The Analyzer’s New Clothes

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This Tektronix 1705A L-band spectrum analyzer has temporarily borrowed a garment from an old waveform monitor.

Why?

Because as I had it on my bench powered up naked after running through a calibration on the CRT power supply, an operator comes walking in and rests his arm riiiiight here. Luckily I got him to move before any BANG occurred.

How do you even guard against awful human error like this?!

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Small naked wire and HV diode are on the input side of a voltage multiplier that puts out FU Kilovolts.

Now if you’ll excuse me— I need to make a sign for him. 😉

Bonus: The resistor the other tech never bothered to replace. Amazingly it still works, but I wasn’t gonna leave it like this!

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while we're on the subject of near crispy critters

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