Calibration Service
Oscilloscope Calibration in Orange County & Los Angeles
Oscilloscopes are the most-trusted and least-questioned instruments on most benches — engineers read them all day and rarely ask when the timebase or vertical gain was last verified. American Gage calibrates scopes on automated Fluke MET/CAL procedures, with the probes that came with them.
Automation
Fluke MET/CAL procedures
Scope of work
Instrument and probes together
Adjustment
Firmware level where supported
Turnaround
7–10 business days (expedited available)
The probe is part of the measurement
A calibrated oscilloscope used with an uncharacterized probe is a partly calibrated measurement, and probes are the component most likely to be damaged, swapped between instruments, or quietly replaced with whatever was in the drawer. Attenuation ratio drifts, ground leads degrade, and the scope has no way to tell you.
We calibrate voltage and current probes alongside the instrument, so the measurement chain is verified as a chain. If your scopes and probes have been on separate schedules — or the probes on no schedule at all — that is the most common real gap we find on an electronics bench.
Automated procedures across every function
Our electrical laboratory runs the Fluke MET/CAL automated calibration system with a current procedure subscription, driven by multi-product calibrators. For an oscilloscope that means the manufacturer’s procedure exercises vertical gain and offset across ranges, timebase accuracy, bandwidth, and trigger performance, with measurement uncertainty computed at each test point and firmware-level adjustment where the instrument supports it.
Certificates document as-found and as-left readings, uncertainty, NIST traceability, and the ANSI/NCSL Z540.3 decision rule with TUR, under A2LA ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accreditation certificate 4296.01 — the record an [AS9100](/resources/as9100-calibration-requirements) or [ISO 13485](/resources/iso-13485-calibration-requirements) auditor can actually follow.
Fleet logistics for a bench you cannot empty
Engineering groups rarely release every scope at once. We stage collections so a portion of the bench stays working while the rest is calibrated — tell us how your instruments are grouped by lab or project and we will build the rotation around it.
Free pickup runs Orange County Monday and Wednesday, Los Angeles County Tuesday and Thursday, and the Inland Empire Friday. Standard turnaround is 7–10 business days, with [expedited 24, 48, and 72-hour service](/rush-calibration) available, and [on-site calibration](/on-site-rf-calibration) when the fleet cannot leave the building at all.
What we see most
- Benchtop digital oscilloscopes
- Mixed-signal oscilloscopes (MSO)
- Handheld & portable scopes
- Voltage probes
- Current probes & clamps
- Differential & high-voltage probes
- Logic analyzers
Oscilloscope Calibration FAQs
Do you calibrate the probes as well as the scope?
Yes, and we recommend sending them together. A calibrated scope used with an uncharacterized probe is only partly verified, and probes drift and get swapped far more than the instruments do.
How often should an oscilloscope be calibrated?
Twelve months is the usual manufacturer specification and the common default. Because we document as-found condition on every certificate, your own drift history is a better guide after a couple of cycles.
Which brands do you calibrate?
Keysight and Agilent, Tektronix, Rohde & Schwarz, Fluke, BK Precision, and most others, using manufacturer procedures through MET/CAL where available.
Can you calibrate our scopes without shutting the lab down?
Yes. We stage collections in batches so part of the bench stays available throughout. Tell us how the instruments are grouped and we will schedule around it.
Need oscilloscope calibration?
Send your list — manufacturer, model, quantity — and we'll return scope, pricing, and turnaround within one to two business days.