[sci.astro] Strip chart recorders ???

boone@athena.cs.uga.edu (Roggie Boone) (04/29/91)

Hi!  Can anyone supply me with a name and address of a company that
has strip-chart recorders (ie. a device that rolls a paper strip underneath
a pen that moves back and forth depending on the strength of the input
signal to the instrument, thereby yielding a nice "picture" of signal
strength over time).  (Forgive my non-technical description there).

I do not need anything fancy -- this is just for a home project, so the
cheaper the better.  I am thinking about building a simplified radio 
telescope to "listen" to activity on the Sun and would like to hook the
strip chart recorder up to the radio telescope so that I can have a
visual record of the solar activity.

As an alternative, if anyone knows of articles, books, and or schematics 
that show how to hook the output of a device such as the radio telescope
to a computer (old IBM PC) so that the info could be recorded directly
to disk and then graphed later, please send such info also.

Thank you very much.

Roggie Boone
boone@athena.cs.uga.edu

keir@vms.macc.wisc.edu (Rick Keir, MACC) (04/30/91)

In article <1991Apr29.125725.14314@athena.cs.uga.edu>, boone@athena.cs.uga.edu (Roggie Boone) writes...

>Hi!  Can anyone supply me with a name and address of a company that
>has strip-chart recorders (ie. a device that rolls a paper strip underneath

Try the surplus property people at your University.  Chart 
recorders are expensive.  However, as more people go to 
computerized readouts in their labs, they keep dumping their
old recorders.  Here at Wisconsin, they let the public buy 
surplus items once a month from the warehouse, after depts.
get a chance at them.  Such sales are typically VERY under
advertised (I know people who've worked here 15 years and never
heard about them) so you may have to call around.  However,
a multiple pen recorder may be for sale with a broken channel
(sometimes you can trace the original user & ask how broken
something is), so you can get, say, a 4 pen model with 3 useable 
pens.

In contrast, its very hard to find anything like this that is
(1) new and (2) cheap.

lstowell@pyrnova.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell) (04/30/91)

In article <1991Apr29.125725.14314@athena.cs.uga.edu> boone@athena.cs.uga.edu (Roggie Boone) writes:
>
>Hi!  Can anyone supply me with a name and address of a company that
>has strip-chart recorders (ie. a device that rolls a paper strip underneath
>a pen that moves back and forth depending on the strength of the input
>signal to the instrument, thereby yielding a nice "picture" of signal
>strength over time).  (Forgive my non-technical description there).
>
>I do not need anything fancy -- this is just for a home project, so the
>cheaper the better.  I am thinking about building a simplified radio 
>telescope to "listen" to activity on the Sun and would like to hook the
>strip chart recorder up to the radio telescope so that I can have a
>visual record of the solar activity.
>
>As an alternative, if anyone knows of articles, books, and or schematics 
>that show how to hook the output of a device such as the radio telescope
>to a computer (old IBM PC) so that the info could be recorded directly
>to disk and then graphed later, please send such info also.
>
   How's your budget?   The A/D, D/A boards from Keithley can
   provide digital sampling of an analog wave.  You could even
   program the interface to increase/decrease resolution
   (samples/time period) when "interesting" events or "boring"
   routine signals occur.  

   What you do with the data will depend on programming, you can
   create screen displays and save to disk....then use a printer
   to print samples for exchange...or just mail the .gif
   formats.   

   Keithley is at 508-880-3000.  If you already have a Clone, an
   acquisition board would be cheaper than a strip chart
   recorder...

   Have fun.