Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[neo]

I see you stopped by my friend Pat WA6MHZ's stall....
I spent yesterday morning over at his place cleaning up the haul of gear he brought.
I was suppose to be there, however Murphy gave me the middle finger and I didn't make it.

Which one was his?

[neo]

HP report,
8405a, still has intact factory stickers, a26 is a riser card ( ) and there is a wasps nest on the freq range switch. One of the probe tips, channel a, has broken off, it only has two feet and in general the thing is FILTHY.
HP1645B Didn't open due to special screw head, will have to buy screwdriver or find one. Has a copy of its os disc and i've found one probe, except it isn't quite a probe its just a pin header to pin header cable.
How screwed am i on these two?

[tggzzz]

Holy crap indeed. Maybe even holy shitballs. Awesome day 

Getting itchy fingers for tomorrow now. Unfortunately my phone informs me it is going to piss it down with rain all day so this might put a few sellers off 

Best take your water wings and rubber duckie:

Looks like Wimbourne a couple of weeks ago.

That was mostly outside, you needed a broad brimmed hat, and you played peek-a-boo to see what was on offer. Yup, most stuff was under tarpaulins, which you had to briefly lift.

[Specmaster]

HP report,
8405a, still has intact factory stickers, a26 is a riser card ( ) and there is a wasps nest on the freq range switch. One of the probe tips, channel a, has broken off, it only has two feet and in general the thing is FILTHY.
HP1645B Didn't open due to special screw head, will have to buy screwdriver or find one. Has a copy of its os disc and i've found one probe, except it isn't quite a probe its just a pin header to pin header cable.
How screwed am i on these two?

That's a problem with hamfests and you going with a big fat wad, you get carried away on the crest of enthusiasm and buy indiscriminately whereas some on a limited budget, or the risk of bad attack of stink eye among other options from SWMBO take it a bit more cautiously I think.

[neo]

HP report,
8405a, still has intact factory stickers, a26 is a riser card ( ) and there is a wasps nest on the freq range switch. One of the probe tips, channel a, has broken off, it only has two feet and in general the thing is FILTHY.
HP1645B Didn't open due to special screw head, will have to buy screwdriver or find one. Has a copy of its os disc and i've found one probe, except it isn't quite a probe its just a pin header to pin header cable.
How screwed am i on these two?

That's a problem with hamfests and you going with a big fat wad, you get carried away on the crest of enthusiasm and buy indiscriminately whereas some on a limited budget, or the risk of bad attack of stink eye among other options from SWMBO take it a bit more cautiously I think.

Yeah, except the pair only cost me 20 bucks. 

[mtdoc]

Yeah, except the pair only cost me 20 bucks. 

Ah, the words of a true addict.

That's the addiction talking alright.  It's not about how little you spend, it's what you do with the accumulation of gear and how large your repair queue grows  (said sheepishly as I sigh and look at mine...)..

[neo]

Thing of beauty isn't it? Hickok 539A, the hewletts in this haul were cheapish and i bought them entirely because of that. Knowing full well the throwaway nature of the 80s, this however i bought because i can use it in my hobby. Perhaps might even i come to need it for my hobby. This is the one i fear i may have shot myself in the foot with.  Now the only problem is i don't know a damn thing about it, or any tube tester, all i got is a schematic from bama. -insert biting fingernails emoji here- When i go to fix it i figure i have only one course change every cap and check every single resistor.

So far as my repair que goes... well that is my hobby. I buy test gear that i may use or that looks nice, put myself through hell trying to fix it and then do it again.

[bitseeker]

That's repair queueueue...

[Specmaster]

HP report,
8405a, still has intact factory stickers, a26 is a riser card ( ) and there is a wasps nest on the freq range switch. One of the probe tips, channel a, has broken off, it only has two feet and in general the thing is FILTHY.
HP1645B Didn't open due to special screw head, will have to buy screwdriver or find one. Has a copy of its os disc and i've found one probe, except it isn't quite a probe its just a pin header to pin header cable.
How screwed am i on these two?

That's a problem with hamfests and you going with a big fat wad, you get carried away on the crest of enthusiasm and buy indiscriminately whereas some on a limited budget, or the risk of bad attack of stink eye among other options from SWMBO take it a bit more cautiously I think.

Yeah, except the pair only cost me 20 bucks. 

If that wasp nest was active the price might have doubled 

[tautech]

Yeah, except the pair only cost me 20 bucks. 

Ah, the words of a true addict.

That's the addiction talking alright.  It's not about how little you spend, it's what you do with the accumulation of gear and how large your repair queue grows  (said sheepishly as I sigh and look at mine...)..

I've got ~7 in my queue but only 3 that are worth the effort.
I'm verging on junking a Krone Hite FG as I've spent far too long on it already following on from some FWit before me.  A Tek TDS2012B might follow it and some old SG's that got dropped off here.
That leaves a couple of Philips CRO's, both of which bd139 reckons are good units but I haven't even had a peep at either yet. Then there's a 1740 that I can't much be bothered with even though I've been into them in the past.

Her indoors keeps threatening to get a rubbish skip and at times even that seems a fine idea. 

[Specmaster]

Thing of beauty isn't it? Hickok 539A, the hewletts in this haul were cheapish and i bought them entirely because of that. Knowing full well the throwaway nature of the 80s, this however i bought because i can use it in my hobby. Perhaps might even i come to need it for my hobby. This is the one i fear i may have shot myself in the foot with.  Now the only problem is i don't know a damn thing about it, or any tube tester, all i got is a schematic from bama. -insert biting fingernails emoji here- When i go to fix it i figure i have only one course change every cap and check every single resistor.

So far as my repair que goes... well that is my hobby. I buy test gear that i may use or that looks nice, put myself through hell trying to fix it and then do it again.

Now that is worth the trouble, great catch with this one.

[bd139]

Looks like Wimbourne a couple of weeks ago.

That was mostly outside, you needed a broad brimmed hat, and you played peek-a-boo to see what was on offer. Yup, most stuff was under tarpaulins, which you had to briefly lift.

Yeah still doable though if it's like that. You just have to make sure that you have the right things to put it in. A little bit of wet doesn't hurt anything that much to be honest. Persistent wet for months in a shed however is a different story .... further comment on this later....

So the inventory for tomorrow:

Code: [Select]

- Brymen mini DMM
- rucksack
- RAIN COAT
- fleece
- ikea bags x2 for boat anchors
- carrier bags x5 ocado big ones
- roll of tape.
- the correct charger cable for my phone this time
- TOWEL
- torch


Saw this go the other day for £140. What the fuck was whoever bought it thinking? All the other items the ebayer were selling were wet and rotten and rusting. They didn't even bother to clean off the standing water that was all over half of the items. Just literally tipped them up for a photo and probably threw them back in the shed !?!?!?

There is likely nothing even recoverable in that at all!?!

[nixiefreqq]

Looks like Wimbourne a couple of weeks ago.

That was mostly outside, you needed a broad brimmed hat, and you played peek-a-boo to see what was on offer. Yup, most stuff was under tarpaulins, which you had to briefly lift.

Yeah still doable though if it's like that. You just have to make sure that you have the right things to put it in. A little bit of wet doesn't hurt anything that much to be honest. Persistent wet for months in a shed however is a different story .... further comment on this later....

So the inventory for tomorrow:

Code: [Select]

- Brymen mini DMM
- rucksack
- RAIN COAT
- fleece
- ikea bags x2 for boat anchors
- carrier bags x5 ocado big ones
- roll of tape.
- the correct charger cable for my phone this time
- TOWEL
- torch


Saw this go the other day for £140. What the fuck was whoever bought it thinking? All the other items the ebayer were selling were wet and rotten and rusting. They didn't even bother to clean off the standing water that was all over half of the items. Just literally tipped them up for a photo and probably threw them back in the shed !?!?!?

There is likely nothing even recoverable in that at all!?!

maybe someone bought it for the feet.

seems to be an hp foot shortage goin' around.

[Specmaster]

Yet when there are good things, people just don't bite. Selling on ebay is like fishing, you can get the person with all the right gear, catches nothing , then there's the guy with a bamboo cane, string and bent nail who lands the best catch of the day. That seller was the guy with bamboo cane for a rod, jammy lucky sod.

[neo]

Another thing of beauty, this one cost the heart stopping sum of ten dollars. Yup, 10 measly dollars! Only problem so far observed with it, other than age obviously, is that it possesses only two of the three adapters, not sure how bad that is but the seller practically had a heart attack when i noticed.

EDIT; there are some problems in paradise, one of the four mounting bolts has broken off and another had the nut come off. To fix that i need to take the thing to bits.

[mnementh]

Holy crap indeed. Maybe even holy shitballs. Awesome day 

Getting itchy fingers for tomorrow now. Unfortunately my phone informs me it is going to piss it down with rain all day so this might put a few sellers off 

Hear hear! Holy balls of shit indeed! 

I love rainy days at the swap meet... the ones who are left are desperate and ready to haggle, even in the morning. I remember getting a Sansui 5000A in exchange for a cuppa McD's Crotch-Scalding-Hot™ Coffee; I'd set it down on the table in front of the thing to mix in sugar & creamer, and the guy's eyes lit up like Christmas morning. He saw me looking at the Sansui and admiring the well-kept woodgrain and said he'd had his fill of the thing; he refused to try and show it to me, because every time he did it wouldn't tune in a thing.

He offered it to me even-up as-is for the coffee... as long as I promised not to pollute it with creamer. 

When I got it home after a day of wheeling, wheedling, squealing and dealing, I blew the dust bunnies out of the air-gaps in the tuner and touched up the inevitable ring-cracks on those heat-sinked tin-can transistors in the preamp & IF stages and it became my bedroom set for over a decade. 

mnem
Not without my inductors.

[mnementh]

Those dogs have already licked their balls, and are now waiting for faces to lick. 

Even so, they probably improve the kids' health. I'm undecided as to whether that deservers a or a ; probably both.

I scratch my balls and then wesor3n qwp  deo;s;kn;'f;omc[psdfh' w
<connection terminated>

I know.... I know. that was just 6 kinds of wrong. I'm sorry. 

And... you're Well-come!!! 

mnem

[mnementh]

Don't like dogs either. This came from my mother's whippet which I watched scoot around the living room carpet and left a tapeworm behind.

Fine with some horses. Proper ones. Used to ride a lot.

I've got one off those silly "dude ranches" just down the road where city folk get the opportunity to pay enormous sums to ride an old nag. When the wind is right I get to smell the stables and horseshit for free.

I was dragged up in Epsom, home of the Derby (not the US upstart) and many many stables and thoroughbreds.

On the way to school I used to see them riding some very twitchy and expensive "nags" along the backroads on the way to their exercise. Sometimes they rematerialised 6ft to the right of where they were half a second earlier, presumably because they were startled by a leaf fluttering somewhere in their field of vision.

Later, much later, I saw a dog team waiting for their exercise pulling a sled; I didn't want to go anywhere them. But, after their run, they were delightfully friendly and playful. I wonder if the thoroughbreds were like that.

Thoroughbreds are always twitchy... they're bred for it. Unless they've just eaten a stolen bucket of oats or just serviced a mare. Then they're... ALMOST a normal horse.

Quarterhorses are all-around much more suited to life with humans. Strong, fast and generally amiable... if a bit inclined to show affection by means of biting or smooshing one against the wall. They don't realize how much out of your weight class they are.

Arabians are the smartest, and tend to bouts of depression if not handled frequently; they like to play and will happily kick an old plastic bucket around the field like a cat batting a rubber mouse or rag ball. They also very possessive and will stalk you.

Welsh ponies are the sweetest things on the face of the planet... there is nothing better for teaching younguns horsecraft than a welshie.

mnem
What? I grew up on a real live farm.

[mnementh]

Another thing of beauty, this one cost the heart stopping sum of ten dollars. Yup, 10 measly dollars! Only problem so far observed with it, other than age obviously, is that it possesses only two of the three adapters, not sure how bad that is but the seller practically had a heart attack when i noticed.

EDIT; there are some problems in paradise, one of the four mounting bolts has broken off and another had the nut come off. To fix that i need to take the thing to bits.

I haven't used a 440; that's a bit old even for me. I used a 445 for a while, but preferred the 467 by a mile. If you can't find the correct adapter, it's not too hard to figure out the heater, grids & cathode then break them out with alligators; yours may even have that on an adapter hiding under the harness. You'll probably want this thing working to brighten up that 1654B, unless its too burned to save.

Good score on that Hickock; IIRC, there was a thread on the Anatek forums about reprinting the setup rolls for that. If not there, look on the BAMA archive.

Cheers... and don't git any on ya,


mnem
*Currenty plotting a sausage tortelloni*

[nixiefreqq]

HP report,
8405a, still has intact factory stickers, a26 is a riser card ( ) and there is a wasps nest on the freq range switch. One of the probe tips, channel a, has broken off, it only has two feet and in general the thing is FILTHY.
HP1645B Didn't open due to special screw head, will have to buy screwdriver or find one. Has a copy of its os disc and i've found one probe, except it isn't quite a probe its just a pin header to pin header cable.
How screwed am i on these two?

hey neo.  when you find a T10 torx driver and get the cover off that logic analyzer I would appreciate a picture of the power supply.


just curious that's all.


ps  that hickok is a thing of beauty.  have a buddy with two of them and he swears by 'em.   guess anyone who owns a frickin' 608 boatanchor needs a good tubetester.


pps  not sure however why anyone needs a crt rejuvenator.   always considered them to be snake oil.

[tggzzz]

A little bit of wet doesn't hurt anything that much to be honest.

So the inventory for tomorrow:

Code: [Select]

- Brymen mini DMM
- rucksack
- RAIN COAT
- fleece
- ikea bags x2 for boat anchors
- carrier bags x5 ocado big ones
- roll of tape.
- the correct charger cable for my phone this time
- TOWEL
- torch


Don't think you'll get much for that lot, unless you are simply planning on selling it to the other stallholders

[neo]

HP report,
8405a, still has intact factory stickers, a26 is a riser card ( ) and there is a wasps nest on the freq range switch. One of the probe tips, channel a, has broken off, it only has two feet and in general the thing is FILTHY.
HP1645B Didn't open due to special screw head, will have to buy screwdriver or find one. Has a copy of its os disc and i've found one probe, except it isn't quite a probe its just a pin header to pin header cable.
How screwed am i on these two?

hey neo.  when you find a T10 torx driver and get the cover off that logic analyzer I would appreciate a picture of the power supply.


just curious that's all.


ps  that hickok is a thing of beauty.  have a buddy with two of them and he swears by 'em.   guess anyone who owns a frickin' 608 boatanchor needs a good tubetester.


pps  not sure however why anyone needs a crt rejuvenator.   always considered them to be snake oil.

Any part in particular or just a few of the power supply?

[nixiefreqq]

HP report,
8405a, still has intact factory stickers, a26 is a riser card ( ) and there is a wasps nest on the freq range switch. One of the probe tips, channel a, has broken off, it only has two feet and in general the thing is FILTHY.
HP1645B Didn't open due to special screw head, will have to buy screwdriver or find one. Has a copy of its os disc and i've found one probe, except it isn't quite a probe its just a pin header to pin header cable.
How screwed am i on these two?

hey neo.  when you find a T10 torx driver and get the cover off that logic analyzer I would appreciate a picture of the power supply.


just curious that's all.


ps  that hickok is a thing of beauty.  have a buddy with two of them and he swears by 'em.   guess anyone who owns a frickin' 608 boatanchor needs a good tubetester.


pps  not sure however why anyone needs a crt rejuvenator.   always considered them to be snake oil.

Any part in particular or just a few of the power supply?

just a view of the ps and how it mounts should do it for me. am curious to see how similar it is to the one in the 545xx scopes.


and before I get too much flack.  maybe it is possible to restore emission in a crt, but what a crapshoot.  sometimes they kill the crt instantly, sometimes they restore the brightness temporarily, and occasionally it seemed to fix it long term.  maybe some guys know the magic incantation.  but a lot of the time the guy would keep saying "look how much better it is" until he convinced ya' maybe it really was better.

[med6753]

Thing of beauty isn't it? Hickok 539A, the hewletts in this haul were cheapish and i bought them entirely because of that. Knowing full well the throwaway nature of the 80s, this however i bought because i can use it in my hobby. Perhaps might even i come to need it for my hobby. This is the one i fear i may have shot myself in the foot with.  Now the only problem is i don't know a damn thing about it, or any tube tester, all i got is a schematic from bama. -insert biting fingernails emoji here- When i go to fix it i figure i have only one course change every cap and check every single resistor.

So far as my repair que goes... well that is my hobby. I buy test gear that i may use or that looks nice, put myself through hell trying to fix it and then do it again.

Holy shitballs. That Hickok is worth it's weight in gold!  Get a manual and learn how to use it. I'm sure it must be available out there somewhere.

[neo]

just a view of the ps and how it mounts should do it for me. am curious to see how similar it is to the one in the 545xx scopes.


and before I get too much flack.  maybe it is possible to restore emission in a crt, but what a crapshoot.  sometimes they kill the crt instantly, sometimes they restore the brightness temporarily, and occasionally it seemed to fix it long term.  maybe some guys know the magic incantation.  but a lot of the time the guy would keep saying "look how much better it is" until he convinced ya' maybe it really was better.

As you can see i already have it out and apart but as i'm sure you can also see there are two connectors and a pair of rails it slides in/out on. They mounted the floppy on top of it as well, real pain in the neck to get at.

Holy shitballs. That Hickok is worth it's weight in gold!  Get a manual and learn how to use it. I'm sure it must be available out there somewhere.

The A model is tricky, no manuals because this thing has been around since i think the late forties. I got a schematic and thats about it. Though i could probably get a manual from the latter models if i wanted functionality tutorials however.

New rule, if anyone wants a picture of ANY of my hamfest stuff in detail just ask... too much to take pictures of otherwise.

EDIT; A couple more



Sorry for the pink hue my camera currently sucks if not EXACTLY right... 
Also, this thing is missing a button not sure what the button does because it aint there.