503

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Revision as of 20:21, 15 March 2011 by SteveS (talk | contribs) (added info on differential inputs and power supply)
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The Tektronix Type 503 is a monolithic oscilloscope introduced in 1960 specializing in X-Y mode but also containing a sweep circuit. It features two identical phase matched amplifiers with true differential inputs. The scope has a limited bandwidth specification of only 450 kHz. The 503 and 504 were low priced scopes for their time. A large market for the scope was in electronics labs of educational institutions. The differential inputs are useful for entry level students who did not yet appreciate the fact that normal scopes can only measure voltages relative to ground.

The 503 is mostly a vacuum tube design, however it does contain one differential stage in the amplifier which uses a pair of transistors. The 503 does not use post defection acceleration, resulting in the CRT cathode operating at -3000 V. An oddity in the power supply design is that unlike other scopes where the high frequency transformer only generates the CRT operating voltages, in the 503 it generates all the operating voltages other than two filament supplies which are generated in the main transformer supplied by the power mains.

There is also a rackmount version, the RM503.

Tektronix 503 manual

Tektronix 503 factory calibration procedure