Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[med6753]

Anyone fancy a Pizza? I wanna go here and eat a lovely fresh pizza and just soak up all of that lovely atmosphere and gorgeous rich sound. I had thought that the age of pipe organs had long gone. The last one I can remember seeing and hearing it being played was when I was a teenager IIRC, it was a Wurlitzer 3/19 built into the car showroom of a garage in Diss, Norfolk, UK, owned by the Kitchener Bros. Garage. I remember that well as I given a tour behind the scene to see the massive pipes and actual real life instruments like drums, piano, chimes etc., all hooked up to the massive main keyboard console.

It was just sheer joy to experience first hand the beautiful deep bass of those huge pipes, wasn't just hearing that bass, but actually feeling it as well as the entire showroom (could be turned into a theatre for live performances by visiting organists, and even featured on the BBC radio program "The Organist Entertains") was pressurised by this low frequency air coming from the pipes.

.......snip

Neat. Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan has 2 Hammond organs but not as complex as that one. Been to the Christmas show several times and they open it with the organs.

[med6753]

@med, that really is looking like a good project and what a massive size difference between the old caps and the new replacements. It should go on to give many years of use and enjoyment to you once completed, well done sir. 

Edit.
Are you going to test the old caps just to see how bad they are after all these years?

No testing as I cut the leads tight against the old part to give me enough to splice in the new capacitors. Yes, the size difference.....especially the HV caps...is amazing.

[bd139]

Looking good 

It always looks weird when you put the new caps in stuff these days. They're like Zoolander's phone.

[mnementh]

mnem
There's an app for that.

[Kosmic]

Edit.
Are you going to test the old caps just to see how bad they are after all these years?

I did, and the 2 orange one were fine. The rest was toasted.

[mnementh]

I'm SOOOOOOO Lucky!!! I went looking for the USB bug (one of those micro ones) for my mini all-in-one keyboard... and I FOUND it... RIGHT WHERE IT SHOULD BE!

   mnem
   
*dancing a little jig*

[0culus]

mnem
There's an app for that.

"That's what she said!" 

[Kosmic]

So I did good today. Got my hand on a working HP 8566B in really good shape for around 450$US. The spec an is in really good shape and spent most of it's life in a company making radars. So it was calibrated and maintained all theses years. The thing is huge heavy though. Not sure why the RF section is that heavy.



This is a signal at around 18Ghz.


The output of a comb generator from 2G to 22Ghz.

[0culus]

WOW! That is a gorgeous example. Very good find.  The RF section of the 66 is definitely way heavier than the 68. Also, I recommend getting a set of rack handles. Makes moving it much easier. Since it's a 66B it *should* be all metric hardware.

[xrunner]

So I did good today. Got my hand on a working HP 8566B in really good shape for around 450$US. The spec an is in really good shape and spent most of it's life in a company making radars. So it was calibrated and maintained all theses years. The thing is huge heavy though. Not sure why the RF section is that heavy.

Oh yea! I used to use those all the time in the 'late 80s. We called them Super-Analyzers. Big beasts though. Nice green. 

[Kosmic]

Oh yea! I used to use those all the time in the 'late 80s. We called them Super-Analyzers. Big beasts though. Nice green. 

Yep I really like the screen too. Super sharp. Way better than the Tektronix of that time.

[mnementh]

I recommend a tow motor for moving that beast. 

mnem
Also, lots of Wheaties.

[0culus]

The technology HP introduced with the 66A and 68A, and subsequently the B models of the same, was so far ahead of it's time. The fact that they are still great spectrum analyzers today is a testament to that. Here's the issue of the -hp- journal from 1979 when the 66A came out: http://hparchive.com/Journals/HPJ-1979-08.pdf

[GregDunn]

I don't see it so much as crossing a line as wandering into a large gray area.  I'm not going to pay a large sum of money for a Mac just so I can try it out.  So I thought it would be a sort of "try before you buy" situation to just install MacOS in a VM and play around a bit.  If it ever turned out that I decided I liked it and wanted to use it for more than just a few minutes or hours of playing around then I would buy a Mac.   

Just because Apple generally doesn't prosecute doesn't mean it's not illegal according to their T&C.     But seriously, installing it in a VM may be more trouble than you think.  Part of the prep for installing it on a vanilla PC involves making a bootable USB stick or custom image and then booting from that to do the install; and it's very difficult to make one on anything but a Mac (because the utilities are Mac-based, not because they're trying to stop you).  You just can't boot from a Mac image because the modified installation code must be able to identify the hardware configuration of the target machine, much like the Windoze installer operates.  It then inserts a custom DSDT into the boot space, which makes the installer think it's running on a Mac.  I suppose it's possible, but I wouldn't know where to begin if I didn't have a Mac to create the installer.  I'm lazy, so I haven't investigated beyond something that just works for me.   

[Brumby]

I'm SOOOOOOO Lucky!!! I went looking for the USB bug (one of those micro ones) for my mini all-in-one keyboard... and I FOUND it... RIGHT WHERE IT SHOULD BE!

   mnem
   
*dancing a little jig*

Careful.  That could be Murphy doing the wind up.

Watch out for the pitch...!

[Kosmic]

Just found the waterfall mode in the 8566B. Look so 80s 

[0culus]

Is that the downloadable program the sticker is talking about? How did you invoke it?


Also, another tip to save your crt: shift + g turns the crt beam off and shift + h turns it on again.

[xrunner]

Just found the waterfall mode in the 8566B. Look so 80s 

I think I can see the graticule burn-in on that pic. 

[Kosmic]

I think I can see the graticule burn-in on that pic. 

Yep just checked with a flashlight and yes it's burned a little bit. When the graticule is on you don't notice anyway 

[Kosmic]

Is that the downloadable program the sticker is talking about? How did you invoke it?

They are DLP (downloadable program) demos. They use the cal signal to show off some features. Apparently you can make your own.

Shift + 101 + Hz = Total Harmonic Distortion
Shift + 102 + Hz = Monitor Signals
Shift + 103 + Hz = Waterfall Display

[Kosmic]

Is that the downloadable program the sticker is talking about? How did you invoke it?

They are DLP (downloadable program) demos. They use the cal signal to show off some features. Apparently you can make your own.

Shift + 101 + Hz = Total Harmonic Distortion
Shift + 102 + Hz = Monitor Signals
Shift + 103 + Hz = Waterfall Display

Total Harmonic Distortion is pretty cool. Find and calculate 2e and 3e harmonic automatically and show the results in a nice format.

[0culus]

Nice. Pics required!!   

[Neomys Sapiens]

The technology HP introduced with the 66A and 68A, and subsequently the B models of the same, was so far ahead of it's time. The fact that they are still great spectrum analyzers today is a testament to that. Here's the issue of the -hp- journal from 1979 when the 66A came out: http://hparchive.com/Journals/HPJ-1979-08.pdf

I had no idea that this Mr. Linkwitz, who is widely known for his contributions to crossover networks, was (is?) a HP guy.

[Kosmic]

Nice. Pics required!!   

[0culus]

Wonder if the code for those is available anywhere.