An old oscilloscope

[AZJimC]

I finally decided to get a scope, and found one nearby. Just picked it up, it's a Kikisui COS6100M. Sticker indicates it's x-Air Force. 100mhz 5 chan, 7 trace. Has two probes, schematic, and manual, and does display a trace from the probe calibration signal. Seems like it should do everything I need and more.

Any of you guys know this scope? Is it a worthwhile unit? Any gotcha's I should look for?


Thanks,
Jim

[sluckey]

Nice looking scope. I'm not familiar with it but it looks very similar to a Tektronix scope. Should be easy to use and way more scope than you need for guitar amps. Learn the maximum voltage input level and be careful not to exceed that level when probing tube plates. I see there is a NSN for it so the government has used them.

[PRR]

TWO channels. (May be 5 settings counting combinations.)

That's WAY more 'scope than you need. I can't remember the last time I needed a second input or anything over 450KHz (0.45MHz).

[AZJimC]

TWO channels. (May be 5 settings counting combinations.)

I'm not sure how they even get 7 traces out of this, but the COS6100M manual (Mine came with COS6100 manual) says 12 trace in the specs, and I find that confusing at best.

That's WAY more 'scope than you need.

Agreed. I have recently picked up an old Hallicrafters S-32D SW receiver to tinker with, but I need to find a small isolation transformer to fire it up safely first. It looks to have no PT, so 50/50 hot chassis? That still won't get me close to needing 100mhz

With a name like Kikusui I was surprised to see it say Gardenia Calif. Trying to get an idea when this scope was made, no luck yet. Looks like pre-Surface Mount Technology "Modern" electronics to me inside. Sort of like late 80's-early 90's computer equipment. (Admittedly, Gun's N Roses would be considered "modern" music to me  )

[eleventeen]

Looks good, way overkill, but that's OK. Getting the probes with it is definitely a plus. Kikusuis were fairly popular back in the day when people actually fixed things and Teks were astronomically expensive.

[PRR]

> surprised to see it say Gardenia Calif.

Most of the Japanese brands of the day had to set-up offices in California. Most of the design and build may have been in Japan, but for sales and support you couldn't ask customers to place *costly* cross-Pacific phone calls at odd hours of the (US) night. 6 or 8 bright young kids with fluid English and keeping California hours, dishing the easy answers and relaying tough questions back/forth with Japan.