Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[EV]

I think it is probably tetrode. In the attachment is base of triode B409. This tube has additionally this stud on base.

Does someone recognize the vacuum tube in the attached picture?

Being just 4 pin.....a rectifier but the stud on the base ? 

[Cerebus]

This is a broad church

Judging from a lot of us, and all the talk of comestibles, this is a broad bottomed church.

[Cerebus]

It does have a certain utilitarian non capitalist thing going on 

I'd say it has more of a secondhand Dieter Rams feel to it. Rams was a hugely influential West German designer, best known for his work for Braun. e.g.:

[tggzzz]

This is a broad church

Judging from a lot of us, and all the talk of comestibles, this is a broad bottomed church.

I can still get into the Rocky Horror Show (not Picture!) tshirt I bought in 1973 I don't because it is becoming brittle with age, much like me

Off to buy some blueberry and spiced gin ice cream... I can feel my arteries hardening.

[EV]

I was able to read the very faint text on the bulb! It is Telefunken RES164d.

I think it is probably tetrode. In the attachment is base of triode B409. This tube has additionally this stud on base.

Does someone recognize the vacuum tube in the attached picture?

Being just 4 pin.....a rectifier but the stud on the base ? 

[med6753]

This is a broad church

Judging from a lot of us, and all the talk of comestibles, this is a broad bottomed church.

Not here. 

[med6753]

Talking of fluke products, just left the radio rally empty handed. Bugger all of interest at prices which didn’t exceed eBay. Literally Fluke counter for £40 that wasn’t even tested. Blown up Tek 2235 covered in bird shit for £15. Nope!

Apparently I'm not the only one getting skunked at ham fests. 

Were the Hobos sitting around enjoying tea and biscuits? 

[bd139]

Yeah wondering if stuff is starting to get in short supply. It might also be I’m less inclined to hawk overpriced variable capacitors on eBay these days because I can’t be arsed. Home now. Some highlights:

1. Aforementioned shit covered tek 2235 with blown up power supply £15
2. Fluke 1900A untested £40
3. Farnell L30 hooky power supply with cracked meters £35
4. Various boxes of shite £way too much.
5. Old CBs all clearly fucked £way too much.
6. Some old Codar crap £150 lol no.
7. Lots of Yaesu FT450’s for north of £300
8. Hameg 20Mhz scope which looked like it lived in a paint shop £25
9. Lots of cranky old dangerous looking ex equipment linear supplies £20 ish a go
10. Wet coax lengths
11. Someone hawking PL259’s from China for £2.50 a go.
12. Nice selection of RCA AR88’s (interesting but I’m not buying one)
13. Someone trying a marketing drive for a ham radio podcast.
14. Lots of people who really need to cut down on the red meats and cream
15. Some dude on a biddy buggy mowing down people with walking sticks.
16. Jesus’ very own HT. Was made of wood.
17. A Citroen C4 cactus ironically with lots of 2m / 70cm spikes on it.
18. Lots of Sunday driving and shitty parking.

Added to skip list next year.

As for the hobos, they were trying to talk a gassy tube down to 5 pence.

[nixiefreqq]

no idea where that crusty old toaster came from.

but the rotten kid who has not lived with us in 20 years has some kind of emotional attachment to it.  when she moved out of the dorm our toaster went to an off campus apartment and that thing showed up as a replacement.  have never figured out what thrift store or dumpster it came out of.......at the time was told "don't ask"......and that is the way it has been since 1996.  if you hear that the freqs house burnt down you know the probable cause.

[nixiefreqq]

Yeah wondering if stuff is starting to get in short supply. It might also be I’m less inclined to hawk overpriced variable capacitors on eBay these days because I can’t be arsed. Home now. Some highlights:

1. Aforementioned shit covered tek 2235 with blown up power supply £15
2. Fluke 1900A untested £40
3. Farnell L30 hooky power supply with cracked meters £35
4. Various boxes of shite £way too much.
5. Old CBs all clearly fucked £way too much.
6. Some old Codar crap £150 lol no.
7. Lots of Yaesu FT450’s for north of £300
8. Hameg 20Mhz scope which looked like it lived in a paint shop £25
9. Lots of cranky old dangerous looking ex equipment linear supplies £20 ish a go
10. Wet coax lengths
11. Someone hawking PL259’s from China for £2.50 a go.
12. Nice selection of RCA AR88’s (interesting but I’m not buying one)
13. Someone trying a marketing drive for a ham radio podcast.
14. Lots of people who really need to cut down on the red meats and cream
15. Some dude on a biddy buggy mowing down people with walking sticks.
16. Jesus’ very own HT. Was made of wood.
17. A Citroen C4 cactus ironically with lots of 2m / 70cm spikes on it.
18. Lots of Sunday driving and shitty parking.

Added to skip list next year.

As for the hobos, they were trying to talk a gassy tube down to 5 pence.

#16 made me choke on my stroopwafle.

[med6753]

Yeah wondering if stuff is starting to get in short supply. It might also be I’m less inclined to hawk overpriced variable capacitors on eBay these days because I can’t be arsed. Home now. Some highlights:

1. Aforementioned shit covered tek 2235 with blown up power supply £15
2. Fluke 1900A untested £40
3. Farnell L30 hooky power supply with cracked meters £35
4. Various boxes of shite £way too much.
5. Old CBs all clearly fucked £way too much.
6. Some old Codar crap £150 lol no.
7. Lots of Yaesu FT450’s for north of £300
8. Hameg 20Mhz scope which looked like it lived in a paint shop £25
9. Lots of cranky old dangerous looking ex equipment linear supplies £20 ish a go
10. Wet coax lengths
11. Someone hawking PL259’s from China for £2.50 a go.
12. Nice selection of RCA AR88’s (interesting but I’m not buying one)
13. Someone trying a marketing drive for a ham radio podcast.
14. Lots of people who really need to cut down on the red meats and cream
15. Some dude on a biddy buggy mowing down people with walking sticks.
16. Jesus’ very own HT. Was made of wood.
17. A Citroen C4 cactus ironically with lots of 2m / 70cm spikes on it.
18. Lots of Sunday driving and shitty parking.

Added to skip list next year.

As for the hobos, they were trying to talk a gassy tube down to 5 pence.

Number 2: I paid much less than that for a fully functional 1900A.   

Number 12: What are RCA AR-88's? (Too lazy to Google at the moment)

Reason number 23 why I do extensive burn-in's. The Vertical pre-amp in the RCA scope experienced a total crap out. Would not pass a signal. Flat line trace. Ever see a shorted plain jane 10K linear taper pot? Neither have I, until today. The Vertical gain pot went tits up shorted on the outer pins. Freaking weird but I verified it when I pulled it. I was going to pull it apart to find out how/why but I said screw it and binned it. Installed replacement and now working. 

[bd139]

Never seen a short with a pot. They usually go open and that’s usually quite spectacular.

RCA AR88 is WW2 HF receiver. More info from one of my favourite web sites https://www.cryptomuseum.com/df/ar88/index.htm

[med6753]

Never seen a short with a pot. They usually go open and that’s usually quite spectacular.

RCA AR88 is WW2 HF receiver. More info from one of my favourite web sites https://www.cryptomuseum.com/df/ar88/index.htm

That site dusted out the cob webs in my brain and....oh yea....I have heard of AR-88's.   

[mnementh]

   For no other reason than because nixiefreqq should've just about gotten over the LAST time I posted this pic...

mnem
*toddles off to ded*

Cmon, you gotta get some RPN action in there to really send him over the deep end. 

 

Ummmmm... Reverse Polish pot Roast...?

After spending 2 hours chopping veggies, searing the meat, and loading up the roaster... ...it seems outright criminal to cover it all in foil and hide it away in the oven for 6 hours. 

mnem
But it WILL be worth it.

[mnementh]

4 Bucks & a Uncle Henry

These are the staple of my kitchen right now; not one of them cost me more than $4 (the 6in Ikea chef/paring knife came from the trash with a broken tip; it was the only one I brought with me) from the thrift or from the Dollarama. Note that the "pigsticker" is a STEAK KNIFE; it was a souvenir of a family dinner with my dad in NYC.



THESE are what I've had in my pocket since I met my wife; and both have the battle scars to prove it. A proper gentleman's knife, the "Officier Suisse" has performed yeoman service for close to 2 decades. The 3W (modded to 5W a couple years ago) SureFire C3 has been my EDC ever since DealExtreme was brand new, and this is probably the 4th or 5th iteration due to loss or catastrophic damage.

mnem
*off to go "grocery shopping" at Sayal Electronics*

[factory]

Mmmm German Nixies lucky for me the postage kills it  eBay auction: #333345933461 Lots of other interesting goodies from the same seller too.

That seems to be one of these, DC voltmeter model G1206, not too many digits but has three symbol/letter tubes;
https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/funkwe_erf_dc_digitalvoltmeter_g1206.html

David

[Neomys Sapiens]

It does have a certain utilitarian non capitalist thing going on 

I'd say it has more of a secondhand Dieter Rams feel to it. Rams was a hugely influential West German designer, best known for his work for Braun. e.g.:

Nooo. You are giving RFT far too much credit there.
Anyone who knew how much that system was based on blatant lies would refrain from using their instruments. Like a instrument being 50% off and then relabled as measuring 'socialist Volts'.

[Neomys Sapiens]

I am concerned about the lack of Bacon specific mentions since he went North of the Border #spagettiisnotasubstituteforbacon 

You have to remember that 'merkin bacon is not quite the real thing^* (like 'merkin cheese); so much so that 'merkins use "Canadian bacon" as a generic for what the rest of the world thinks of as bacon. He's probably just taking a while to get used to the real thing and, pauses for a gasp, the dragon's taking it slowly on the bacon consumption until his taste buds adjust. 

^* I'm actually being serious here. 'Merkin bacon is like what we'd call in Britain streaky bacon. 'Merkin bacon is sliced cured pork belly, just the belly. Canadian bacon, or just 'bacon' in the rest of the world is the cured sliced loin of the pig with 10-12 inches of layered meat and fat from the back/side of the pig attached. So 'merkin bacon has a much higher proportion of fat to meat than 'bacon' or even British streaky bacon. 'Merkin cheese on the other hand is what they used to use to make white-wall tyres for Trabants and is not a foodstuff as the rest of the world recognises it.

You should also mention that the "curing" process includes salting, drying (unless it is that Danish abomination), and optionally smoking (or at least injected "essence of smoke).

The Danish bacon abomination was a marketing triumph from 40 years ago. They started injecting polyphosphate solutions (contemporary advert: "why sell meat when you can sell water"), which escapes and makes a white puddle when frying the Danish "bacon". The puddle mixed with the fat, flashes to steam, and spatters oil/water emulsion all over the hob/sideboard. Oh joy.

So they did a PT Barnum (white salmon marketed as "guaranteed not to go orange in the tin"), and heavy advertising persuaded twats that the sizzling sound was a virtue ("Danissssssh bacon").

As for cheese, general conclusions:

• best hard cheese: British
• best soft cheese: French and Italian
• American cheese: OK for gluing other cooking ingredients together; remarkable that people strived to make something with so little taste and texture. Poor in mousetraps: peanut butter is better
• other: avoid, except as a means of preserving milk

If you put a 'and Italian' behind the 'British' too, you've nailed it.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Hi again!

All the cheese/bacon/egg/food discussion made it a lot easier to follow the thread the last days...   

Not exactly true.
(returns from snack)

[Neomys Sapiens]

@bd139: What's a HT?

[bd139]

@bd139: What's a HT?

Handy Talky (usually and hand held VHF 2m/70cm radio).

Not German “handy”

Edit: all this food talk made me make a bacon and egg sandwich.

[Specmaster]

Yeah wondering if stuff is starting to get in short supply. It might also be I’m less inclined to hawk overpriced variable capacitors on eBay these days because I can’t be arsed. Home now. Some highlights:

1. Aforementioned shit covered tek 2235 with blown up power supply £15
2. Fluke 1900A untested £40
3. Farnell L30 hooky power supply with cracked meters £35
4. Various boxes of shite £way too much.
5. Old CBs all clearly fucked £way too much.
6. Some old Codar crap £150 lol no.
7. Lots of Yaesu FT450’s for north of £300
8. Hameg 20Mhz scope which looked like it lived in a paint shop £25
9. Lots of cranky old dangerous looking ex equipment linear supplies £20 ish a go
10. Wet coax lengths
11. Someone hawking PL259’s from China for £2.50 a go.
12. Nice selection of RCA AR88’s (interesting but I’m not buying one)
13. Someone trying a marketing drive for a ham radio podcast.
14. Lots of people who really need to cut down on the red meats and cream
15. Some dude on a biddy buggy mowing down people with walking sticks.
16. Jesus’ very own HT. Was made of wood.
17. A Citroen C4 cactus ironically with lots of 2m / 70cm spikes on it.
18. Lots of Sunday driving and shitty parking.

Added to skip list next year.

As for the hobos, they were trying to talk a gassy tube down to 5 pence.

Never mind, you did get a free cup of tea, or I suppose in your case, not because it wasn't coffee  I must admit when I checked out the link you kindly supplied, I wasn't that impressed, reminded me of a typical table sale organsied and run by the hobos 

[bd139]

Tea and coffee looked shit so I got myself a Costa on the way home 

Just put the Christmas tree up. Unfortunately bought some new lights and the sodding things were battery powered. 200 LEDs battery powered    Fortunately it has a 3 cell AA holder thus 4.5V. Pulled 100mA so I dug out an old Nokia charger and a USB cable and did some surgery and added 4.7 ohms in series to drop half a volt. Problem solved and it didn’t cost a penny to fix!

[tggzzz]

I am concerned about the lack of Bacon specific mentions since he went North of the Border #spagettiisnotasubstituteforbacon 

You have to remember that 'merkin bacon is not quite the real thing^* (like 'merkin cheese); so much so that 'merkins use "Canadian bacon" as a generic for what the rest of the world thinks of as bacon. He's probably just taking a while to get used to the real thing and, pauses for a gasp, the dragon's taking it slowly on the bacon consumption until his taste buds adjust. 

^* I'm actually being serious here. 'Merkin bacon is like what we'd call in Britain streaky bacon. 'Merkin bacon is sliced cured pork belly, just the belly. Canadian bacon, or just 'bacon' in the rest of the world is the cured sliced loin of the pig with 10-12 inches of layered meat and fat from the back/side of the pig attached. So 'merkin bacon has a much higher proportion of fat to meat than 'bacon' or even British streaky bacon. 'Merkin cheese on the other hand is what they used to use to make white-wall tyres for Trabants and is not a foodstuff as the rest of the world recognises it.

You should also mention that the "curing" process includes salting, drying (unless it is that Danish abomination), and optionally smoking (or at least injected "essence of smoke).

The Danish bacon abomination was a marketing triumph from 40 years ago. They started injecting polyphosphate solutions (contemporary advert: "why sell meat when you can sell water"), which escapes and makes a white puddle when frying the Danish "bacon". The puddle mixed with the fat, flashes to steam, and spatters oil/water emulsion all over the hob/sideboard. Oh joy.

So they did a PT Barnum (white salmon marketed as "guaranteed not to go orange in the tin"), and heavy advertising persuaded twats that the sizzling sound was a virtue ("Danissssssh bacon").

As for cheese, general conclusions:

• best hard cheese: British
• best soft cheese: French and Italian
• American cheese: OK for gluing other cooking ingredients together; remarkable that people strived to make something with so little taste and texture. Poor in mousetraps: peanut butter is better
• other: avoid, except as a means of preserving milk

If you put a 'and Italian' behind the 'British' too, you've nailed it.

If you're thinking of more than parmesan, it would need explanation

I don't regard parmesan as a cheese. Cheese is something to be savoured on its own or with a good unbuttered bread (or beer!). Parmesan is a (rather nice) cooking ingredient.

Yes, I'm a fan of Humpty Dumpty, and words are not my master

[mnementh]

Tea and coffee looked shit so I got myself a Costa on the way home 

Just put the Christmas tree up. Unfortunately bought some new lights and the sodding things were battery powered. 200 LEDs battery powered    Fortunately it has a 3 cell AA holder thus 4.5V. Pulled 100mA so I dug out an old Nokia charger and a USB cable and did some surgery and added 4.7 ohms in series to drop half a volt. Problem solved and it didn’t cost a penny to fix!

Just had a very similar adventure with some little $4 desk lamps from the Dollarama; in fact, my grocery shopping an hour or so ago included some 3.3 ohm/3W resistors for ballasts. We bought the little desk lamps cuz they were cheap, but convenient as they are bred like rabbits and we quickly ran out of NiMH AAs for them. 😝  So I soldered a spare USB cable inside one, figuring "this thing has a commodity LED driver IC with touch sense with 3-level PWM output control; surely it has current limiting..."

Yeah, it has current limiting alright... The IR of the batteries themselves. 🙄  Plug it into a 1A Apple phone cube, not some random cheapie, and it lights up great; nice & bright. But after about 5 minutes I start to smell warm ABS and the power cube is hotter than a $2 pistol. Worse yet, I can feel warmth in the middle portion of the upright stalk, a place where I know there's NOTHING with angry pixies in it except a couple 26 gauge-ish wires.   

Some minutes of Fluke-vestigation later, I discover it's pushing 1.3A on HIGH compared to 700mA with batteries; dropping 2.2V across those 26 ga wires.    So I scrounge around in my stuff and find a 3.3 ohm 1/2W power resistor from a junk PCB; it's perfect, dropping current to 800mA and everything is running cold as a stone except the resistor itself which is "sizzle-your-finger" hot. A little head-scratching later I realize that since all my resistor assortment is 1/4W, there's no really feasible way to make that up for 5 or 6 of these little lamps while dissipating a total of approx 1.5W per unit.

Now at this time I've lost my sense of humor about Mr Ohm and just want the damned thing buttoned up & off my bench, so I scrounge up a little scrap of aluminum strip, fold it over the resistor, then squeeze some thermal grease inside to make a 1/2W resistor handle almost 2. 30 min later the mass is just warm to the touch, so I button things up & call it a win.

mnem
Except for the other 4 or 5 similar lamps calling my name from other rooms in the house...