TL;DR
My very very weird month of test gear acquisition continues apace. i've had this ad up on CL for about two months, looking for vintage semiconductors, mixers and such from SSDRA era to support my building habit. i've had a couple of good hits; a month ago, i traded two boat anchor hammarlunds for a crate full of semiconductors that included about $1500 worth of NOS moto power mosfets. So when a guy called and said he parted out printers and computers and had found some radio parts, I was skeptical but set up a time to meet him.
When he opened his garage door the first thing I saw were three HP 8640s, a stack of Astron linear power supplies and two complete repeater racks, including heavy duty VHF duplexers. I spent four hours there, helping him sort through WWII radios and test gear, at least a dozen Heathkit rigs and meters, a stack of Spectracom 8173 WWVB radios, and three high power antenna matching boxes. There were packet modems, strip chart recorders, a box full of lambda linear PSUs, and crates of vacuum tubes. We barely made a dent, getting the boat anchors and test gear into three piles of hard to easy, selling wise.
I set aside two of the 8640s (one A, which is immaculate, and a B, which is a little beat up), along a couple of odd pieces of gear that I thought I might like. When he asked me how much he could sell it for on ebay, I gave him an honest answer. He paused and said,
it is yours for two hundred bucks. thanks for helping me. I am going to go back with some test gear and see what's working in the post-1960 piles. I will probably sell some of the stuff on the local ham circuit and help him find homes for the rest.
The hard part next trip will not loading up my truck with a bunch of hollow state Tektronix magic that I can't possibly use or restore anytime in the next decade. And yes, I now own four 8640s. Watching me unload the truck, my wife said,
I think you can generate enough signals now.