Systron Donner 1037 NASA Tech Check In and Testing

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In this video we will take a look at a Systron Donner 1037 Counter that comes to use via none other than NASA! There is also a sneak Peek at a future video. This counter is from a batch of equipment that I agreed to fix up and repair for a maker space in Greeneville Tennessee. I am helping them spin up a few labs both computer as well as a few electronic benches in order to get a maker space off the ground. I am going to create a playlist for all the equipment that is going to the makerspace that way if anyone is interested they can see what went in to making these units run again. So here is Video #1
** Repair exposes the Tech to mains electric and should only be done by trained personnel. Errors can be fatal. **

[@thanhhuynh272]

I’m pretty sure I have one of these and a HP 5245L out in my shed. A few months ago I took the lids of both of them to see how similar they were inside and sort of expecting not that much difference, but I was surprised to fond that they were quite different despite the general layout and specs being similar.
Have not found the time to power up either of them yet, but when I do it will be in series with some light globes.
Both are fitted with hererodyning fown converters in the left hand plug-in bay and they are in no way interchangable between the units or even similar in interior design apart from containing an adjustable cavitity.
Once I have had the time to check them over I will try to remember to come back and make a comment here on what I find.

[@mymessylab]

Beautiful instrument. HET might mean heterodyne and possibly is the connection to video amplifier plug-in. I think that it is a frequency down converter plug in using heterodyne technique. Not sure if the plug-in knob is amplifying factor or frequency multiply.

[@stephenbell9257]

This looks like a functional copy of the classic HP 5245L although slightly modernized and ruggedised, perhaps for military usage. The HP unit dated from 1963 and was entirely discrete components. This model seems to have used a few ICs to improve the packing density and cut down the total number of plug-in cards.
The Video Amplifier plug-in is simply a high gain amplifier to boost the sensitivity of the counter input. It would be interesting to see if it is compatible with the HP plug-ins; the location and size of the socket for the plug-in looks to be the same as for the HP 5245L. Being able to use HP plug-ins would allow you to extend the counter range up to 18GHz using verious heterodyne frequency converter plug-ins.
The multipliers on the left side of the function switch are for the Period Average function and indicate the number of periods averaged. The timebase switch indicates the gate time ranging from 10 seconds downwards.

[@W6EL]

That is exactly what came to mind when I saw it. CuriousMarc recently did a great video on the HP 5245L.

[@jenniferwhitewolf3784]

The visual allure of Nixie!

[@msylvain59]

Coincidence ? curiousmarc just released a video about the repair of an HP5245 to be used for their Apollo gear.

[@ZenwizardStudios]

Very much a coincidence, This one has been up n Patreon for a while. Patrons are three weeks ahead of the videos on you tube.

[@Edisson.]

Hi, nice piece of history, it's very similar to the HP5245 that was actually used in the Apolo program.
Nice day 🙂 Tom