Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[DH7DN]

I'm looking for a two wire AC power cord for my vintage test equipment. Maybe anyone here can recognize it? 

I have a KIAG/Kistler 5001 Charge Amplifier on my desk with an unusual power plug. It's a rectangle shape with two pins and no PE. The ratings say it's meant to be powered at 220 V/110 V, 5.5 W

The needed power receptacle was probably used during 1950's or 1960's and it seems like it's a Swiss type (Kistler is a company with origin in Switzerland). I've found a picture of the original cable but the markings on it are too small to be read. I've included a drawing with the geometry of the plug.

I've checked eBay for vintage power cords (e. g. for vintage electrical appliances) but most pictured similar types don't fit. I even checked the (digital) museum of Plugs and Sockets, no luck...
https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/ApplConn_overview.html

Any idea or hints?

[xrunner]

I'm looking for a two wire AC power cord for my vintage test equipment. Maybe anyone here can recognize it? 

I can't but nice blog anyway. 

[GreyWoolfe]

What ever the f*ck that is, it looks like it shoots something (probably a line), it has an irrigation valve, a spinning reel, a switch ... at least he's pointing it in a safe direction (at least when the pic was taken). 

The girl looks amused anyway. 

Unfortunately I know what that is. It's basically a potato cannon which is used to sling a tennis ball over a tree to pull an antenna up. aka "trash launcher".

She's only smiling because of the sertraline.

Edit: Actually that reminds me. I need to shred my RSGB certs and ham licenses 

I immediately thought "spud gun for antenna shootin'", yup. Nice idea, especially if you fail at throwing. Arborists around here have a special throwline, thin, with a fairly soft weight at the end. That's something I'd consider for portable work. I've got a set of Clansman antenna wires, and a couple dipole centres for them; really well built kit.  But they need something to hang from.

I'm a rather passive ham, but other more active ones in my vicinity have been seen speaking at metrology conferences and similar. Make no mistake, we get the racist soap-phobic bum type too, but perhaps not as frequently.  There is more than one kind.

I use a slingshot with a closed face spinning reel mounted underneath, 20 pound monofilament and egg weights painted orange.  No trouble clearing 60 foot trees and not send the weight where it didn't need to go.   I almost feel bad for the old, crusty, smelly hobo hams, why let yourself go like that.  Thankfully, not me.  Also don't forget the ham with a dayglo ARES/RACES vest and 12 handi-talkies, all tuned to the same repeater pair.  Every few years or so, I attend a hamfest, reminding me at the same time why I like going and why I avoid them like the plague.  I taught the occasional class/gave presentations at my local ham club until the club came down with a very serious case of the stupids.  They lost a bunch of good hams who have done neat things like help a local charter school make contact with the ISS.  Kind of in limbo for the past couple of years since I lost 3 anchor trees for my full wave 40 meter loop.  Don't know what I want to do for an antenna as I have limited options that won't annoy Mrs GreyWoolfe.  I don't love the hobby enuf to do that.  I do have a portable mast and wire antenna kit but it is a pain to keep putting up and taking down.

[med6753]

I'm looking for a two wire AC power cord for my vintage test equipment. Maybe anyone here can recognize it? 

I have a KIAG/Kistler 5001 Charge Amplifier on my desk with an unusual power plug. It's a rectangle shape with two pins and no PE. The ratings say it's meant to be powered at 220 V/110 V, 5.5 W

The needed power receptacle was probably used during 1950's or 1960's and it seems like it's a Swiss type (Kistler is a company with origin in Switzerland). I've found a picture of the original cable but the markings on it are too small to be read. I've included a drawing with the geometry of the plug.

I've checked eBay for vintage power cords (e. g. for vintage electrical appliances) but most pictured similar types don't fit. I even checked the (digital) museum of Plugs and Sockets, no luck...
https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/ApplConn_overview.html

Any idea or hints?

It does look very similar to the 2 wire detachable cords typically used on old portable deep fryers and I think on stationary mixers too. 

[mnementh]

Dang, the Queen is appearing on all the TV news channels today. Can't watch all the other problems in the world because of her party thing ... maybe I should be grateful! 

Oh yes forgot why I had a day off today. That’s about as far as I give a shit about the Queen. Not that I had a day off. Been sitting here on standby in case something goes terribly wrong for someone. No carnage yet.

This is when they bury all the bodies other shit quietly. Beware.

FTFY.

mnem
A friend helps you move. A true friend helps you move the body.

There are no bodies in IT fortunately. When they leave the office things may change... 

Of course there are. A bit of Pallet wrap, repurpose some raised floors with refrigerated airflow and butthead Bob's your frosty uncle. 

mnem
Ifni save your department if they shut down that stack of servers, tho... then you'll have to add some more bodies, maybe even expand to another stack... 

[med6753]

RE: Ham Radio. Many, many years ago I considered getting my ticket but at that time CW was still a requirement for all classes of operators and I was put off by it. Actually, I was too lazy to try to learn it.  I guess today that even for advanced class operators it's no longer required. Pass a theory test and you're in.

And I never learned, or wanted to learn, the gift of gab about nothing. Some of these guys key down for 20 minutes and what the fuck did he just say? Babble on and on. One group I did enjoy listening to was the AM'ers on 80 meters (3.885MHz). They at least for the most part talked radios and modifying and restoring equipment. And most of them had fantastic audio and full 10kHz B/W which pissed off the slop bucket crowd. (SSB).

And finally. I do like to shower and change my clothes everyday. Bib overalls, fat stomachs, scraggly beards, matted hair ain't my style.     

[mnementh]

Which means, I suspect, that the pilot(s) probably call you luggage, baggage, or freight, depending on how many straps it takes to secure you. 

"Self-loading freight", perhaps.

Those would be the ones who come wearing the straps already...   

mnem
...and seem to really like riding crops for some reason. 

Those straps being the ones holding the 'chute pack to the torso.

Here, all those ground based call them meat bombs. 

No, wait...... you're both thinking of "self-launching cargo". 

"meat bomb" was always rock climber talk for a fellow practitioner who... ummm... became intimately familiar with "32 feet per second squared".   

mnem

[cyclin_al]

On maritime patrol, I can't talk about my work much, but here is one I did 30 years ago. Not submarine but still maritime surveillance.
This had the Ferranti Seaspray 2000 search radar. Being pre GPS it had Litton VLF/Omega and inertial navigation equipment. No video either but the Agiflight 70mm film camera had a ARINC 429 datalink to the nav system and minature LEDs that imprinted the LAT/LONG and time on the film. This was important legally. We were a small company (now long gone) and apart from the design building and indstallation I flew on the aircraft for certification and operational testing.  Roaring in at 250ft towards a boat seemed to frighten the fishermen a bit 

Looks like Fokker based F-27. Correct? IBM owned at least two license built Fairchild F-27's as executive transports in the 1960's. As well as Lockheed Sabreliners. All painted several shades of blue of course.  Prior to the F-27's they owned DC-3's.

A local airline (Mohawk Airlines) also flew the F-27.

Just a bit further south, Midway Airlines out of Raleigh-Durham airport also flew a small fleet of F-27's.

[25 CPS]

RE: Ham Radio. Many, many years ago I considered getting my ticket but at that time CW was still a requirement for all classes of operators and I was put off by it. Actually, I was too lazy to try to learn it.  I guess today that even for advanced class operators it's no longer required. Pass a theory test and you're in.

And I never learned, or wanted to learn, the gift of gab about nothing. Some of these guys key down for 20 minutes and what the fuck did he just say? Babble on and on. One group I did enjoy listening to was the AM'ers on 80 meters (3.885MHz). They at least for the most part talked radios and modifying and restoring equipment. And most of them had fantastic audio and full 10kHz B/W which pissed off the slop bucket crowd. (SSB).

And finally. I do like to shower and change my clothes everyday. Bib overalls, fat stomachs, scraggly beards, matted hair ain't my style.     

I actually thought about getting an amateur radio licence at one time too.  It was a ride in a friend's car that started changing my mind.  The friend has a bunch of scanners going all the time and a bunch of ham radio operators did this check in thing.  I asked what this was and the friend explained that they routinely do this.  I couldn't stop laughing because it sounded like they were taking attendance at school.

On another occasion, one ham operator was moaning about how everyone was complaining that they had a hard time hearing him.  His audio was clean but very quiet.  My first thought was that he was undermodulated from the way it sounded.  The other guys he was talking with kept saying he was very quiet.  I kept saying to my friend that it sounds undermodulated, what does the index of modulation look like and the other ham operators kept saying, dunno, sounds quiet, don't know why and left this guy swinging in the breeze.  Nobody recommended checking out the audio chain and making sure everything was set up so his normal speaking voice would bring his transmitter up to 90% or so modulation or took a look with a spectrum analyzer to see what his RF output looked like.  TinySA aren't expensive.  None of the people this guy was speaking with could or would offer any troubleshooting tips to help get him started chasing down why his audio was so low.  The unhelpful indifference was striking.

There were a few other things that shifted my view on amateur radio but the hamfests finished the idea off for me.

As for showers, the utility bills have these styleized meter gauge graphs and the one for water consumption is consistently in the yellow.  There's no such thing as a short shower for me.  And clean clothes.  Definitely.  And I prefer coveralls to overalls.

[vk6zgo]

Some months later, the same aircraft, on the same route shed a wing & crashed.

Disquieting Vicious rotor winds in the mountains?

Nah, it was fairly flat country, just 48km out of Port Hedland but in midsummer there was the possibility of pretty bad turbulence.

Interestingly, though I remembered it as a wing falling off, the following says "broke up in flight"
There were certainly incidents of wings detaching in Viscounts used in Australia, & elsewhere, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Vickers_Viscount

Electras seem to have had a fairly safe, if stodgy, career after the initial disasters, (they were used in Australia for years without any losses) but Viscounts seem to have continued to have them decade after decade.

In fairness to the Viscount, though, they were an earlier generation of design, & such things moved fast in the 1950s/60s.

There was only 1 incident I saw in that list that mentioned a wing failure and that was caused by an engine fire weakening the wing. There did seem to loads of incidents involving engine failures and undercarriage though.

Apart from that one, there was (on the list):-

On 2/Dec/ 1958 -------G-ANRR of Hunting-Clan Air Transport.
and
On 30/Nov/1961 --------Ansett-ANA Flight 325 (VH-TBC)

[mansaxel]

Of course there are. A bit of Pallet wrap, repurpose some raised floors with refrigerated airflow and butthead Bob's your frosty uncle. 

What people who propose these things usually don't realise is the way people decompose. This happens, albeit at lower rate, also when chilled. Turning the humidifier off in the HVAC plant will of course stall and reform the decomposition somewhat, but usually not enough to create a large difference.

We usually end up as soggy messes, if we're not actively dried-out. Pallet wrap is but a stop-gap measure.

Freezing would of course pause the process, but I know of no computer room cooler in existence that would actually manage to freeze something, except itself where inconvenient; i.e. "icing up".  There is, you see, one set of people more optimistic than agile project managers, namely HVAC designers. There is no so constantly underdelivering field  of modern engineering. Too little, too warm, in the wrong spot, and leaking (mighta been condensate from piping not insulated well enough, though). That about sums it up.

[med6753]

How did we ever get on the subject of decomposition of human tissue?  I think we missed some subjects in getting here. 

What's next? Mortician training? 

[cyclin_al]

But cutting these labels accurately, again was not that easy... lack of cutting mat and large SS ruler and sharp blade didn't help. It was a chore to do a single A4 card. Ideally I think I will end up buying one day something like this : 

How about something not as heavy-duty but still more than capable of dealing with labels and even some thin card stock:
https://www.grainger.ca/en/product/p/GWN154540?gucid=N:N:FPL:Free:GGL:CSM-1946:tew63h3:20501231

[TERRA Operative]

IS ANYONE AWARE of a BNC-to-current clamp adaptor (preferably original TEK) being offered for sale?

I have too many AM503's here if that's the sort of thing you are looking for?

Nope. I mean the calibration adaptor. Which is seemingly just a wire loop, but should be 50R-correct.
Tek # 015-0601-50 is the 1-turn and there is another one in gray plastic, where the orientation of the active part is perpendicular to the connector. (I even think someone did show the other one here.)

Ah yeah, good luck finding one... I'm after one too.

But..... I might end up making one.
Get a bulkhead male BNC, bend a strap of aluminium into a C shape, drill and tap some holes and screw the BNC in, then solder a 50 ohm resistor to the center pin of the BNC and short it across the mouth of the C shape with a bit of brass threaded rod or long bolt.

One day I'll get to it......

[capt bullshot]

IS ANYONE AWARE of a BNC-to-current clamp adaptor (preferably original TEK) being offered for sale?

I have too many AM503's here if that's the sort of thing you are looking for?

Yep, they kind of tend to outlive their counterparts ( A6302,  A6312, A6303).

[Peter_O]

I'm looking for a two wire AC power cord for my vintage test equipment. Maybe anyone here can recognize it? 

I have a KIAG/Kistler 5001 Charge Amplifier on my desk with an unusual power plug. It's a rectangle shape with two pins and no PE. The ratings say it's meant to be powered at 220 V/110 V, 5.5 W

The needed power receptacle was probably used during 1950's or 1960's and it seems like it's a Swiss type (Kistler is a company with origin in Switzerland). I've found a picture of the original cable but the markings on it are too small to be read. I've included a drawing with the geometry of the plug.

I've checked eBay for vintage power cords (e. g. for vintage electrical appliances) but most pictured similar types don't fit. I even checked the (digital) museum of Plugs and Sockets, no luck...
https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/ApplConn_overview.html

Any idea or hints?

It does look very similar to the 2 wire detachable cords typically used on old portable deep fryers and I think on stationary mixers too.

Yup. These radio or mixer connectors are IEC C8. Just held my calipers to one of them and it is 2.85mm pin socket at the rubber end, metal inside could be 3mm, and 8mm pin distance. Worth a try as they are dirt cheap.

[tautech]

Apparently the fig 8 leads have the same pin spacings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60320

[srb1954]

IS ANYONE AWARE of a BNC-to-current clamp adaptor (preferably original TEK) being offered for sale?

I have too many AM503's here if that's the sort of thing you are looking for?

Yep, they kind of tend to outlive their counterparts ( A6302,  A6312, A6303).

It is one of the great mysteries of the universe why the Tek current probes mostly disappear down a black hole while the corresponding amplifiers mostly don't. Consequently, the number of AM503s on offer at the usual auction sites vastly outnumber the number of probes on offer.

[bd139]

Today’s WTF courtesy of instagram:

[Robert763]

IS ANYONE AWARE of a BNC-to-current clamp adaptor (preferably original TEK) being offered for sale?

Do you mean the terminator for the P602x range? is so what probe?

[Robert763]

Wise move.

I've been asked a couple of times recently if I'd recommend it as a hobby and quite frankly I've had to say no. While there are a couple of notable exceptions, I actively dislike the community as a whole. It's got some really bad social problems and a poor but accurate reputation. From various life experiences, I've learned the best thing to do when you come across such communities is to disassociate yourself from them.

Edit: I consider saving test gear they kept prisoner to be a socially responsible thing to do

From what I've seen locally, it's the same here.  Amateur radio has the reputation it deserves.

I'm pretty sure I've written before about how I was told that hamfests were the place to go to get "the good stuff, cheap" when I was setting up my own workshop a number of years ago and how I was taken by surprise just how filthy the people were and how little good equipment there was and how expensive it was.  Typically it was disgusting old fogies selling totally destroyed junk for high prices:

"I don't know what it is, I don't know what it does, I don't know if it works, but I do know I want top dollar for it."

That was practically the rule of thumb.  After a couple of these experiences, I found I had far better success with Kijiji and gcsurplus.ca and the local surplus shops.  The one outstanding exception:  Facebook Marketplace.  I think I've had one successful transaction on there.  The rest of it has been busts where the item's already sold and the ad hasn't been taken down or no responses at all.  Case in point, I'm trying to buy something locally and I've sent two messages and neither have been replied to.  You'd think if you're selling someone and someone eager to give you money has contacted you twice...

I've been to a couple of "Hamfests" in the USA, both local affairs and they were nothing like the UK ones. Little choice and overpriced. Mybe the big ones like Dayton are different.
Technical "swapmeets" seem better. I've been to both the ASVARO Electronics Fleamarket (De Anaza / Sunnyvale in the Bay area CA) and the MIT Fleamarket in Boston and both of those were great. I was severely limited by airline baggage restrictions though.

[dl6lr]

It's horizontal deflection test time.

The LM1391N were delivered to me yesterday, so I thought it is a good idea to have a test gear. I used the circuit inside the Tek without all the higher energy parts and fiddled them on a breadboard.

Oscillator is running fine and free running in the range of abt. 13 to 20kHz.

So I coupled the output back to the sawtooth input and triggered the HDRIVE input with a function generator.
Houston: we have a lock in! Sweeping around the FG, the output stays synchronized  And the PLL output is proportional to the deviation of the input vs. the free running frequency.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Y8MgLcX39dFydEUG7

Next is to remove the one from the Tek1240 and test it.

[dl6lr]

And on wednesday I got two presents, thanks to some enablers here:

[Saskia]

just stopped my at my fav distributor.
50 kg and a cubic meter later ...
,* sigh*

Anycubic mega
anycubic vyper
ZD soldering/desoldering Station
Geiger counter
external USB 3.1 hard drive
cables for the PSU
red pitaya diagnostic kit ...
some bits and pieces
...

[Robert763]

IS ANYONE AWARE of a BNC-to-current clamp adaptor (preferably original TEK) being offered for sale?

Do you mean the terminator for the P602x range? is so what probe?

EDIT: Din't read far enough...

The calibration fixtures are common in EMC test houses. Homemade is not uncommon.  They are just a through line with a coxaxial connector on each end and used with a 50R load. If it is for a small probe (P6022) etc a small screened box with an insulated wire (dimensions to roughly match 50R with the ID of the clamp as screen) BNC each end and a hole for the probe.
For bigger probes the center line tapers from the (typically N) coax connector inner to the diameter to match the probe so ther is not a step reflection. Again used with a normal 50R coaxial terminator.
https://www.theemcshop.com/133-rf-current-probe-calibration-fixtures