Note that the auction still runs for almost nine days, expect the price to go up towards the end of the auction.
Note that this scope uses repetitive sampling to achieve the 2 GHz bandwidth. No mention of the real-time sampling rate, as far as I see, this suggests to me that it's probably quite low, i.e. only usable for repetitive signals (
datasheet mentions it's optimized for HF). Horizontal resolution is quite low (512 points, interpolated to 4096). Memory is essentially nonexistent, what you see is all the information you have.
This scope only has 50 ohm inputs, so you can't even hook up a cheap hi-Z probe for LF work. This leaves three options: direct connection to a 50 ohm source, passive probe or actives probes. Direct connection is great if you have a 50 ohm output to dedicate to the scope, but does not work as well for in-circuit measurements.
Passive probes are were shipped as standard accessories with these scopes (eg. the PM8911 500 ohm 10x probe) and will easily achieve the 2 GHz bandwidth, but have a high DC loading. You can usually mix brands without problems (unlike with passive hi-Z or active probes), since they're 50 ohms and don't require any power, and they can sometimes be bought cheaply because many people don't understand their applications. Cheap in this context means about half of the current £150 starting bid. You may need adapters from N to BNC or SMA, however. You can also build your own, Howard Johnson and Doug Smith have written fairly extensively on this topic. It's essentially a resistor on the end of a coax cable.
Active probes have less DC loading, but tend to be more expensive and fragile, and have proprietary power connectors. I believe Philips used external power supplies for at least some of their active probes, but many other probes (eg. HP) use proprietary connectors on the scope for power. I would expect to pay at least $400 (which probably converts to about £400 in the UK) for a 2 GHz active probe. Note that there are two channels
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