Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Brumby]

I stuck a tentative deal for a lot that will make your mouths water...more details Sunday after I pick it up. T.E.A....

Don't get to talk much, eh? But you tease real good.

T.E.A.S.E.   Test Equipment Addiction: Score Extreme  The act of securing a significant collection of test gear singled handedly.  This achievement is then compounded by then making interested parties wait before the detailed reveal.

[Inverted18650]

I stuck a tentative deal for a lot that will make your mouths water...more details Sunday after I pick it up. T.E.A....

Don't get to talk much, eh? But you tease real good.

T.E.A.S.E.   Test Equipment Addiction: Score Extreme  The act of securing a significant collection of test gear singled handedly.  This achievement is then compounded by then making interested parties wait before the detailed reveal.

LOL. I closed a tentative deal for getting the good on Sunday....AND OH MAN, how good it will be, 1st PICS will be here.

[beanflying]

Call me impressed 300MHz signal on a 100Mhz Specced Chinese made scope from an Evilbay RF sig gen. Well down on actual signal to be expected and full band width shown with averaging turned on. Never had the gear to push the Micsig before.

That deserves a Beer in the sunshine

[bitseeker]

LOL. I closed a tentative deal for getting the good on Sunday....AND OH MAN, how good it will be, 1st PICS will be here.

Can't wait for the show. 

T.E.A.S.E.   Test Equipment Addiction: Score Extreme  The act of securing a significant collection of test gear singled handedly.  This achievement is then compounded by then making interested parties wait before the detailed reveal.

Added to the Glossary. You're getting really good at these, Brumby.

[Mr. Scram]

I pretty much ran out of reasons to buy multimeters for myself, so I simply started buying them for others. It feels good doing things for others. That some real alteaism. Proper charitea.

Not that we need reasons, mind.

I'm already rationalising keeping this one for myself and getting another one for the intended purpose. This is going better than expected.

[0culus]

@ tautech

That Tek dual beam scope is sexy. 

[0culus]

Perhaps tangentially related to test equipment, but it is really mind boggling that we can still talk to the Voyager probes. The NASA/JPL Deep Space Network station in Madrid is, at this writing, receiving a downlink from Voyager 1. 159 bits/second data rate. 7.45 GHz carrier at a received power of -155 dBm.

https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

[beanflying]

Perhaps tangentially related to test equipment, but it is really mind boggling that we can still talk to the Voyager probes. The NASA/JPL Deep Space Network station in Madrid is, at this writing, receiving a downlink from Voyager 1. 159 bits/second data rate. 7.45 GHz carrier at a received power of -155 dBm.

https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Actually watched this yesterday only a few more years of Power then onward in silence.

https://youtu.be/aalfNIvQaJ4

[bitseeker]

I pretty much ran out of reasons to buy multimeters for myself, so I simply started buying them for others. It feels good doing things for others. That some real alteaism. Proper charitea.

Not that we need reasons, mind.

I'm already rationalising keeping this one for myself and getting another one for the intended purpose. This is going better than expected.

That's the spirit.

[bitseeker]

Perhaps tangentially related to test equipment, but it is really mind boggling that we can still talk to the Voyager probes. The NASA/JPL Deep Space Network station in Madrid is, at this writing, receiving a downlink from Voyager 1. 159 bits/second data rate. 7.45 GHz carrier at a received power of -155 dBm.

https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Actually watched this yesterday only a few more years of Power then onward in silence.

https://youtu.be/aalfNIvQaJ4

Aw, only a few more years of nuclear power? Didn't realize that. I guess it was a pretty small fuel supply. But, hey, no lockups in 40+ years of operation.

[beanflying]

Clearly not Windoze Based Software  Not sure of what memory it is using may well have been magnetic?

[Mr. Scram]

Aw, only a few more years of nuclear power? Didn't realize that. I guess it was a pretty small fuel supply. But, hey, no lockups in 40+ years of operation.

I think a large part of it is the thermocouples wearing out.

[0culus]

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

...which is NOT the same as the experiments with miniaturized fission reactors that both the US and Soviet Union experimented with back during the cold war. However, Kilopower is a newer design which is much lighter than those. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilopower

[0culus]

Also it's been in the news recently that Oak Ridge National Laboratory has restarted plutonium-238 production for RTGs.

[bd139]

Perhaps tangentially related to test equipment, but it is really mind boggling that we can still talk to the Voyager probes. The NASA/JPL Deep Space Network station in Madrid is, at this writing, receiving a downlink from Voyager 1. 159 bits/second data rate. 7.45 GHz carrier at a received power of -155 dBm.

https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Actually watched this yesterday only a few more years of Power then onward in silence.

I was honestly hoping we’d have built something that overtook voyager and left it in the dust now. The fact we’re looking at 40 year old tech here is simultaneously amazing and depressing.

The RF power involved is pretty amazing though. Big ass antennas. Lots of gain!

Was reading something the other day about Aricebo having EIRP of something like 2TW! Can toast a satellite in orbit.

[Mr. Scram]

I was honestly hoping we’d have built something that overtook voyager and left it in the dust now. The fact we’re looking at 40 year old tech here is simultaneously amazing and depressing.

The RF power involved is pretty amazing though. Big ass antennas. Lots of gain!

Was reading something the other day about Aricebo having EIRP of something like 2TW! Can toast a satellite in orbit.

Perhaps the best part is that none of these capabilities existed at launch. The ground stations were built while it was heading for Jupiter and the software was modified along the way too.

[0culus]

Perhaps tangentially related to test equipment, but it is really mind boggling that we can still talk to the Voyager probes. The NASA/JPL Deep Space Network station in Madrid is, at this writing, receiving a downlink from Voyager 1. 159 bits/second data rate. 7.45 GHz carrier at a received power of -155 dBm.

https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Actually watched this yesterday only a few more years of Power then onward in silence.

I was honestly hoping we’d have built something that overtook voyager and left it in the dust now. The fact we’re looking at 40 year old tech here is simultaneously amazing and depressing.

The RF power involved is pretty amazing though. Big ass antennas. Lots of gain!

Was reading something the other day about Aricebo having EIRP of something like 2TW! Can toast a satellite in orbit.

I think meaningful deep space exploration is never going to be terribly economical unless and until someone figures out how to travel at relativistic velocity. The stuff of science fiction so far....

[GregDunn]

Voyager has about 68k of plated wire memory:

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

[URI]

Call me impressed 300MHz signal on a 100Mhz Specced Chinese made scope from an Evilbay RF sig gen. Well down on actual signal to be expected and full band width shown with averaging turned on. Never had the gear to push the Micsig before.

That deserves a Beer in the sunshine

Yep, impressed, too.   
If this is the signal generator you showed in one of your last posts (the one with the cracked fascia), I'm a bit surprised, too.
I'd expect a (more) rectangular signal because the base band is 2.2GHZ to 4.4GHz and that just divided down for the lower frequencies/bands.
That would intend that there's filtering in the output stage matching the output band..? Or is this "just" filtering by the bandwidth limitation of that scope?

What a pity it doesn't have a 10MHz reference input.

I'm looking forward to your tear down photos. In fact we're at eevblog here where we first take it apart..?      

[beanflying]

Thread and some initial pictures up here on the ADF4350 https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/adf4350-adf4351-based-oled-rf-source-generators/

I haven't done any poking around with the scope yet but I did find a reference to a TCXO 25MHz being used

[bd139]

Does the ADF box have any ALC? Interested in one if it has a power output I can calibrate.

Currently lurking on something old and cranky as a substitute but would rather something a little more conpact.

[beanflying]

I will have a look around tomorrow and sort out what is what on the board. If it is a 25MHz input then feeding it with a tweaked 10Meg shouldn't be that hard. The only Output power control is set by the keypad so no ALC as far as I know.

There is several Arduino based front ends and software to drive the ADF chips so rolling your own is possible then do whatever you need extra in software/hardware I guess.

[Brumby]

Added to the Glossary. You're getting really good at these, Brumby.

So it seems.

Should I be worried?

[Brumby]

Actually, I just checked the glossary for definitions under TEA - and I would like to amend the title to:

TEASE   Test Equipment Acquisition: Score Extreme

Makes for a more consistent entry.

[Mr. Scram]

Actually, I just checked the glossary for definitions under TEA - and I would like to amend the title to:

TEASE   Test Equipment Acquisition: Score Extreme

Makes for a more consistent entry.

TEASE is coincidentally the plural of TEA.