and computer magazines you can read online, or download.
<https://archive.org/details/electronicsmanuals?&sort=-downloads&page=6>
N_Cook
Oct 20, 2015, 3:54:42 PM10/20/15
to
against the main www resources, to determine what needs scanning in and
uploading somewhere , so I can safely dump the paper-based repeats ?
Michael A. Terrell
Oct 20, 2015, 6:56:45 PM10/20/15
to
the paper manuals for now. It may take another decade for the volunteers
to scan and process all of those manuals. If you don't want, or need
them, put them on Ebay. Collectors like original manuals to go along
with equipment that is to go into a museum.
BTW, Archive.com has a collection of the old GE Ham News publications:
https://archive.org/details/GEHamNewsVol18No1
Also, issues of 73 magazine:
https://archive.org/details/73-magazine
Michael Black
Oct 20, 2015, 7:16:53 PM10/20/15
to
why it's there. I thought in the past issues of who owned the copyright
on the articles came up, but "73" seemed to buy all the rights. I had a
few short articles in there and in Kilobaud, filler, and one time about
1990, I came upon a book from Tab collecting computer articles from both
magazines at a used book sale. And there was one of those fillers, they
had the right, but that was the first I knew about it.
They also have Kilobaud, probably on the same deal, and a number of other
computer magazines. Not sure how those got there other than "I have no
interest". Some of the computer-specific magazines would have little
value except for the relative few who are still using and collecting them.
It is worth checking. Actually, there was a Motorola book about PLLs from
the early seventies that I'd always wanted, and recently it came to mind,
so did a search, and it showed up at bitsavers.
Byte can be found elsewhere, though I'm surprised McGraw-Hill isn't
fussing over that.
Michael
N_Cook
Oct 21, 2015, 3:30:28 AM10/21/15
to
rather than search boxes, that would be a great help.
Another factor is scanned-in incomplete manuals, not mentioned on the
site. I downloaded one of elektrotanya last week that was a revision
manual and only one small part of the schematic
Michael A. Terrell
Oct 21, 2015, 8:07:55 AM10/21/15
to
enough to make it worth suing a non profit, anyway. The bad publicity
for scanning 40 year old magazines isn't worth calling their lawyers
about.
Bitsaves is also on http://www.archive.org
Michael A. Terrell
Oct 21, 2015, 8:16:26 AM10/21/15
to
grade scans, and often at such a low DPI that they are hard or
impossible to read. Was it listed as a revision? That should have told
you that it would be a waste of time, without the full manual.
Archive.org has a staff of volunteers to scan the material properly.
They work with both public and private libraries, as well as companies
who want to put their old documents into the public domain. I see that
they have added the M.I.T. library, but I didn't check to see if the
RadLab series of books are included. They cover early electronics, as
the field developed during W.W.II.. They were classified, an controlled
documents for a long time.
N_Cook
Oct 21, 2015, 9:01:10 AM10/21/15
to
The British Library never bothered with data manuals, Science
Museum/Wroughton library has some but not much.
My local university library literally dumped all their electronic data
manuals from the 1960s/70s in a skip for landfill , without prior
checking if they were available online anywhere.
Michael A. Terrell
Oct 21, 2015, 10:17:28 AM10/21/15
to
N_Cook wrote:
>
> I wonder if there is a UK document-scanning feed into the archive.org?
> The British Library never bothered with data manuals, Science
> Museum/Wroughton library has some but not much.
> My local university library literally dumped all their electronic data
> manuals from the 1960s/70s in a skip for landfill , without prior
> checking if they were available online anywhere.
My eyes are really bothering this morning, so I can't wade through all
of their information, right now. I have been up over 27 hours, and I am
waiting on a package delivery before I can go to bed.
https://archive.org/about/contact.php has links to their FAQ, and
information on how to contact them.
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