Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Martin.M]

done  enough for today.

[Kosmic]

Sorry for being to inactive, I was/am on vacation but I was active in backgroud.

Right now my wife is in the shower so a quick update before she discover I was here.

1) Got a Tektronix THS720A with all the accesories for 94€, thanks Germany!
2) SOLD my Agilent MSOX3054A, for decent money > 4K€. BOOOM!

2020 is staring good.

Damn Zucca, you are playing with expensive equipment! what's your main scope now ?

[Kosmic]

As you are married, that means you turned an Agilent MSOX2054A into shoes. 

Never merge your bank accounts!!!

[Kosmic]

One of the guy I work with, we were chitchatting at some point and he was telling me how his wife was managing all the money. I was telling him the same thing. You should have separate account and split the bills. 6 months later, she left him with the kid and went back to China with 400k$ 

[bd139]

Yep. Or in my case I spent 17 years paying £8k a year catalogue bills and feeding it 

[BU508A]

done  enough for today.

The HP 3456A is a very nice meter, congrats to yours.  

Do you know which crystal is actually installed in your 3456A?

Mains input 60Hz - 5.85MHz
Mains input 50Hz - 4.875MHz



If you need/want one of the 50Hz / 4.875MHz crystals I can send you one.

[VK5RC]

Good results re the 3456 fix.
Bloody yaesu ft101 driving me insane, got the receiver mostly working, got final tubes in, replaced one anode cap, eventually got them working - who puts the heater circuit through an accessory socket-plug (that mine didn't have! ), 'neutralised' the finals, now not getting getting' drive' into them.
Time for the problem to 'mature' a little - before my 'grumpy old man' attitude takes over and I hurl the bastard at the wall! (And get a hernia for good measure)
 Rob

[xrunner]

Good results re the 3456 fix.
Bloody yaesu ft101 driving me insane, got the receiver mostly working, got final tubes in, replaced one anode cap, eventually got them working - who puts the heater circuit through an accessory socket-plug (that mine didn't have! ), 'neutralised' the finals, now not getting getting' drive' into them.
Time for the problem to 'mature' a little - before my 'grumpy old man' attitude takes over and I hurl the bastard at the wall! (And get a hernia for good measure)
 Rob

Man I got problems here with an old Yaesu too. I'm restoring an FRG-7000 shortwave receiver and the band switch wasn't working for all bands. Turned out it had super-bad tarnish, looked like brown paint. Had to break the whole switch assembly open and polish every single contact. Have a thread on it in the Han radio area here.

That tube of Simichrome polish I had since I was a teenager and it's still half full! Good stuff made in Germany. 

[MiDi]

What could be better than TEA with delicious cookies and enjoying the glowing Christmas tree?



Merry Christmas!

If you want to follow on details for K237 SMU: Keithley 237 repair

[Cubdriver]

On the game front I can thoroughly recommend Besiege on Steam. Absolutely marvellous game for the engineer in us.

Have emerged from the middle of nowhere into humanity now. With regrets about my decision to return.

Never was a gamer, never will be.

After days of shut in from being under the weather I dared go out in public. As a human species we are doomed.

Old retirees like me who look like the cat dragged them in. Hair, if they have any, that looks like it mopped the kitchen floor. Sweat pants and slippers. Geez....at least make an effort to look decent when you go out in public. It ain't hard. 

Fat girls who wear pajama bottoms in public. It's so hard not to puke right in front of them. 

Being stuck on a register line at a store and the crazy behind you....whom you did NOT have eye contact nor acknowledge....want's to engage you in conversation and tell you his life story. And you can't get away from him. The temptation is there to tell them I don't give a flying fuck but there's the thought they may be off their meds and go ape shit on you. So you just shake your head until you can get away.

I'm home now. We are doomed. 

Went to Wally World, did ya?   

-Pat

[VK5RC]

Commiserations Pat on the FRG-7 saga, which was my first piece of serious gear, lost the original but bought a good working one a year or so ago.
In the meantime I have had to do some plumbing for my daughter - amazingly it was cheap (AUD $10) and easy!
Rob

[Brumby]

Had to work yesterday.  Spent a tad over 5 hours in the afternoon working in a warehouse building with three large roller shutters wide open - which allowed cross-ventilation.  Fortunately I was in shade for all but 10 minutes of it, but it had to happen on a day which set new records for temperatures in Sydney, didn't it?

A temperature in the area was reported as 48.9ºC at 3pm, just over an hour after I started.  For you unmetricated lot, that's a bee's dick over 120ºF.

F*@# it was hot.... and I'm still stuffed.  Even TEA thread immersion therapy isn't particularly effective right now.

[Specmaster]

On the game front I can thoroughly recommend Besiege on Steam. Absolutely marvellous game for the engineer in us.

Have emerged from the middle of nowhere into humanity now. With regrets about my decision to return.

Never was a gamer, never will be.

After days of shut in from being under the weather I dared go out in public. As a human species we are doomed.

Old retirees like me who look like the cat dragged them in. Hair, if they have any, that looks like it mopped the kitchen floor. Sweat pants and slippers. Geez....at least make an effort to look decent when you go out in public. It ain't hard. 

Fat girls who wear pajama bottoms in public. It's so hard not to puke right in front of them. 

Being stuck on a register line at a store and the crazy behind you....whom you did NOT have eye contact nor acknowledge....want's to engage you in conversation and tell you his life story. And you can't get away from him. The temptation is there to tell them I don't give a flying fuck but there's the thought they may be off their meds and go ape shit on you. So you just shake your head until you can get away.

I'm home now. We are doomed. 

Went to Wally World, did ya?   

-Pat

Where's Wally? ......... He's right behind you

Can you find him here?

[beanflying]

Had to work yesterday.  Spent a tad over 5 hours in the afternoon working in a warehouse building with three large roller shutters wide open - which allowed cross-ventilation.  Fortunately I was in shade for all but 10 minutes of it, but it had to happen on a day which set new records for temperatures in Sydney, didn't it?

A temperature in the area was reported as 48.9ºC at 3pm, just over an hour after I started.  For you unmetricated lot, that's a bee's dick over 120ºF.

F*@# it was hot.... and I'm still stuffed.  Even TEA thread immersion therapy isn't particularly effective right now.

Tough and Nasty conditions in NSW at present the last few days here have been just on 20C and very pleasant. Stay safe 

[25 CPS]

From the "Depth-First Search Rabbit-Hole" files...

(Attachment Link)

So this morning I was perusing a GoC surplus auction for new toys, when I stumbled across the above listed for sale.

Once I wiped the drool off my keyboard, I got to wondering  is the Government of Canada doing with this very expensive, very special-purpose sport/aerobatic aircraft (having flown a few scale models of the craft, I know from personal experience it is all about performance and not at ALL forgiving nor is it suitable for carrying more than a briefcase)...  it's NOT listed as a forfeiture auction, and the listing shows extensive maintenance history details. 

Furthermore, minimum bid is set at $295K, while stated net value is $189K. (Can someone with a little more knowledge of the business side of aircraft ownership shed some light on this large discrepancy? Is it a cost of asset/expenditure/depreciation vs market value thing?)

So I go hit up the Canada Civil Aircraft Registry... (Seriously... WTF happened to that once useful resource; now nothing more than a repository for a .csv file...? ) and I discover that it belongs to the Canada National Research Council - Flight Research Lab and they're literally just a few hundred miles away in the Ottowa Regional Airport: https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Research-Council-Flight-Research-Lab/420551264812827



On their FB is this View from today's office window and all I can do is sigh... what a dream job.

mnem

Interesting. Other than that sport plane in the center is a De Havilland Twin Beaver, to the right a Lockheed T-33, left a Bell Huey, in front of that a Bell Jet Ranger. Not sure what that corporate jet is in front of the twin beaver and it appears to be a T-6 Texan in front of that.

Canadian Federal government auctions are fun because they have way too much money for their own goods.

My RF bench got a hell of an upgrade about a year and a half ago courtesy of federal government auctions!

[Brumby]

Had to work yesterday.  Spent a tad over 5 hours in the afternoon working in a warehouse building with three large roller shutters wide open - which allowed cross-ventilation.  Fortunately I was in shade for all but 10 minutes of it, but it had to happen on a day which set new records for temperatures in Sydney, didn't it?

A temperature in the area was reported as 48.9ºC at 3pm, just over an hour after I started.  For you unmetricated lot, that's a bee's dick over 120ºF.

F*@# it was hot.... and I'm still stuffed.  Even TEA thread immersion therapy isn't particularly effective right now.

Tough and Nasty conditions in NSW at present the last few days here have been just on 20C and very pleasant. Stay safe 

In all my bellyaching, I am mindful of those who have to deal with these conditions AND fight bushfires.  Those are the ones we need to support more than this old codger.

[med6753]

Had to work yesterday.  Spent a tad over 5 hours in the afternoon working in a warehouse building with three large roller shutters wide open - which allowed cross-ventilation.  Fortunately I was in shade for all but 10 minutes of it, but it had to happen on a day which set new records for temperatures in Sydney, didn't it?

A temperature in the area was reported as 48.9ºC at 3pm, just over an hour after I started.  For you unmetricated lot, that's a bee's dick over 120ºF.

F*@# it was hot.... and I'm still stuffed.  Even TEA thread immersion therapy isn't particularly effective right now.

Tough and Nasty conditions in NSW at present the last few days here have been just on 20C and very pleasant. Stay safe 

In all my bellyaching, I am mindful of those who have to deal with these conditions AND fight bushfires.  Those are the ones we need to support more than this old codger.

I'd be a steaming mass of protoplasm in about 5 minutes with that heat. No way. 

[Specmaster]

Had to work yesterday.  Spent a tad over 5 hours in the afternoon working in a warehouse building with three large roller shutters wide open - which allowed cross-ventilation.  Fortunately I was in shade for all but 10 minutes of it, but it had to happen on a day which set new records for temperatures in Sydney, didn't it?

A temperature in the area was reported as 48.9ºC at 3pm, just over an hour after I started.  For you unmetricated lot, that's a bee's dick over 120ºF.

F*@# it was hot.... and I'm still stuffed.  Even TEA thread immersion therapy isn't particularly effective right now.

Makes Canada begin to look very attractive then.

[med6753]

On the game front I can thoroughly recommend Besiege on Steam. Absolutely marvellous game for the engineer in us.

Have emerged from the middle of nowhere into humanity now. With regrets about my decision to return.

Never was a gamer, never will be.

After days of shut in from being under the weather I dared go out in public. As a human species we are doomed.

Old retirees like me who look like the cat dragged them in. Hair, if they have any, that looks like it mopped the kitchen floor. Sweat pants and slippers. Geez....at least make an effort to look decent when you go out in public. It ain't hard. 

Fat girls who wear pajama bottoms in public. It's so hard not to puke right in front of them. 

Being stuck on a register line at a store and the crazy behind you....whom you did NOT have eye contact nor acknowledge....want's to engage you in conversation and tell you his life story. And you can't get away from him. The temptation is there to tell them I don't give a flying fuck but there's the thought they may be off their meds and go ape shit on you. So you just shake your head until you can get away.

I'm home now. We are doomed. 

Went to Wally World, did ya?   

-Pat

What makes this especially sad is that it WASN'T in Walmart. If I went there I'd have no right to complain because that's where all the fruitcakes hang out.

[BU508A]

More HP goodness. This guy out-HP's all of us 

http://www.kennethkuhn.com/hpmuseum/hp_tour.htm

God god, he has a whole warehouse !

No bench is complete without a nice HP calculator. Can you spot it? 
The description below of that picture is saying:
"(temporary picture)  This is a close up view of my old main shop table.  You can see my 30 year old HP25 calculator that still works perfectly. [...]"

[xrunner]

No bench is complete without a nice HP calculator. Can you spot it? 

This?

[Brumby]

Yep.  That looks like a HP25 tucked in there.

[Brumby]

I'd be a steaming mass of protoplasm in about 5 minutes with that heat. No way. 

The only upside was that they had an Eski filled with ice and bottles of water.  I finished off the water I brought with me and two of those.  Normally, that would translate into a couple of toilet breaks - but I only went once throughout the afternoon (and even that was out of convenience, not necessity).  Most of it ended up on my shirt through sweat.

There was a LOT of sweat.

[0culus]

More HP goodness. This guy out-HP's all of us 

http://www.kennethkuhn.com/hpmuseum/hp_tour.htm

That is pure awesome. 

[johnh]

Are they the same crystals used for the HP3455A. Because I am looking for a 50Hz crystal for a HP3455.
I bought a few year ago from the states, when the Australian dollar  was pegging with the US Dollar

How much to buy and send on to Australia?