Which oscilloscope?

[confounded]

Hi, i am confused about oscilloscopes

I own a digital picoscope pc oscilloscope, with 2 channels and a built in arbituary wave form generator without external trigger (basic 2203 model), which i realise is a problem.
I have never seen or used any other oscilloscope but my own before.

Could anyone tell me the practical differences between an analogue benchscope and my pc based oscilloscope?

Can you recomend a good scope that has all the functions i am ever likely to need. What bandwidth is likely to be the most i'll need in future?

I am new now, but i am willing to invest in a scope that will last me for many years to come.

 

[anapro]

scopes

Buying an oscilloscope can be a daunting task. Before you can really decide what you need to purchase you first have to identify your needs.
The first and most basic question is what type of signals are your looking at and what will you be trying to identify within them.

The picoscope you have is a nice beginner scope, if you are unsure of what you need in a scope I would stick with what you have until you are more certain what you need.

For example, you can buy a tek pretty cheap now a days with GS sampling rate but a really small record length. This would be great if you need to look at a MHz signal that either repeat or occur in short duration. If the signal you are looking at last for longer periods of time you will need to larger record length to maintain the sample rate over longer periods to capture a proper signal. A win-win would be a high sample rate and a large record length but these are often much more expensive. Or perhaps you need serial decoding, FFT or other maths or greater precision for analog?

 

[crutschow]

Could anyone tell me the practical differences between an analogue benchscope and my pc based oscilloscope?

Analogue (analog to us Yanks) oscilloscopes have no digital processing, of course. They simply amplify the signal to modulate the vertical defection of a CRT. They have no signal memory and can do no processing of the signal. They can have some advantages in displaying very low level signals but, in virtually all applications, the analogue scope has been now superseded by the digital oscilloscope.

The digital bench or pc based 'scopes convert the analog signal to digital format using high speed A/D converters. This allows storage and freezing of the waveform data, and provides for various signal calculations on this data, the more expensive 'scopes having more signal memory and more processing options. Another big advantage of a digital 'scope is that it allows the use of a light weight, flat-panel LCD display. A pure analogue scope requires a CRT.

 

[confounded]

thank you both for your help, i guess i should wait until i know what i need.