what is an osciloscope? in plain english please. im no scientist?

Answer 1

It is an instrument for displaying the forms of electromagnetic waves on a flourescent screen.

Answer 2

A traditional Cathode Ray Oscilloscope (CRO) is an electronic measuring instrument, rather like a small TV, but instead of showing a picture, the screen will show one, two or, in some cases, four horizontal lines, known as 'timebases', when there is/are no signal/s present. In the presence of a signal or signals, the horizontal timebase/s show vertical deflections as analogue/s (graph/s) of the input/s.

A very simple way to show this effect is to take a microphone and connect it to one set of input terminals of the CRT (usually denoted as a 'Y input'), then whistle steadily into the microphone. If the Y input sensitivity is set appropriately, you will see a sinewave on the screen. This is because the electrical signal from the mic is a pure tone (your steady whistle!), and the electron beam of the oscilloscope follows these electrical input variations to show a sine wave on the screen.

From this, you will gather that if you want to examine a more complex signal - say in a radio circuit - all you do is place the Y input probe at some point in the circuit and you will see on the screen a complex waveform, but one that can be analysed. NB The probe lead will usually have a second lead that (normally) goes to earth of the circuit being tested.

The timebase (X axis) speed can be adjusted independent of the Y input signal so that, for example, instead of 10 complete cycles of a signal being displayed you can adjust the timebase speed to display only one. This is useful for determining frequency and periodic time of a signal.

Also, by using an oscilloscope with more than one timebase, a reference signal can be displayed on one timebase, and the signal under examination can be on a second timebase, allowing the two to be compared. Or several signals ocurring simultaneously can be displayed and compared.

An oscilloscope is an amazingly flexible instrument and although mainly used for AC/varying signals, it is also an excellent DC voltmeter of great accuracy since the vertical movement of the time base (its sensitivity) is proportional to the voltage applied. So if the timebase vertical setting is set to 1mV/cm, then a 3 cm deflection from zero would indicate a 3 mV source - and unlike a normal voltmeter the current drawn from the source is negligible, hence the reading is really accurate.

Some modern instruments might use LCD screens, but it is likely that the ones you will meet in school or in early college classes, will be the traditional Cathode Ray Tube type.

Answer 3

An oscilloscope is much like a standard TV set; in fact a friend used his to show an all-green TV picture! In an old B&W TV set you could easily see that the picture was made up of separated horizontal lines (like writing on a piece of paper left-to-right and top-to-bottom over and over again so fast that your eye blended it into a moving picture.

Inside a black and white TV and an oscilloscope there is an electron gun that fires electrons at the screen. There are magnets that deflect the beam "across the page" and "down the page" to make the picture. The beam is bright for white and dim for black to reproduce the TV camera view at the studio.

The oscilloscope uses signals you provide perhaps by placing electric probes at various points within a radio or TV circuit to display the form of an electric signal. For example, house alternating current at 110 volts is shaped like an endless roller coaster which "oscillates" between positive and negative values. The oscilloscope (good for showing oscillations!) can make visible whether the signal is clean or distorted. It can even show voice signals from a microphone that of course are far more complex than house current. The oscilloscope has dials that lessen or amplify signals and display them relative to time as the signal sweeps across the screen left-to-right. The time scale can be expanded or contracted to provide necessary detail. Hope that helps a little.

Answer 4

An instrument for displaying the shape or wave form of transient or recurrent electrical signals. It is used in the the eletronic monitoring of heart action and other body function.

Answer 5

-Obtains the mean value, and plots a dashed line of it.

-Measures the frequency of the signal.

-Derivates the signal (it may or may not be ploted, just remove the REM from the line)

-Obtains the Spectrum using the FFT (Fast Fourier Transform)

Frequencymeter and Spectrum Analyzer Based on a Low End PC (AMD K5, 100MHz, 16Mb, 200HD)

Answer 6

The oscilloscope is a graph-displaying machine - it displays a graph of an electrical signal on a small screen.

Answer 7

Create a pictorial representation of varying voltages as related to time. They allow for the observation of waveform distortions, amplitude changes, frequency or period (time) changes, and phase changes

Answer 8

shows a graphic image of an energy waveform...like ac elec travels in waves of 60 up/down cycles per second, it would show this.

Answer 9

an insturment one looks through to see the wonders of the world