Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

I'm in. This could be a good backup for EEVblog forum if Dave drops dead or gniff is drunk one day

[mnementh]

Trying to think of some way these could be useful on the bench; they're available locally at surplus auction. Appears they're designed to be used for calibrating motor drive panels and Electric Co meters & such.

mnem
is wrong with me... up at this hour thinking about stupid shit like this. *Knocks self unconscious with a clock mallet*

Yeah. It's getting worse. Throwing boots. Building Snodas. Thinking about strange gear. Yep.

MRMRB.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg2827602/#msg2827602

No lie there... but Snoda was the neighbor kids. 

mnem
I may have posed for it, however... 

[xrunner]

Worsthorse, PA0PBZ, and I tried out the voice and it worked great. No need to install anything and the quality was excellent.

I gotta run, but feel free to test it some more. It's really cool talking with folks in real time, both text and voice.

I got it working - my gawd what have you unleashed on us. 

[Specmaster]

Well it seems that DPD have well and truly fucking lost my K7105, the seller has supplied them with a description of the parcel (rectangular and bleeding brown  ) and photo of it, bleeding ding bats  Just have to sit and wait while they pretend to look for it and come back with "na can't find it mate, sorry".

Feeling a little better because I paid with PayPal and said it was goods / services so at worst I should get my money back 

Here especially for those ding bats at DPD is a artist sketch of what it looks like, good luck finding it with the aid of the picture. 

Edit I have found something else to help wile away the Christmas boredom until things return to normal, but hang on whats that... the bloody seller is away until after Christmas, oh FFS 

[beanflying]

The question is will discord slow the rate of posting here or just fragment and lose forever quality and useful information that is shared 

Last time I set up a live chat room on a forum I had to kick people in the butt to add it to the forum to avoid losing it among the daily dribble. Even posts like kj7e's above will not search well for others down the track and are worthy of their own thread.

I really need coffee now my brain hurts.....

[bd139]

Well it seems that DPD have well and truly fucking lost my K7105, the seller has supplied them with a description of the parcel (rectangular and bleeding brown  ) and photo of it, bleeding ding bats  Just have to sit and wait while they pretend to look for it and come back with "na can't find it mate, sorry".

Feeling a little better because I paid with PayPal and said it was goods / services so at worst I should get my money back 

Here especially for those ding bats at DPD is a artist sketch of what it looks like, good luck finding it with the aid of the picture. 

Edit I have found something else to help wile away the Christmas boredom until thing return to normal, but hang on the whats that... the bloody seller is away until after Christmas, oh FFS 

Probably got their xmas zero hour contract slaves on and one of them was a zero hours contract thief

Hope you get your cash back!

The question is will discord slow the rate of posting here or just fragment and lose forever quality and useful information that is shared 

Last time I set up a live chat room on a forum I had to kick people in the butt to add it to the forum to avoid losing it among the daily dribble. Even posts like kj7e's above will not search well for others down the track and are worthy of their own thread.

I really need coffee now my brain hurts.....

I use Slack all day every day which is similar. It's only for transient stuff. Anything significant it's better to write up and put somewhere else, public. So we certainly shouldn't migrate stuff into there. Walled gardens are bad. Even this forum is a scary walled garden.

[mansaxel]

so far i've talked myself off the ledge as i don't need another expensive scope. i don't need a scope at all. and  i really don't need an expensive scope that i don't need four days before christmas...

I've stopped myself from buying more frequency counters, by only sending low, low offers on them. The Philips one I got from Poland was broken in transit. LCD smashed, but it is quite OK free-wheeling and of course dead on if measuring my GPS' 10MHz while locked to it... So, I need another. And it gotta be cheap.  I have three now, but no complete, working Philips. Annoying.

In other news, I've found that I need extender boards. Both for TM500, which is easy, albeit not cheap, and the Studer 169/269 mixing desk, which is neither cheap nor easy. But doable.

The TM500 is for a distorsion analyser, which is very nervous on input. The oscillator in the same frame is OK, but the analyser is sick.

The 169 desk is in need of alignment and fault finding. One master bus is dead, probably something broken on the mix limiter, and both echo send and foldback send peg their meters but work otherwise. With a good deal of hum. Smells HF oscillation.

[Cerebus]

*sigh*  there's a 500MHz four channel Tek TDS3054 with a couple of the add-ons modules installed on craigslist locally. its been there for a couple weeks because it ain't cheap. in the last week, i've come close to making an offer (contingent on being able to test it) three or four times.

so far i've talked myself off the ledge as i don't need another expensive scope. i don't need a scope at all. and  i really don't need an expensive scope that i don't need four days before christmas...

Fx: sings

Meet on the ledge, we're gonna meet on the ledge
When my time is up I'll see all my friends
Meet on the ledge, we're gonna meet on the ledge
If you really mean it, it all comes round again

[med6753]

The question is will discord slow the rate of posting here or just fragment and lose forever quality and useful information that is shared 

Last time I set up a live chat room on a forum I had to kick people in the butt to add it to the forum to avoid losing it among the daily dribble. Even posts like kj7e's above will not search well for others down the track and are worthy of their own thread.

I really need coffee now my brain hurts.....

I tired it and it worked great. 

I think to prevent dilution of activity here that the discord should perhaps be limited to once a week.....on a Saturday as was suggested. 

[BU508A]

I stumbled over this seller in ebay while looking for some kits for self-assembling.

https://www.ebay.com/str/Ascel-Electronic

They look to me quite reasonable.

For example, this is a 5.8 GHz counter with power meter, 1ppm TXCO, USB interface and software in a machined case for ca. 188 U$ plus shipping.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/261582387430



or some nice looking Kelvin cables for LCR meters for ca. U$ 45.-

https://www.ebay.com/itm/261229536197



No affiliations with the seller, just want to let you know.

[worsthorse]

so far i've talked myself off the ledge as i don't need another expensive scope. i don't need a scope at all. and  i really don't need an expensive scope that i don't need four days before christmas...

I've stopped myself from buying more frequency counters, by only sending low, low offers on them. The Philips one I got from Poland was broken in transit. LCD smashed, but it is quite OK free-wheeling and of course dead on if measuring my GPS' 10MHz while locked to it... So, I need another. And it gotta be cheap.  I have three now, but no complete, working Philips. Annoying.

In other news, I've found that I need extender boards. Both for TM500, which is easy, albeit not cheap, and the Studer 169/269 mixing desk, which is neither cheap nor easy. But doable.

The TM500 is for a distorsion analyser, which is very nervous on input. The oscillator in the same frame is OK, but the analyser is sick.

The 169 desk is in need of alignment and fault finding. One master bus is dead, probably something broken on the mix limiter, and both echo send and foldback send peg their meters but work otherwise. With a good deal of hum. Smells HF oscillation.

There a couple of sources (or there were) for the TMxxx extenders, at least as kits that work pretty well (I have two of them). If you check the TM500 forum on groups.io, you will find info.  Also, at least one eevblog member was offering a kit at some point. 

[mnementh]

Welp... we survived the first TEA ROOM get together on Discord... How did y'all like it...?

mnem
*toddling off to ded*

[Zucca]

Welp... we survived the first TEA ROOM get together on Discord... How did y'all like it...?

mnem
*toddling off to ded*

Well I am late to the party, I am now on vacation in Italy until 07.01.2020. I could try to set up something with my phone.
Now I will look for a Discord app to test the TEA channel.

[med6753]

I very much liked it. I want to see it continue and expand. But as I stated keep it to once a week such as on a Saturday.

I don't think it's going to "take away" from this forum. If last night's session was any indication I think we are going to find that our discussions will be very general in nature and not specifically TEA. In my mind that's OK as long as it doesn't turn into political ranting or a bitch and moan session (Well....a little bitching and moaning is OK.) 

[Specmaster]

Well my plan to build in a Bluetooth interface to some Teac hi-fi units has so far failed due to duff modules being sold on eBay.

Fair play to eBay though, because after the seller ignoring my requests for replacements / refund, they stepped in yesterday after I escalated the claim, within 5 minutes they found in my favour and gave me a full refund. Well done eBay, its always nice to get a positive result. 

[Saskia]

sorry about that bitching and moaning, then. Will you support my application for sanctuary across the pond ?

[med6753]

sorry about that bitching and moaning, then. Will you support my application for sanctuary across the pond ?

You weren't bitching and moaning....you were simply telling it like it is. 

Sanctuary?  From a one-eighth German to another, of course. 

[bd139]

Well my plan to build in a Bluetooth interface to some Teac hi-fi units has so far failed due to duff modules being sold on eBay.

Fair play to eBay though, because after the seller ignoring my requests for replacements / refund, they stepped in yesterday after I escalated the claim, within 5 minutes they found in my favour and gave me a full refund. Well done eBay, its always nice to get a positive result. 

Perfect outcome. Joy of eBay. It’s pretty good from the buyers perspective.

More shit from China yesterday via Asda (Walmart here basically). Bought some cutlery for £13 to cover Xmas as my other shit is about 20 years old and there’s not enough left. Got it home and found it was poorly cut and finished and the stainless steel knives were rusty! Literally would have cut your lips open and had black shit coming out from the tines on the forks as well  . Not sure how you can fuck up a fork. Ordered a viners set on amazon last night for £20 at 21:30 and it just arrived at 10:20. Made in Vietnam. Much better quality. But made in Vietnam. Turns out if you want a set made here it’s £150+ 

[Specmaster]

I like Amazon, biggest problem there is how little tax they pay, means that the tax burden becomes even greater for the average guy.

[bd139]

Yes and no on that one. They do pay tax here at the going rate via corporation tax (so do I!). The issue is they use aggressive tax avoidance measures (so do I!) to minimise these payments. And why do these loopholes exist? Well our entire political elite use the same tax loopholes for their investment portfolio management shell companies so there is little motivation to truly fix them from the people with the power to fix them. Shit floats to the top in politics. If you’re running a company the entire point is to retain as much money from operations as possible so you’re going to do that.

The EU are the only organisation trying to deal with this via ATAD, the objective of which was to level the playing field for everyone at the same time but look what that got us while the vulture bastards are protecting their stacks of gold. Brexit!

Best to go after the politicians and high level investment groups in the UK if we want change. That means all the corporate lobbyists in political parties and ideology backers like Aaron Banks. They paid a lot to make Corbyn look like a communist to make all the old people scared of him....

[Specmaster]

Nothing wrong in some tax avoidance measures in principle, but when the normal man in the street on PAYE pays more percentage tax these mega rich vulture bastards do makes my blood boil. Agree 100% about the way that they try to make Corbyn look like a communist. His biggest problem though is a lack a charisma, compare him to say Tony Blair, who managed to win 3 GE's on a trot for Labour and could have won more had it not been for Iraq when people blamed him for our part in that war instead of the either fake or poor intelligence from the USA.

Another reason for us having a strong and capable military capability along with the intelligence services to go with it so that we can verify the facts first.

Oh well, last minute food shopping calls me before we end up having bleeding toast for Christmas dinner, while SWMBO has gone off to Tutankhamun exhibition with her mum and sister, I'm at home doing the chores 

[bd139]

I think it’s a net benefit for the normal man who’s entire income is subject to heavy taxation. If you don’t pay VAT on what you’re buying then you’re not stacked with VAT after income tax which is terribly inefficient.

All these political problems would go away if we threw party politics in the bin and went to an elected council of partyless individuals representing regional interest and voted on policies.

Good luck with the shopping. I suggest you take a chain saw. Did all mine Friday apart from sausage meat and bog roll. Will do that tomorrow 

[med6753]

I ain't proud. All my gift shopping was done via Amazon sans one gift card that I will get today at a local home center.

Correction....I did buy a bottle of booze as an additional gift. Amazon doesn't sell liquor......yet. 

With the exception of that gift card all my shopping is done. Humbug...

[bd139]

That’s the way to do it. I absolutely despise shopping. Ocado here deliver booze  . £7.99 a month for them and unlimited deliveries a month. And they never screw up because it’s packed and checked mostly by robots.

Edit: apart from the lack of bog roll 

[med6753]

When I was at my local liquor store I did notice that they now offer delivery. That's a first. 

Edit....I couldn't tell you the last time I fought the animals at a shopping mall.