Which frequency counter alternative to Agilent 53131A? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: rfspezi
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2018, 10:52:58 pm
content: I am searching for a frequency counter with 10 digits or more.The Agilent 53131A would be nice but it is hard to get below 800,-USD on ebay at the moment.Can anybody recommend a good alternative?Specifications should be similar to the Agilent one.Thanks

author: kj7e
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2018, 11:14:47 pm
content: I see nice 53131A's on eBay all the time selling in the $400 range. I see three on there now all under $500, one with the HS Oven Option 010.I don't think your going to find anything as capable as the 53131A for this price range and there is simply a ton of them out there.

author: rfspezi
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2018, 11:22:00 pm
content: Quote from: kj7e on April 05, 2018, 11:14:47 pmThe problem is that i am located in Europe and want to avoid all that stupid customs, tax and shiping costs that come on top of it.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2018, 11:31:24 pm
content: https://www.tequipment.net/TTi/TF930/Frequency-Counters/I own one. Nice piece of kit. Made in U.K.

author: 2N3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2018, 11:37:56 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on April 05, 2018, 11:31:24 pmMe too. Love it..

author: rfspezi
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 05, 2018, 11:43:13 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on April 05, 2018, 11:31:24 pmIf i get the manual right, it needs 100s gate time to provide the 10 digits?Quote

author: G0HZU
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2018, 12:03:32 am
content: You could also consider the Anritsu MF1603A counter? I've got one here and they sometimes sell very cheaply. I paid £65 for mine on ebay but prices vary a LOT for this counter. In its day it was one of the very best counters available but that was 20-25 years ago.http://usedpribor.ru/data/Anritsu_MF160xA.pdfFor general use I prefer it to the 53131A. We have loads of the 53131A counters at work. They are fine if you just want to monitor a fixed frequency like a 10MHz reference but if you want to do anything remotely dynamic with them then they are not so nice. For example, if you want to measure a frequency that is slowly changing then the Agilent counter struggles and can give spurious readings. By contrast, the Anritsu counter does very well here. Very fluid and stable to track the source as the frequency increases or decreases. Maybe it's possible to set up the Agilent counter to perform better but my other beef with it is the user interface. It tends to require extra button pushing to do simple tasks and I don't find it intuitive.My Anritsu counter is much nicer to use and has the option 3 OCXO reference and this is a huge Toko OCXO and it takes ages to warm and settle. Over 50 minutes to be stable enough to use! This is a big problem so I usually use it with an external 'fast warmup' OCXO.The Anritsu counter also blanks some of its digits on certain ranges which looks a bit odd. It can make it look like the digit has failed but it often tries to put a blank digit after every third digit if it can. I like this although it does look very odd at first!

author: 4thDoctorWhoFan
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2018, 12:06:57 am
content: HP 5386A will do the trick @10s gate.I have one and it's nice. They are all over the auction site.

author: DaJMasta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2018, 04:21:25 am
content: You could try looking at Fluke/Phillips options like the PM6681/PM6685. Sometimes the 53181A is cheaper than the 53131A.

author: jpb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2018, 08:53:16 am
content: Quote from: rfspezi on April 05, 2018, 11:43:13 pmI too have the TF930 and like it, though I more recently acquired a much more expensive Tektronix FCA 3100.The TF930 is a nice counter - it is reciprocal and continuous (doesn't reset between gates) but it doesn't have any form of interpolation so you are limited to the resolution of the 50MHz clock, i.e. 20 nanosecs. This means you can go to any resolution you like if you do it via programming and make the gate long enough but the granularity is always 20 nanosecs hence 1 sec gives LSD of 2 x 10^-8 and 100 secs gives LSD of 2 x 10^-10.One of the reasons I bought it was that it will go down below 1Hz so I could use it to check 10MHz references against a 1PPS from a GPS.One drawback is that there is no backlight on the display but this also means it will happily run on batteries or the power from the USB connection and it is very light and easy to carry around.

author: Qw3rtzuiop
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2018, 09:07:57 am
content: Maybe you need to wait some time. Im also in Germany and were able to get a HP53131a with the 010 Oven for 260€.

author: rfspezi
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2018, 09:15:46 am
content: Quote from: Qw3rtzuiop on April 06, 2018, 09:07:57 amWow! Lucky you, very good price

author: Dr. Frank
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2018, 09:18:49 am
content: Look for the predecessor, the 5335A, but aways with OCXO. Price may be around 500€, or less.It's a very versatile box, and outputs 10digits with a small modification to have 10sec Gate Time. Maximum is 11 digits with some tricks.But these digits are conveniently averaged, not artificially as by the more recent models.Frank

author: HighVoltage
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2018, 09:42:32 am
content: Also look for theAgilent 53181A, it is often offered for a lower price than the 53131A or 53132A. I bought one 53181A for Euro 150 a few month ago, in working condition.

author: Qw3rtzuiop
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2018, 10:56:14 am
content: The adavantage of the 53131a compared to the 53181a are the two input channels. They allow a measurement of the phase difference.It is maybe cheaper if you buy a base model and a GPSDO and a clone of the Channel 3 Option Board.Take a look at the prices here:https://www.ebay.de/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=53131a&LH_PrefLoc=3&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&_trksid=p2045573.m1684If youre able to wait some time you should get one for 400€ or less.

author: kj7e
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 06, 2018, 02:01:56 pm
content: Fluke PM6681 for EUR 450;https://www.ebay.com/itm/FLUKE-PM6681-high-resolution-programmable-timer-counter-analyzer/253514460151

author: Gixy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2018, 07:31:53 am
content: Hello jpb,What do you mean by 'you do it via programming and make the gate long enough'? I don't see in the manual a command to set the time gate to another value than those of the UI (0.3s, 1s, 10s and 100s).Denis

author: jpb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 01, 2018, 05:45:17 pm
content: Quote from: Gixy on June 01, 2018, 07:31:53 amWhat I meant, and perhaps I was not very clear, is the counter doesn't reset but continues to count so if you translate the value it returns for the period (say) into integer counts you can just keep adding them over many gate lengths.It is slightly annoying that the counter returns a floating point number which corresponds to (m periods of the internal 50MHz clock)/(n periods of the signal) when you want the counts themselves. What I did was assume that for a 10MHz signal and a 1 second gate the counter would count 10^7 +/- 1 periods of the signal and I calculated m for each option (-1 0 or +1) and took the case where the value was closest to an integer.The idea is that if you can recover n and m for each gate then over many gates you can get a more accurate average from (sum n)/(sum m). Probably taking an average of averages will be similar but then you have rounding errors to worry about.The end error will always be of the order of 2 x 20 nsecs but if this is spread over 100s of seconds (or more) then it is much smaller.EDIT: I should say that I was using output from a mixer so I was measuring much lower frequencies/longer periods than the 100nsecs from a 10MHz source but I think given a 50MHz internal clock the +/- 1 period should still be the case.

author: Teti
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 21, 2020, 09:29:12 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on April 05, 2018, 11:31:24 pmThanks for a tip mate, just bought one from TME fro £340Vanilla unit would do with few modifications IMHO: - rear BNC 10Mhz reference input, mains power input and maybe backlit display.