Update:
My payment cleared this morning at the UK depot so I ended up doing a mad dash to Wales to collect my VNA. The alternative was sorting out a friend to collect it and have it here by the end of the week. I just couldn't wait that long....
Sadly, it's not all good news. My heart sank when I unpacked the VNA because it had a label on it saying 'intermittent step attenuator'
However, the step attenuator seems fine. I've repeatedly tested it across -55dBm to +10dBm in 1dB steps for the last hour or so and it seems faultless even if I tap the VNA case to give it some vibration. Maybe it's been repaired or maybe the mechanical step attenuator was just sticky through lack of use and someone marked it as faulty. It seems fine now.
The Ecal unit seems to work as well although it took about 20 minutes to click the 'READY' LED to show it's internal temperature was warm and stable. So that was a worry until I read the manual and this is the typical time it takes to warm up.
The Ecal units are brilliant to use because you can do a full 4 port calibration in a few seconds. To do it with a mechanical cal kit like an 85033E would take about 15 minutes of wrestling with short/open/load terminations and a torque spanner and a LOT of button presses.
The VNA is in nice condition and the touch screen seems perfect as do all the front panel buttons. So I'm relieved that it all seems to work and the VNA looks tidy. Not sure I'd want to go through this experience again though...
When I was there I saw Chris Jones' sig gen waiting to be packed up. I had a quick look at it and it seemed OK in a cosmetic sense. it's obviously been in a busy RF lab and it's in similar condition to a lot of our sig gens at work. Not mint but not scruffy either.
I'm copying across all the cal/restore files to a secure archive at the minute but see below for a quick image of it. It runs Windows 2000 as the main OS and it has several USB ports allowing connections for a mouse, the Ecal kit and a thumb drive etc.