What is an oscilloscope, what can you do with it,
and how does it work? This section answers these
fundamental questions.
The oscilloscope is basically a graph-displaying
device – it draws a graph of an electrical signal (see
Figure 1). In most applications the graph shows how
signals change over time: the vertical (Y) axis repre-
sents voltage and the horizontal (X) axis represents
time. The intensity or brightness of the display is
sometimes called the Z axis. This simple graph can
tell you many things about a signal. Here are a few:
• You can determine the time and voltage values of
a signal
• You can calculate the frequency of an oscillating
signal
• You can see the “moving parts” of a circuit repre-
sented by the signal
• You can tell how often a particular portion of the
signal is occurring relative to other portions
• You can tell if a malfunctioning component is
distorting the signal
• You can find out how much of a signal is direct
current (DC) or alternating current (AC)
• You can tell how much of the signal is noise and
whether the noise is changing with time
An oscilloscope’s front panel includes a display
screen and the knobs, buttons, switches, and indica-
tors used to control signal acquisition and display.
Front-panel controls normally are divided into
Vertical, Horizontal, and Trigger sections, and in
addition, there are display controls and input
connectors. See if you can locate these front-panel
sections in Figures 2 and 3 as well as on your
oscilloscope.
1
Figure 2. The TAS 465 Analog Oscilloscope front panel.
Figure 1. X, Y, and Z Components of a displayed waveform.
The Oscilloscope
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