Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[BU508A]

Incoming queue +1

Today, my HP 3460A arrived. Delivered via Hermes.
The packet is looking okay from the outside, but when I opened the box, I found this: 



     

I checked the meter from the outside but it seemed to be undamaged. Except for this switch:



But, to be fair, on the pictures from the seller this switch looks also damaged. So I am not sure if it was damaged during transportation.

The trigger lamp is loose, too.



Once this meter belonged to the Heinrich Hertz Institut in Berlin/Charlottenburg.



Mains on the rear side. Last safety check on 2001 was successful.



Hmm, dare to power up this thing? Grabbed my Grundig RT 5A and connected the 3460 to its output.
Voltage adjusted to 230V. Well, let's see what  will happen. What could go wrong?

First, inputs shortened:



Glad, it did not explode. A reason could be, bd139 wasn't there. 

How about 5V?



Not bad but not really spot on.
The display is also a bit dull and dim.
This poor little thing needs some loving care and a good cleaning.
I hope, I can found this switch somewhere and the mechanical damage is not that big.
But this is a project for later, I will put it back into my incoming queue.

[mnementh]

Quick "I made some test gear" post. This is a Tayloe SWR indicator. Note not meter. Basically it's a quick "is the SWR close to 1:1" or not circuit...      

I think you just needed to get your inductor-winding fix. 

mnem
Fuck Henry and every last one of his little micros.

Got to be honest here. I love winding the things. I’m like some old woman doing her knitting. Just sit in front of Netflix winding them all night

Heh... well, you're pretty good at it. What do you do; wind them on a former then "screw" them onto the toroid? The turns are so round and uniform, I can't believe you form them in place.

mnem
*motor rewinder from way back*

[bd139]

No tools for the winding at all. Just wire, toroid, fingers. No former, no hook, nothing. You thread through and press against each side. Once they are wound I use a spudger to nudge the windings equal and that's it.

Have some more.



I get sooooo anal about these it's unreal 

Edit: just counted up and I reckon I've would a good 200 or so of the buggers over the years.

[tautech]

Am considering selling it and getting one that covers VHF as well as this is the cheap up to 6m one.

You know that SVA that did VNA mode down to 10 MHz, well it don't any more, it goes all the way down to 100KHz now so to cover your HAM bands.
OS rewrite and a major FW upgrade are to thank for it.

Perfect tool for you bd !

[bd139]

Am considering selling it and getting one that covers VHF as well as this is the cheap up to 6m one.

You know that SVA that did VNA mode down to 10 MHz, well it don't any more, it goes all the way down to 100KHz now so to cover your HAM bands.
OS rewrite and a major FW upgrade are to thank for it.

Perfect tool for you bd !

LMAO I spent the SVA budget on the K2 unfortunately. Maybe next year 

TBH I've got the cash but I'm reluctant to let it go at the moment what with Brexshit on the doorstep. It might keep value more than our currency though  ... perhaps I can write it off as diversified investments 

[mnementh]

No tools for the winding at all. Just wire, toroid, fingers. No former, no hook, nothing. You thread through and press against each side. Once they are wound I use a spudger to nudge the windings equal and that's it.

Have some more.      I get sooooo anal about these it's unreal 

Edit: just counted up and I reckon I've wound a good 200 or so of the buggers over the years.

So the truth finally comes out... THAT is why you bought the K2. 

mnem 
"Honest... it wasn't me, it was the addiction made me do it..."   

[bd139]

No tools for the winding at all. Just wire, toroid, fingers. No former, no hook, nothing. You thread through and press against each side. Once they are wound I use a spudger to nudge the windings equal and that's it.

Have some more.      I get sooooo anal about these it's unreal 

Edit: just counted up and I reckon I've wound a good 200 or so of the buggers over the years.

So the truth finally comes out... THAT is why you bought the K2. 

mnem 
"Honest... it wasn't me, it was the addiction made me do it..."   

Hahaha not far from it 

Someone is actually paying me to build a QRP Labs QCX for them (I've built I think 5 now). That's got some fun ones in it. This is the first QCX I did. T1 is a complete bastard. I love it 



Edit: above is a tuned phase splitter network. RF goes in and is pumped, out of phase into a bus switch which is driven by two 90 degree phased signals from an Si5351A. Out pops I and Q signals! This is, ironically perhaps, invented by Dan Tayloe who came up with the SWR indicator above.

on a completely unrelated matter I just bought me a couple of loads of these bad boys. Been after some for years!

[tggzzz]

Am considering selling it and getting one that covers VHF as well as this is the cheap up to 6m one.

You know that SVA that did VNA mode down to 10 MHz, well it don't any more, it goes all the way down to 100KHz now so to cover your HAM bands.
OS rewrite and a major FW upgrade are to thank for it.

Perfect tool for you bd !

LMAO I spent the SVA budget on the K2 unfortunately. Maybe next year 

TBH I've got the cash but I'm reluctant to let it go at the moment what with Brexshit on the doorstep. It might keep value more than our currency though  ... perhaps I can write it off as diversified investments 

Well, not all of our currency.

My Britannias are appreciating in value nicely at the moment. And since they are coins of the realm, they are not subject to CGT or other taxation.

[mnementh]

Straight Outta the "Holy HTML from HELL!" Department:

I just cloned my FireFox profile from the old machine over to this one; typical size of a newborn profile is 10-15MB. Mine is over half a gig.

I really don't know how many times I've done this over the decades, but I have links in there from GeoCities and TriPod...  I think I'll embrace the madness and pass my bookmarks on to my son.

mnem

[mnementh]

I'm the WORST Daddy...



A few minutes ago, my son comes over while I'm tinkering on the the new machine and points to the post right above this:

"Daddy, what does that word mean?"

"Well, son... every thing you see on the internet... what you and I see, is just a thin layer on top of the real bits & bytes that the internet is made of. What the computer sees is THIS..."

*Clicks on Browser Console and exposes his poor 11-year-old-son's undeveloped mind to a 32" display full of RAW, UNFILTERED HTML*

"And what's really amazing son... The internet is made of millions and millions of server computers all over the world; each and every one of which is full of thousands and millions of pages JUST LIKE THAT ONE...!"

 ... ... ...

"Daddy, I think my brain just broke."


mnem

[Mr. Scram]

Fire up the oscilloscope and show that kid a proper digital signal already. 

[0culus]

Fire up the oscilloscope and show that kid a proper digital signal already. 

[mnementh]

I was about to quip "There is no such thing...!" but that was SO MUCH BETTER...   

mnem
 

[Mr. Scram]

Are you saying it's a perfect match, 0culus? 

[0culus]

Are you saying it's a perfect match, 0culus? 

I mean, that particular Widlar-ism is the only worthwhile comeback for showing a kid a digital signal.   

[Brumby]

Yeah.  I've noticed this on both price and range - which makes this instance unusual.  It will only cost me $1 to find out.

Still a couple of days until payday.  Will use that time to consider whether I get my feet wet with Amazon....


EDIT: Just looked at the prices again ... I got that backwards.  The Amazon seller will be $1 cheaper, as I originally stated.

Pulled the trigger.  (Just seemed pointless to think about it any longer.... )

Am trying the seller on Amazon AU, who will be doing fulfillment.  Looks like it will take a week or more to get it...

[mnementh]

Are you saying it's a perfect match, 0culus? 

Impedance matched, even. 

I mean, that particular Widlar-ism is the only worthwhile comeback for showing a kid a digital signal.   

The inverted output, you might say... 

mnem
*ducks soggy ol' boot thrown from stage right*

[Cubdriver]

Incoming queue +1

Today, my HP 3460A arrived. Delivered via Hermes.
The packet is looking okay from the outside, but when I opened the box, I found this: 



     

I checked the meter from the outside but it seemed to be undamaged. Except for this switch:



But, to be fair, on the pictures from the seller this switch looks also damaged. So I am not sure if it was damaged during transportation.

The trigger lamp is loose, too.



Once this meter belonged to the Heinrich Hertz Institut in Berlin/Charlottenburg.



Mains on the rear side. Last safety check on 2001 was successful.



Hmm, dare to power up this thing? Grabbed my Grundig RT 5A and connected the 3460 to its output.
Voltage adjusted to 230V. Well, let's see what  will happen. What could go wrong?

First, inputs shortened:



Glad, it did not explode. A reason could be, bd139 wasn't there. 

How about 5V?



Not bad but not really spot on.
The display is also a bit dull and dim.
This poor little thing needs some loving care and a good cleaning.
I hope, I can found this switch somewhere and the mechanical damage is not that big.
But this is a project for later, I will put it back into my incoming queue.

I would suspect that the dull, dim display is the result of 45+ years worth of crud build up on the orange filter, and likely the faces of the tubes themselves.  I expect that some gentle cleaning of either or both if needed will result in a much clearer, crisper display.

And that said - WTF?      How does someone put a large, heavy instrument like that into a cardboard box, stuff last week's torn up Amazon cartons and some crumpled up newspaper in with it, and then step back and declare it packaged in a manner for for shipment?  Jesus H. Tap-dancing Christ!  Packing things is neither rocket surgery nor brain science!  WTF?  It's simple, yet eludes so many people.   

I hope the voltmeter didn't suffer any damage.  The good thing about these old beasts is that not only does their weight make them feel like they're filled with concrete, their mechanical robustness in many cases approaches that of a cement block, too.  My fingers are crossed that no damage was done during shipment.

-Pat

[bitseeker]

Thinking maybe I should wipe the drives individually with Partition Manager; just something NOT Windoze.

What I am doing, if I want to wipe drives:

- download grml    https://grml.org/
- create a bootable USB stick from the image (or a CD/DVD)
- boot grml
- once grml has been booted, check for your drives
   cat /proc/partitions
   this gives you a list of the installed drives, in most cases /dev/sda or /dev/hda is your first hard disk drive
- be careful with the next commands!
- if you want to wipe the first hard disk drive, e.g. /dev/sda, then do this:
         dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1024k count=1000
  this will write zeros from the very first bit of the disk drive up to one gigabyte (nearly, 1000 instead of 1024)

After this procedures, your disk is as good as new.

If you want to wipe the complete disk, then do this:

        dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

But this may take up to several hours to finish.
This is useful, if you are going to sell storage devices and want to wipe them completely.
The dd command is one of the most reliable tools in this respect I'm knowing.
dd is also used for forensic stuff if you need to create a copy image of a storage device.

For rescue operations, I use SystemRescueCd. For wiping, DBAN.

However, with HDD sector remapping and SSD wear leveling, software-only wiping may not wipe everything.

[mnementh]

...aaaaand we've just gone r3cursive. Aga1n. 

mnem
I've been using the personal confuser in question... to post in here... for two days. 

[bitseeker]

DBAN imaged to a bootable USB FTW, dude. Start it, click it and forget it for the day and a half it takes to do a proper wipe. 

But that conversation was taken out of context; I just wanted to wipe the MBR with something NOT MicroSuck as I was half-convinced they might have written a "no-go flag" to drive zero of my brand-new RAID. 

Turned out, as usual, to be part software suckage/part PEBKAC error. 

D'oh. Already resolved.

[bitseeker]

...aaaaand we've just gone r3cursive. Aga1n. 

Yep, too many posts to catch up on. If I read them all, first, then I have to track which ones to reply to. That's too much like work.

[bitseeker]

Yeah.  I've noticed this on both price and range - which makes this instance unusual.  It will only cost me $1 to find out.

Still a couple of days until payday.  Will use that time to consider whether I get my feet wet with Amazon....


EDIT: Just looked at the prices again ... I got that backwards.  The Amazon seller will be $1 cheaper, as I originally stated.

Pulled the trigger.  (Just seemed pointless to think about it any longer.... )

Am trying the seller on Amazon AU, who will be doing fulfillment.  Looks like it will take a week or more to get it...

Good choice of clamp meter. No need to think too much about it. At least it's a small bit of TE. Just a snack for TEA time, really.

[VK5RC]

...aaaaand we've just gone r3cursive. Aga1n. 

Yep, too many posts to catch up on. If I read them all, first, then I have to track which ones to reply to. That's too much like work.

Is there an acronym for the "fear of not reading the TEA posts regularly otherwise it is almost impossible to catch up"?
FONRTPR-THTCU

Apologies - Rob

PS
Re that packing - I had a scope arrive in a similar packing - cardboard and crumpled newspaper FFS - fortunately only one knob down.

[mnementh]

...aaaaand we've just gone r3cursive. Aga1n. 

Yep, too many posts to catch up on. If I read them all, first, then I have to track which ones to reply to. That's too much like work.

Yeah; that's how those WOT posts I do from time to time come to be... I've gotten in the habit of copying the posts I want to respond all to a WordPad so I can cull out the ones that are resolved beyond any need for my tuppence worth. Usually I break them up into individual response posts; but sometimes I'm just so far beyond used up I just post the towering edifice and toddle off to ded.

Is there an acronym for the "fear of not reading the TEA posts regularly otherwise it is almost impossible to catch up"?
FONRTPR-THTCU - Apologies - Rob

PS - Re that packing - I had a scope arrive in a similar packing - cardboard and crumpled newspaper FFS - fortunately only one knob down.

fnord is the blue lines in the road that never get painted...

mnem
Cthulhu, is that you?