A short comment...on product tryout. In past years we have been able to borrow complex pieces of test equipment from such companies as HP and Agilent, etc. for as long as a month to see if it was the type of instrument that would fit our testing needs. The rep would come in and give us a demo and than leave the instrument with us...it gave our engineers a great chance to try it out...I was wondering if this could be taken a step further where test equipment could be loaned out between companies...?

I'm currently evaluating four handheld oscilloscopes. Mike, any suggestions on tests you'd like me to perform? Sen e-mail to m.rowe@tmworld.com.

With handheld O-scopes...I'd want to know the number of channels. if they were programable,how much storage was available, what kind of warranties they came with, what type of technical support was available, how fast they were, and what functions I would have to give up over their rack mounted instruments. I would want to know what types of interfaces they came with and cost would also be a factor. Finally I would like to know how long the instrument developer was making these instruments and would like to hear some independent reviews of them. I would like to know how long they would run on a battery charge...are they LXI compatible? What about calibration?