Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

This IS fleaBayer "humans" we're talking about, bd... that shouldn't be too hard. 

mnem
Amazing how often the Lowest Common Denominator is people; not surprising, but amazing.

[0culus]

Welp, my pre-move boat anchor avoidance has failed. Got a very nice HP 8566A coming at the end of the week, as well as a bunch of assorted parts that will be useful for repairs on these instruments. Pictures, of course, will be forthcoming when I receive it. 

[tggzzz]

Well all is not great in the house of panaplex today unfortunately. 

As I can't imagine that you bought this piece of antique to do your tax calculations I guess you bought it for the displays and you still scored 2 out of 3.
I must be wrong but where?

Panaplex displays are just... right. They are visible, pleasant, restful, enticing in the way other display's aren't. Once seen, never forgotten.

Possible excepton: the 1970s HP "dotted" seven segment LEDs.

In other news, yesterday's GAS was yet another 465, this one with intact feet, two nibs on the cover, and it basically works. OK, some of CH1's ranges are peaky/touchy, and the trigger only works for >0.5 divisions, and some pots are scratchy, but with luck those should be fixable.

[mnementh]

(SNIP)

In other news, yesterday's GAS was yet another 465, this one with intact feet, two nibs on the cover, and it basically works. OK, some of CH1's ranges are peaky/touchy, and the trigger only works for >0.5 divisions, and some pots are scratchy, but with luck those should be fixable...

Famous last words... 

mnem
Best of luck, brother. See you on the other side.

[Brumby]

On a positive Note for me I found a 'spare' 5kg postbag to send @Brumby a handful of RF connectors and a few M of co-ax. cable and a few Beans. What else did I fit in under the weight  

This only just sank in.  WTF are you sending me?

Feels like Bean the Enabler is in a groove .... and that I should be worried. 

[beanflying]

This only just sank in.  WTF are you sending me?

Feels like Bean the Enabler is in a groove .... and that I should be worried. 

My Junk is now your Junk

[Brumby]

[Brumby]

Bean the Enabler

[Brumby]

Oh oh...   I just caught myself looking through eBay for GPSDOs.   

Bean - what hell hath thou brought me?!!

[Brumby]

I can't believe I'm going to ask this ....

Oh oh...   I just caught myself looking through eBay for GPSDOs.   

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Looking for something low cost with a 10MHz output.  Signal shouldn't be a problem.  Within a minute of turning on the GPS of my Galaxy S5 while just sitting at my desk, it can see around 18 to 22 satellites at any moment and can use 15 to 19 of them.

[beanflying]

Really depends on what you need out of it.

If it is in the order of Sanity checking other oscillators or a are in the ballpark or a plaything then the UBlox route is not to bad. My plaything is below and is an M8N Ublox driven by an FTDI/USB. Ublox software works well, just watch which one you buy not all are created equal. As to accuracy I have never put it up against my better GPSDO but it is a fun toy to play with. The waveform only works best at certain multiples of the internal clock otherwise it gets noisy.

Want something semi serious then the it is all about the Oscillator generally second hand inside a Chinese addon box. https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/bg7tbl-gpsdo-master-reference/ Worth a trawl through as it exposes some to avoid. A reasonably safe bet is anything Symmetricom or Trimble based and preferably make sure there is some shots of the internals to compare it against the thread. Strangely enough not all evilbay sellers are honest 

[Brumby]

Really depends on what you need out of it.

Current source of interest in getting my hands on a GPSDO with 10MHz output is to check my 8656 time base oscillators - both the standard and the 001 high stability one.

Comparison by either Lissajous figure or mixing them and checking beat frequency.  Neither of these are going to give me high/low indications, but will (hopefully) allow me to determine the absolute value of any error.

Since I'm not really tuned up on RF thinking, comments and alternative suggestions are welcome.

[bitseeker]

TEAcquired: an old, broken, analog HP power meter. Why? Feet, of course! (The knobs may come in handy later, too.)

[0culus]

TEAcquired: an old, broken, analog HP power meter. Why? Feet, of course! (The knobs may come in handy later, too.)

I found a seller on ebay that sells HP feet by the bag of 16. Pretty reasonable price and the bag I got appears to be new and unused.

[Kosmic]

I found a seller on ebay that sells HP feet by the bag of 16. Pretty reasonable price and the bag I got appears to be new and unused.

Yeah I did the same thing 

But I'm afraid it will just encourage them to always sell the feet separately.

[bitseeker]

Next, there'll be foot rationing.

My 6114A needed the older bar-style feet, which rarely come up on their own. So, I've resorted to pulling a Dr. Frankenstein.

[Kosmic]

Really depends on what you need out of it.

Current source of interest in getting my hands on a GPSDO with 10MHz output is to check my 8656 time base oscillators - both the standard and the 001 high stability one.

Comparison by either Lissajous figure or mixing them and checking beat frequency.  Neither of these are going to give me high/low indications, but will (hopefully) allow me to determine the absolute value of any error.

Since I'm not really tuned up on RF thinking, comments and alternative suggestions are welcome.

Bg7tbl gpsdo is working fine. For the price it's hard to beat. Think I paid mine less than 100$. Even came with an antenna.

[0culus]

I found a seller on ebay that sells HP feet by the bag of 16. Pretty reasonable price and the bag I got appears to be new and unused.

Yeah I did the same thing 

But I'm afraid it will just encourage them to always sell the feet separately.

I just wanted a decent supply of extras around, probably won't buy any more for a long time if ever. I've been mostly lucky to get HP stuff that still has feet so far...

[Cubdriver]

TEAcquired: an old, broken, analog HP power meter. Why? Feet, of course! (The knobs may come in handy later, too.)

I found a seller on ebay that sells HP feet by the bag of 16. Pretty reasonable price and the bag I got appears to be new and unused.

If you're referring to the guy I'm thinking of (in NJ IIRC), he's selling new feet.  Unfortunately for those of us here who get the 60s/70s era 'system' enclosure gear, they're not compatible - they're NEW new feet.  They are all plastic and fit the stuff from around the 80s and up.  Most of us are looking for the old school black feet that have the spring-loaded chrome plated locking button.  THOSE are only slightly more common than hen's teeth, and the wide ones used on the smaller half- and third- rack sized  enclosures are well and truly unicorn like in their rarity.

-Pat

[bd139]

There's someone sitting there in an armchair somewhere in the world with a big grin and a necklace made of HP feet.

[syau]

TEAcquired: an old, broken, analog HP power meter. Why? Feet, of course! (The knobs may come in handy later, too.)

I found a seller on ebay that sells HP feet by the bag of 16. Pretty reasonable price and the bag I got appears to be new and unused.

If you're referring to the guy I'm thinking of (in NJ IIRC), he's selling new feet.  Unfortunately for those of us here who get the 60s/70s era 'system' enclosure gear, they're not compatible - they're NEW new feet.  They are all plastic and fit the stuff from around the 80s and up.  Most of us are looking for the old school black feet that have the spring-loaded chrome plated locking button.  THOSE are only slightly more common than hen's teeth, and the wide ones used on the smaller half- and third- rack sized  enclosures are well and truly unicorn like in their rarity.

-Pat

Bought a whole box of new feet with bails (Total 100) from evilbay few months ago. Never shortage of feet  But yes, they are the post 80s feet.

[Brumby]

Looks like a GPSDO is not in the budget just yet.

Does anyone have some creative ideas on how to check 10MHz sine waves to some level of accuracy?

[beanflying]

I have a bit of time tomorrow so I will drop the M8N (TCXO) against my GPSDO and see how it looks. There was some threads using one of these to discipline an external oscillator if you have a search and there is some information on the Ublox datasheets too from what I remember.

I wanted to have another look at it for something else anyway so a good excuse 

[PA0PBZ]

Looks like a GPSDO is not in the budget just yet.

Does anyone have some creative ideas on how to check 10MHz sine waves to some level of accuracy?

Before we had al this modern stuff it used to be WWV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWV_(radio_station)

[Brumby]

In Australia, we had VNG - but that all shut down in 2002.