Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

I’m glad I only have to worry about milliseconds at work 

Typical TCP guy ;-)

I'm spending lots of time watching making and watching graphs of PTP clock offset. I have things that break when the offset goes above 1µs. 

This Wednesday, I'm going to get a demo of a Very Attractive Piece Of TE, an Anritsu machine that does both OTDR, Ethernet speed tests to 100G, and PTP judgement including comparing two clocks both to each other and a GPS /OXCO reference. Getting the budget will be a challenge. But I need it. You people will understand.

Actually UDP this week (opentelemetry) so we can work out why the TCP bits are taking so long 

[mansaxel]

In reality, the Swedish flag is nothing else but yellow and blue.

And being measurement people, lets define yellow and blue; Pantone PMS 116 C for yellow, and PMS 301 C for blue; which is equal to CIE x=0,472 y=0,465 Y=64,4 and x=0,189 y=0,192 Y=8,3.

Well of course you're both wrong. A flag, being a heraldic device, doesn't have a colour, it has a tincture, and the heraldic tinctures in question are or and azure. TFTFY 

This is the law:

Den svenska flaggans färger, som enligt 3 § lagen (1982:269) om Sveriges flagga är ljust mellanblå på fälten och guldgul på korset, definieras på följande sätt enligt de NCS-beteckningar (Natural Colour System) som används i Svensk Standard SS 19100 den blå färgen 4055-R95B den gula färgen 0580-Y10R.
Toleranserna i NCS-enheter ska för svarthet, för kulörthet och för kulörton vara mindre än ± 5 enheter.
Enligt de CIE-beteckningar (Commission Internationale de l’Eclairage, sv: Internationella belysningskommissionen) som används i Svensk Standard SS 19104 + Bilaga ska flaggans färger ha följande kromaticitetskoordinater, x och y, och ljusreflektansfaktorer, Y
den blå färgen x = 0,189
y = 0,192
Y = 8,3 den gula färgen x = 0,472
y = 0,465
Y = 64,4.
Ungefärliga toleranser i CIE-värden anges på följande sätt.
Den blå färgen:
Y = 6,2 - 10,4.
En yta i CIE-diagrammet given av fyra punkter x/y =
0,200/0,195
0,200/0,210
0,180/0,190 och
0,180/0,170.
Den gula färgen:
Y = 55 - 75.
En yta i CIE-diagrammet given av fyra punkter x/y =
0,490/0,460
0,470/0,480
0,455/0,465 och
0,475/0,445.
Vid färgbestämningen ska de metoder för bedömning och mätning som anges i Svensk Standard SS 19104 + Bilaga användas. Förordning (2008:888)

Heraldics is something people take seriously; when I very recently worked 2 years in the Swedish Armed Forces they spent LOTS and then some time on getting a new badge for the entirely new unit I was part of, and The Heraldics Dept. ended up with something not too far from Waffen-SS... 

[mansaxel]

We had here such physical firewalls. No fun at all, I can assure you.

I just watched a video on the mines in the Todesstreife (the Bundesrepublik side of the story was told from Coburg, the most NSDAPy town in the Reich before the War. German modern history is fascinating, so many facets, so many different stories.). I fully understand the level of perversion in the Democratic Republik. And I remember the jaw-dropping scenes in 1989. Pure wonder.

I think your physical firewalls failed because they blocked the clever people too.

[worsthorse]

As I recall it's approx 1.2ns/ft delay.

At least that's what my still asleep and coffee derived memory is telling me. 

After coffee you will remember the physics homework calculation you did at school. Something like this, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drift_velocity

Assume a current I = 1 ampere, and a wire of 2 mm diameter (radius = 0.001 m). This wire has a cross sectional area A of π × (0.001 m)2 = 3.14×10−6 m2 = 3.14 mm2. The charge of one electron is q = −1.6×10−19 C. The drift velocity therefore can be calculated: <derivation snipped> 2.3*10^-5m/s

Therefore, in this wire the electrons are flowing at the rate of 23 μm/s. At 60 Hz alternating current, this means that within half a cycle the electrons drift less than 0.2 μm. In other words, electrons flowing across the contact point in a switch will never actually leave the switch.

The good lord help us if the guys selling wire based on "faster electron" claims ever decide to start using EM field equations in their advertising. A curl here and a divergence there and pretty soon the electrons will be arriving on the ass end of the cable before they leave the front

[Cerebus]

As for the IWF they're a bunch of cunts. Spawned from the depths of hell (Demon Internet) who were the WORST ISP on the planet for a long time and this piece of shit for a human: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Stephens_(solicitor)

They started out OK. IWF was ultimately instigated by Peter Dawes (Mark Stephens had nothing to do with it until much later). Some of the more thuggy members of the police* and the Home Office had been making very heavy handed threats to ISPs about content and were trying to steamroller through heavy handed censorship measures, the like of which had never been seen in any other medium. IWF was a (successful) attempt to head this off by demonstrating that the industry was capable of effective (and proportionate) self-regulation. Believe me, if the SafetyNet proposal and the IWF hadn't happened we'd have been knee deep in vicious government censorship of the net 20 years ago.

Since then IWF has, just as Nominet has, descended into the sort of mess that only the "great and the good"^** can turn a previously functioning, useful organisation into.

^* Very thuggy. I once watched a 'friendly' rugger match between my University team and the Met's 2nd XV. Fortunately I wasn't playing that day as it was one of the dirtiest, most violent games I've ever seen, and I've played mixed rugby. The Met's 2nd XV were angels compared with the simians that had been put in charge of kiddie porn at the Met. I think they were the dregs that even the SPG regarded as too violent, volatile and unprincipled  to have on the same team.

^** So called. In practice the "great and the good" are vacuous self-obsessed nobodies who need to convince other people that they have some worth and at the same time acquire MBEs and the like. They flock to NGOs like flies flock to shit.

[0culus]

Question: what's full of tubes and weighs 75 lbs? 


...I may or may not have gotten a real backbreaker of a 1960s piece of RF test equipment...

[0culus]

Another hint

[Specmaster]

Our big ISPs have a content blocking system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation

I’m with zen and get the odd shitogram if I torrent something.

Hmm, thats interesting, the IWF must have watched them first to determine if the subject is child pornography, so I wonder if they also inform the Police of themselves as well, I mean it's right and proper if they are to whistle blow on others that they do it themselves as well 

EDIT:
I'm with Virgin Media and my son often uses Torrents and never have we had any shitograms, maybe you should switch? 

You do get them on VM. Depends on the torrents you're downloading. They get a list of peers / clients from the torrent by IP address and then send a letter to the ISP who send an email to you telling you to stop. Rick and Morty was the last one 

As for the IWF they're a bunch of cunts. Spawned from the depths of hell (Demon Internet) who were the WORST ISP on the planet for a long time and this piece of shit for a human: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Stephens_(solicitor)

Sit yourself behind a VPN when do that sort of thing then they won't know 

[BU508A]

Just a quick update to the upgrade of my Fluke PM6681 counter.

After one week cooking the new OCXO reference I did a final check and put it into the PM6681 which was straightforward.
It was one jumper which has to be moved from "std." to "opt.".
I've added also the 3GHz prescaler from forum fellow jadew which was also very easy to do. Thanks jadew.
Unfortunately I cannot test it, because I don't have already an approbiate signal generator. But time will tell. 

Now here are some pictures:

On the left the new OCXO and then next to it the prescaler card. The blue cable goes to the N-connector in the front.


I connected then my GPSDO to channel a and checked the result after warming up. Looks nice  (gate = 10s)


I measured also the standard deviation (I did this while the OCXO was external and I used the GPSDO as reference)
The settings are: gate = 10s, 100 measurements


Now it's discord time ...

[0culus]

It's huge...but it works. 4-8 GC (GHz). Probably needs some TLC with capacitors and the like, but it runs and seems to work. Contains a large backward wave tube. Also contains two _large_ transformers.

[Mr. Scram]

We had here such physical firewalls. No fun at all, I can assure you.

Not to worry, these firewalls would only be blocking patriotic tits. Lessons learnt and all that.

[Specmaster]

@bd139, are you  coming on discord tonight or not?

[bd139]

Nope. Spent the entire week on the phone and slack. Movie night with the kids it is instead:

[Kosmic]

Nope. Spent the entire week on the phone and slack. Movie night with the kids it is instead:

Haaa a classic. I'm stuck with Frozen 

[bd139]

Ah fuck that. This house has grown out of it fortunately 

[BU508A]

Just for the heads up (somebody asked me to do so, have forgotten who it was, sorry | Disclaimer: I have no affiliations with that seller):

Last month there was this huge pile of 43 Philips PSU PE1542 at the vebeg in Germany coming from the German Army (Bundeswehr):
https://www.vebeg.de/web/de/verkauf/suchen.htm?DO_SUCHE=1&SUCH_MATGRUPPE=1150&SHOW_AUS=2004270&SHOW_LOS=26

Now it looks like, that they have found their way into ebay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/233496907375

Picture from the ebay auction:


Just to let you know.

[bd139]

May have been me. I have always been interested in those. However have the PL330QMD now 

[Kosmic]

Went to the grocery store today. They still had a lot of toilet paper in stock. Maybe I should start selling some on ebay   



meanwhile somewhere else:
https://twitter.com/9NewsAUS/status/1236088663093608448?s=20

The whole thing about toilet paper is so funny 

[Cerebus]

I dropped into the local supermarket today. Only needed a few things but my route to get them took me past the pasta section - looked like locusts had been through, about 3 packets left, all of things that most people have no clue what to do with like orzo. Even the wholewheat pasta was cleaned out.

[beanflying]

I actually know this idiot is was and always will be . Dumbass thing is someone has actually placed a bid on it for $100 AUD 'only' $4/roll eBay auction: #153856469385

[Kosmic]

I dropped into the local supermarket today. Only needed a few things but my route to get them took me past the pasta section - looked like locusts had been through, about 3 packets left, all of things that most people have no clue what to do with like orzo. Even the wholewheat pasta was cleaned out.

Was pretty normal over here. But I guess it's a question of time 

[Kosmic]

I actually know this idiot is was and always will be . Dumbass thing is someone has actually placed a bid on it for $100 AUD 'only' $4/roll eBay auction: #153856469385

https://www.ebay.com/itm/toilet-paper/392714578573

This one is even better. Preowned/open bag 

[Cerebus]

I dropped into the local supermarket today. Only needed a few things but my route to get them took me past the pasta section - looked like locusts had been through, about 3 packets left, all of things that most people have no clue what to do with like orzo. Even the wholewheat pasta was cleaned out.

Was pretty normal over here. But I guess it's a question of time 

Well, in the Great White North you'd expect that folks had some basic preparedness for times you might not be able to get out of the house for a week or so in the winter. Even my sister in law in sleepy urban Kelowna gets snowed in from time to time. So I guess you all won't feel the need to go out and get emergency supplies quite as much as the suburbanites of London or Sydney, some of whom don't have more than 1 or 2 days worth of food on hand at any time. Judging from the number of young people around here who seem to get a takeaway delivered every day there are probably some who'd starve of they had to buy, store and prepare food themselves.

[Kosmic]

I dropped into the local supermarket today. Only needed a few things but my route to get them took me past the pasta section - looked like locusts had been through, about 3 packets left, all of things that most people have no clue what to do with like orzo. Even the wholewheat pasta was cleaned out.

Was pretty normal over here. But I guess it's a question of time 

Well, in the Great White North you'd expect that folks had some basic preparedness for times you might not be able to get out of the house for a week or so in the winter. Even my sister in law in sleepy urban Kelowna gets snowed in from time to time. So I guess you all won't feel the need to go out and get emergency supplies quite as much as the suburbanites of London or Sydney, some of whom don't have more than 1 or 2 days worth of food on hand at any time. Judging from the number of young people around here who seem to get a takeaway delivered every day there are probably some who'd starve of they had to buy, store and prepare food themselves.

This is all urban legend, we are not that far in the north. I don't think anybody over here has more food and supply than a normal person in north America.

Or maybe it's just me I'm not sure ?  maybe I should go buy some more bags of toilet paper and pasta.

[AVGresponding]

No mate, just lean back and marvel at the fuckwittedness of others, as they create the very shortages they purport to be protecting themselves against.

Given that these shortages are going to be short (fnar), worry more at the lack of intelligence of the voting population as you stock up on meaningful consumables such as AA batteries and self-adhesive gold stars.

gn