Yes, you’re right: a WAIT status message is normal behaviour for the Trigger when the scope is not being given quite the right signal for its trigger to fire:
– You’ll probably remember on all analogue scopes, there are at least two modes: Auto and Normal (sometimes also Single).
– Normal is where the trace waits for each trigger before it starts to trace across the screen (we all remember the blank trace on old fashioned scopes, until you put it on Auto!).
– Same with all digital scopes… and because all channels work off same trigger, you won’t see any channels at all.
All RIGOLs indicate this Normal “untriggered” state by putting up the WAIT announcement. It just means the trigger condition is not being met.
There are three things you can do here:
1) Set your trigger mode to Auto
2) Push the force button, which will invoke just one sweep manually
3) If there is any readable signal, you can also keep it on Normal, and simply adjust the whatever is receiving signal, and then use the trigger threshold knob to ensure the dotted trigger threshold line on the screen is within the signal levels (just make sure the trigger is spy-ing on the right channel though!
The advanced trigger types are best avoided too, as they might add more conditions, so just use Edge to begin with.)
Glad to see you are having fun exploring your scope. Please let our RIGOL-UK team here at Telonic know if this seems right for your set up.