Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Specmaster]

Busy day here. Canada Post showed up. Crusty old Heath OL-1 Scope and Heath V-7A VTVM. Plus a bonus....a CT-1 probe!

They are crusty and neglected but I see potential. Nice long term project.

Kosmic.....thanks so much to be willing to take the time to send them to me. Your packaging was EXCELLENT. Took me forever to get all the bubble wrap off. 

Ok, that is a really nice gratification for taking the e-trash off someone's hands!

Yeah and some people would rather ship their e-trash half way round the world rather send lead to their local ground fill site 

[Specmaster]

Yeah, I don't know how med found that. Talk about subtle!

Pure dumb luck and deductive reasoning. There was no short before I took apart. There was a short after I put it back together. Must have been something I did. Bingo. 

Wow now that's a learned engineers thinking that is, most" lowly technicians" if they get something to assemble and it doesn't work, automatically blame anything and everybody for it not working, couldn't possibly be something they did could it? 

[Kosmic]

Busy day here. Canada Post showed up. Crusty old Heath OL-1 Scope and Heath V-7A VTVM. Plus a bonus....a CT-1 probe!

They are crusty and neglected but I see potential. Nice long term project.

Kosmic.....thanks so much to be willing to take the time to send them to me. Your packaging was EXCELLENT. Took me forever to get all the bubble wrap off. 

Excellent they made the trip in one piece  Always a pleasure encouraging someone with his TE Addiction   

The heathkit OL-1 was so dirty, he's the reason I didn't pay any tax at the border on my way back. I was able to convince the officers that it was just a pile of junk pointing at the poor little OL-1 

[worsthorse]

Talk about "Jumped the Shark..."



Harley-Davidson is trying to sell us a $30,000 electric motorbecycle... Evidently they think they're effing Tesla or something.   

I built 5 or 6 of the damned things when I was a teenager, out of salvaged golf-cart bits. The whole point was that they were CHEAP.

None of mine had a gas tank, though. 

mnem

I will never forgive the corporate mucks at HD that bought Buell, pushed Erik Buell out, and then drove it into the ground.  They are undoubtably the same group of goofballs that came up with a $30K electric motorcycle.

* wch goes back into the basement, muttering the whole time.

[worsthorse]

The other day I declared the 7A24 vertical plug-in as “unfixable” due to it's many contact issues with both channel 1 and 2 attenuator switch decks. Well stubborn me refused to give up. Either fix it or junk it, those were the alternatives. Or a 3rd alternative, perform a radical experiment and see if it works. Got nothing to lose. Well, the experiment worked. And after a minor detour with the +15V short here are some results. Rock steady with a 10MHz square wave.

I will be outlining in detail the method I used to restore the attenuator switch decks in a separate thread. And even though this is a 50 ohm deck it will also apply to the 1MEG decks. And it applies to all 7000 series plug-ins as well as scopes such as the 465/475/485 which use the same attenuator assembly. And I assume the 5000 series plug-ins use the same decks too.   

Nice work on the plugin and finding that short. I am not sure I would have figured that one out, even if I knew I was the source...

[worsthorse]

My TEA confession for the day...

I am feeling guilty because I sold one of the nonworking Tek lab bench supplies for twice what I paid for it. A local responded to my CL ad (the one that says I want to *buy* test gear) and asked if I had a bench supply I'd sell. I told him I only had non-working gear. Long story short, I disclosed the probable problems on a CPS250 I had in the queue and priced it where I figured it wouldn't sell because I didn't really want to let it go. He bought it anyway.

To make up for it, I bought an HP54501A from the local university surplus department and paid twenty bucks too much for it. After I replace the NVRAM, the AC filter, and a couple of caps I will be lucky if I break even selling it.   

[mnementh]

Talk about "Jumped the Shark..."



Harley-Davidson is trying to sell us a $30,000 electric motorbecycle... Evidently they think they're effing Tesla or something.   

I built 5 or 6 of the damned things when I was a teenager, out of salvaged golf-cart bits. The whole point was that they were CHEAP.

None of mine had a gas tank, though. 

mnem

I will never forgive the corporate mucks at HD that bought Buell, pushed Erik Buell out, and then drove it into the ground.  They are undoubtably the same group of goofballs that came up with a $30K electric motorcycle.

* wch goes back into the basement, muttering the whole time.

Yeah, I thought he was batshit crazy trying to make a 2-stroke race engine out of a HD paint mixer; but the guy did it. Anybody with THAT kind of genius is just too fucking hip for the room.

mnem
"Valvespreengs?!? Weee donn' neeed no steenkeeeeng valve spreeengs!!!" ~ Erik Buell

[mnementh]

Busy day here. Canada Post showed up. Crusty old Heath OL-1 Scope and Heath V-7A VTVM. Plus a bonus....a CT-1 probe!

They are crusty and neglected but I see potential. Nice long term project.

Kosmic.....thanks so much to be willing to take the time to send them to me. Your packaging was EXCELLENT. Took me forever to get all the bubble wrap off. 

Excellent they made the trip in one piece  Always a pleasure encouraging someone with his TE Addiction   

The heathkit OL-1 was so dirty, he's the reason I didn't pay any tax at the border on my way back. I was able to convince the officers that it was just a pile of junk pointing at the poor little OL-1 

   But.... I saw your trunk. Wasn't it legitimately ALL a pile of junk...?

*Ducks soggy ol' boot thrown from the Great White North*

mnem
DON'T make me come up there!!!

[Kosmic]

   But.... I saw your trunk. Wasn't it legitimately ALL a pile of junk...?

*Ducks soggy ol' boot thrown from the Great White North*

mnem
DON'T make me come up there!!!

Well yes and no. Not completely at least 

Definitely worth the time and money I spent going there anyway.

[worsthorse]

Talk about "Jumped the Shark..."



Harley-Davidson is trying to sell us a $30,000 electric motorbecycle... Evidently they think they're effing Tesla or something.   

I built 5 or 6 of the damned things when I was a teenager, out of salvaged golf-cart bits. The whole point was that they were CHEAP.

None of mine had a gas tank, though. 

mnem

I will never forgive the corporate mucks at HD that bought Buell, pushed Erik Buell out, and then drove it into the ground.  They are undoubtably the same group of goofballs that came up with a $30K electric motorcycle.

* wch goes back into the basement, muttering the whole time.

Yeah, I thought he was batshit crazy trying to make a 2-stroke race engine out of a HD paint mixer; but the guy did it. Anybody with THAT kind of genius is just too fucking hip for the room.

mnem
"Valvespreengs?!? Weee donn' neeed no steenkeeeeng valve spreeengs!!!" ~ Erik Buell

In a past life, I liked to go fast and low. One day at work, another motorcycle fiend dropped a copy of Motorcycle News at my spot; the lead story had a photo of a pre-production Buell Thunderbolt. I bought one sight unseen and got a red one, SN 48. It was closer to a track than street machine and kinda rough around the edges. They were still doing ECOs two years later.  And it was a joy in the turns, low and rumbly, and a home mechanic's dream to work on. I think it was the first bike that I broke 110MPH on, on a flat empty road somewhere in southern Colorado.  That was 1995. I was still riding it in 2013 when I got T-boned by a teenager driving a Suburban and texting at the same time.  Totaled the bike and damn near killed me.

Man, that was a fun ride.

[xrunner]

Got a Tek CDC250 175 MHz freq. counter coming out of the stack shown. Nothing really special about it, but I have a small collection of the units that Tek made using the same case style such as the DMM, Function Gen., and 1.3 GHz freq. counter. For $55 might as well add this one to the family. Only missing the fuse and power cord says the seller.

CDC250

[Kosmic]

My TEA confession for the day...

I am feeling guilty because I sold one of the nonworking Tek lab bench supplies for twice what I paid for it. A local responded to my CL ad (the one that says I want to *buy* test gear) and asked if I had a bench supply I'd sell. I told him I only had non-working gear. Long story short, I disclosed the probable problems on a CPS250 I had in the queue and priced it where I figured it wouldn't sell because I didn't really want to let it go. He bought it anyway.

Well I don't think you need to feel bad because you got a good deal. Maybe he really wanted that CPS250 

[Kosmic]

Got a Tek CDC250 175 MHz freq. counter coming out of the stack shown. Nothing really special about it, but I have a small collection of the units that Tek made using the same case style such as the DMM, Function Gen., and 1.3 GHz freq. counter. For $55 might as well add this one to the family. Only missing the fuse and power cord says the seller.

CDC250

Nice little counter.

[worsthorse]

Got a Tek CDC250 175 MHz freq. counter coming out of the stack shown. Nothing really special about it, but I have a small collection of the units that Tek made using the same case style such as the DMM, Function Gen., and 1.3 GHz freq. counter. For $55 might as well add this one to the family. Only missing the fuse and power cord says the seller.

Its a nice workaday FC. I have one on my bench and use it a lot.

[med6753]

   But.... I saw your trunk. Wasn't it legitimately ALL a pile of junk...?

*Ducks soggy ol' boot thrown from the Great White North*

mnem
DON'T make me come up there!!!

Well yes and no. Not completely at least 

Definitely worth the time and money I spent going there anyway.

Yea, there was a Tek 485 hidden in that pile of crap. BTW.....does it work? 

[Kosmic]

Yea, there was a Tek 485 hidden in that pile of crap. BTW.....does it work? 

Nope, will need to fix it. Physically in really good shape though.

[kj7e]

The HP 427A I picked up needs a bit of TLC, overall its in good condition, but I found one shorted AE cap, so going to replace them all, only 8 caps total.  Someone built a replica AC power supply for it that matches the option 01 schematic, but the secondary of the transformer they used is a bit on the low side.  I'm going to build a small regulated 20v linear internal supply.  Sorry I don't have photos right now, Ill post some of it all torn apart later.

Been waiting for a good HP 4329a high resistance meter to show up.  Found one today and snatched it.  This is a cool piece of kit, becuse you never know when you need to measure up to 20 Peta Ohms 

[xrunner]

This is a cool piece of kit, becuse you never know when you need to measure up to 20 Peta Ohms 

Yes very cool. Reminds of the old joke -

[beanflying]

Non Productive Afternoon 

So many interesting data type channels to look at more closely around 433

Haha, TEAstraction, indeed. Looking forward to hearing about what you find (if you haven't already posted about it and I'm about to find it in the subsequent two pages).

Need to work on decoding it but given the proximity I suspect it may be remote telemetry for either the Water Board or Powdered milk factory.

Arrival of the new long whip Nagoya knock off Antenna for the HH which for $2 AUD is a bargain and poos on the stock Baofeng ones. Got paid for a job so I blew a chunk of it on a Discone and Coax today for good measure.

Next Stop HF Rig and Mast  No No No 

[kj7e]

Next Stop HF Rig and Mast  No No No 

Like this;


Or maybe;


Yes, that's me on the top 20m 6ele Telrex, had to climb out to the driven ele and replace a burnt N due to lightning;

[beanflying]

I think I will just stick to Bands where the Antennas won't overhang the 50' wide block of dirt my Shack sits on 

Todays TEA arrival came with added mineral oil splooge dribbling from it's wells. Also a smashed Fuse holder and it may or may not work as per the listing and it is also a 110V device so not a lot going for it so far at least.

Edit: And two missing feet lucky I know a guy.

[tautech]

Yes, that's me on the top 20m 6ele Telrex, had to climb out to the driven ele and replace a burnt N due to lightning;

FYI FmyI what's the optimum distance between climbing spikes ?

BTW you can stick your 20m that's way to high for me these days. 

We stuck a 8m timber pole in up our hill for a point to point 11 GHz data backhaul and the guy that helped me stuck the climbing spikes all over the place.  I reckon he'd never used a ruler or did 'on the job' division. 
He had no excuses as the pole was on the ground and now with 6m standing it looks just sick. 
Edit.
Pics when it's finished coming later.
/Edit
Apparently we're gunna do another a couple of km away to beam a 5 GHz link into some 'RF hidden' country and it would be good to have that one look a bit better.   

[0culus]

Well, I got most of my lab to a safe place where movers won't be able to touch it with their grubby hands when that time comes around. I have a lot of *heavy* RF gear.  ....and my body is telling me about it the next day after moving it all. 

[Housedad]

The DSOX1204G scope from Keysight arrived today.  I've been glued to it every extra minute I could get. 

I've been doing a side by side of the DSOX1204G with my DS1054z.   Yep, the Keysight is faster on almost everything except boot up.  The Rigol is about 4 seconds faster.  I know these are not in the same league with each other, but this is letting me see the differences. 

I do seem to like the UI on the Keysight a lot more.

Well, Back to playing. 

[mnementh]

Yeah, I thought he was batshit crazy trying to make a 2-stroke race engine out of a HD paint mixer; but the guy did it. Anybody with THAT kind of genius is just too fucking hip for the room.

mnem
"Valvespreengs?!? Weee donn' neeed no steenkeeeeng valve spreeengs!!!" ~ Erik Buell

In a past life, I liked to go fast and low. One day at work, another motorcycle fiend dropped a copy of Motorcycle News at my spot; the lead story had a photo of a pre-production Buell Thunderbolt. I bought one sight unseen and got a red one, SN 48. It was closer to a track than street machine and kinda rough around the edges. They were still doing ECOs two years later.  And it was a joy in the turns, low and rumbly, and a home mechanic's dream to work on. I think it was the first bike that I broke 110MPH on, on a flat empty road somewhere in southern Colorado.  That was 1995. I was still riding it in 2013 when I got T-boned by a teenager driving a Suburban and texting at the same time.  Totaled the bike and damn near killed me.

Man, that was a fun ride.

For me, it was a shiny new Kenny Roberts Edition GPZ1100. We had.... an unnatural relationship. I rode the wheels off that bike several times over; literally wore it out. I punched it out 3 times; rode it one last summer and sold it when I moved. To this day, I regret not keeping it and buying new jugs & heads. 

After that I got a good-paying job and a second-hand Corvette and started living the 60s iron & weekend warrior life; Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles and a 12-second '67 Chevy Nova.

I bought a 900 Ninja in my 30s... it was a completely different animal; skittish and jumpy, there was no getting a handle on it. It felt more like riding a 500 trip on nitrous (which I HAVE done) than anything I considered a proper motorcycle. I rode it for a couple months and got to where I thought I knew it... but one fast weekend on some nice twisty highways with some younger friends made me realize it wasn't the bike, it was me. I'd been away too long, I'd lost my reflexes and riding the razor's edge was the not-so-fun kind of scary... I took it back to the dealership the next morning.

mnem
"Life is a blind run at full speed along the jagged edge of a cliff; when we're young we don't know the cliff, we only know the joy of running."