HP 54503A 500MHz Digitizing Oscilloscope

Perhaps I was lucky enough to have owned this scope :D

This is my frist scope at home, let's just say it's a Christmas Present last 2009. :D

HP 54503A is an old 4-Channel Digital Oscilloscope with a bandwidth of 500MHz, and a sample rate of 20MSPS. It is actually intended for repetitive waveforms, using equivalent time sampling, hence, the low sample rate. The one-shot bandwidth of HP 54503A is limited to just 2MHz, which is actually limiting in most of my applications (even glitches from audio circuits may not be seen). Even with the bandwidth limitation, this scope works great with low frequency digital signals, even giving the option to recognize ECL and TTL signals in the Channel menu.

What this scope excels with is measurement of repetitive signals in the VHF and low UHF bands, especially that I don't have a high bandwidth scope yet. In the Channel menu, input impedance can also be set to 50 ohms when working with RF circuits, but it shouldn't be left on 50 ohms all the time as a high voltage input will most likely burn the internal 50-ohm termination.

Measuring a 395MHz PLL-VCO Circuit, one of my projects last year
This was used to test WLL units at the office

Some documents for this scope can still be found on Agilent's site. For personal backup, I've also uploaded the Getting Started Guide here.