Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Saskia]

seems that DHL lost one of my parcels AGAIN. Another 200 € down the drain. I'm annoyed.

[AVGresponding]

.22 rimfire most likely.

.303 was also used, but a long time ago.

I always preferred the challenge of a short barrel, myself...

5 inch grouping at 35 yards, standing, one handed, is the nearest I've come to being any good   

[bd139]

seems that DHL lost one of my parcels AGAIN. Another 200 € down the drain. I'm annoyed.

DHL are the worst. A friend of mine had a lost package turn up after 14 months from them

Fractionally worse than UPS who still have my package out for delivery but it's 20:34 so I doubt that's going to turn up. Grr.

.22 rimfire most likely.

.303 was also used, but a long time ago.

I always preferred the challenge of a short barrel, myself...

5 inch grouping at 35 yards, standing, one handed, is the nearest I've come to being any good   

pew pew

[AVGresponding]

seems that DHL lost one of my parcels AGAIN. Another 200 € down the drain. I'm annoyed.

That's very irritating. I've only had good experiences with them myself, as they link with "InPost" here, which I've found quite convenient on the whole.
Did they deliver it to a neighbour without putting a card in the door maybe?

[tautech]

.22 rimfire most likely.

.303 was also used, but a long time ago.

I always preferred the challenge of a short barrel, myself...

5 inch grouping at 35 yards, standing, one handed, is the nearest I've come to being any good   

Hardly a demonstration of precision. 

If 3 shots aren't touching at 100yds I'm not satisfied and it's back to the reloading bench for more tweaks.

[Cerebus]

Cerebus, also keen shooter here downunder. 
What calibres (English spelling just to wind up the Yanks) did you use for LR ?

7.62mm Nato (Which is technically not the same as Winchester .308 but, with a few exceptions, is for all practical purposes). Pretty much all rifle shooting the UK happens with the standard military calibre of the day. Used to be 0.303 and then gravitated to 7.62mm. You'll find a few specialist LR shooters in the UK using other calibres, but most general shooters who also enjoy tackling LR stick with 7.62. The number of approved ranges here is a problem. Ranges will be qualified for types of ammunition used, so a specialist LR rifle will probably not be permitted to be shot on shorter ranges (e.g. 300yd, 300m, 600yd) which are usually only qualified for 7.62. Ranges are few and far between so you end up putting a lot of miles on the car just to get a couple of hours shooting in. If you stuck with specialist calibres you'd probably need your own helicopter to make the travelling practicable. Used to keep my eye in shooting .22 at 100 yards on the outdoor range at one of the local clubs - which is much harder than it sounds, what's a light breeze to a 7.62 at 600 yards is a gale to a poor little .22 at 100 yards.

They chopped all the mature trees in my road down a couple of years back and replanted with new young trees. That makes telling how windy it is before choosing what to wear when you go out difficult. I solved the problem by going out and tying a bit of string to the lamppost outside my house to use as a wind flag. Afterwards I realised that to most people it would just look like a bit of string, but to certain people it would be "worrying".  I've started looking to see who walks past the house and scans the rooftops after spotting it. 

[bd139]

[AVGresponding]

.22 rimfire most likely.

.303 was also used, but a long time ago.

I always preferred the challenge of a short barrel, myself...

5 inch grouping at 35 yards, standing, one handed, is the nearest I've come to being any good   

Hardly a demonstration of precision. 

If 3 shots aren't touching at 100yds I'm not satisfied and it's back to the reloading bench for more tweaks.

If you can get 3 shots touching at 100 yards with a pistol, standing, one handed, Olympic gold is yours for as long as you compete.

Obviously I can do better with a long barrel, and prone, it's just not my interest.

A 7 inch target is pretty small at 35 yards, your fore-sight covers a significant portion of it (none of that telescopic sights rubbish).

[med6753]

Why are we posting this crap here? Doesn't belong here. I'm almost to the point where I'm going to break my rule of no political commentary which drive the anti gun nuts ape and certainly also get the dragon fired up and down the hell hole we go.

Stop.

Except that it's not political, it's commentary on current affairs. I find, what was it, 16 people getting gunned down in Canada saddening and tragic. To not comment on it because some people have a bee in their bonnets about gun ownership (former long range target shooter here, so I'm not an anti-gun nut, I rather like guns) would be heartless and cowardly. This is the 'pub' and just like the pub, if you've strong feelings on a topic that gets a passing mention, you've the choice of either just shrugging your shoulders and letting it go, or starting a row. I was going to have nothing more to say on the issue, I simply found the relatively high gun ownership in Canada while not causing problems a curious and interesting point - I'd not considered it before because I hadn't had my attention draw to it by an incident like this before. That was literally all I was going to say on the subject until you decided that it was verboten Politik. That response, and that alone provokes this comment. Among rational adults, my prior observation ought to be something that provokes thought, not a knee jerk response.

Nothing more to say on the subject.

Except I know you certainly are intelligent enough to realize that ANY discussion involving firearms, regardless if it's nothing more than commentary on some current event, will quickly turn political and then we'll have to slug through pages and pages of tirades. I'd rather not. I agree we are like a pub here and almost anything goes but in certain incidences policing ourselves to "let's not go there" is the prudent thing to do.

I have also said my peace. Nothing more here either.

[tautech]

Except I know you certainly are intelligent enough to realize that ANY discussion involving firearms, regardless if it's nothing more than commentary on some current event, will quickly turn political and then we'll have to slug through pages and pages of tirades. I'd rather not. I agree we are like a pub here and almost anything goes but in certain incidences policing ourselves to "let's not go there" is the prudent thing to do.

I have also said my peace. Nothing more here either.

Yet you sure must realise shooting in various disciplines is an Olympic sport, a method to put food on the table and used in control of vermin (4 legged critters) worldwide, not one of which has any political connotations. 

Ppls mention guns and everyone gets upset.   

[AVGresponding]

Except I know you certainly are intelligent enough to realize that ANY discussion involving firearms, regardless if it's nothing more than commentary on some current event, will quickly turn political and then we'll have to slug through pages and pages of tirades. I'd rather not. I agree we are like a pub here and almost anything goes but in certain incidences policing ourselves to "let's not go there" is the prudent thing to do.

I have also said my peace. Nothing more here either.

Yet you sure must realise shooting in various disciplines is an Olympic sport, a method to put food on the table and used in control of vermin (4 legged critters) worldwide, not one of which has any political connotations. 

Ppls mention guns and everyone gets upset.   

Talking about it in the context of Olympic sport, hobby target shooting, or ballistic engineering is not political.
Talking about the latest tragedy perpetrated by some mentally ill or mentally defective person and the reasons why it happens more in place A than in place B, is political.

[med6753]

Except I know you certainly are intelligent enough to realize that ANY discussion involving firearms, regardless if it's nothing more than commentary on some current event, will quickly turn political and then we'll have to slug through pages and pages of tirades. I'd rather not. I agree we are like a pub here and almost anything goes but in certain incidences policing ourselves to "let's not go there" is the prudent thing to do.

I have also said my peace. Nothing more here either.

Yet you sure must realise shooting in various disciplines is an Olympic sport, a method to put food on the table and used in control of vermin (4 legged critters) worldwide, not one of which has any political connotations. 

Ppls mention guns and everyone gets upset.   

Perhaps I'm leaving the impression I'm anti-gun. Nothing could be further from the truth. I own a firearm, I'm an advocate of firearms training, and I used to be a paying member of the NRA.

[Saskia]

@AVG the package got lost when the sender brought it to the post kiosk. They never traced it there and it had remained in limbo for the past 5 days. DHL customer disservice told me to wait another 2 days before I could file a complaint.

Now I will not voice what I think of them to remain in politically adequate waters.

I still hope it may turn up, I want that friggin X99 board because it is splendid for running stuff I am used to and I hate to lose ...

[tggzzz]

 My Tek 492 21GHz spectrum analyser was poorly: the fan wasn't working, so I had to go inside.

After divining the entertaining construction mechanisms, I finally found that one of the motor's three poles had lost its inductance, so the motor had a 1/3 chance of starting. Unfortunately the motor is unobtanium, is temperature controlled, and (to avoid spurs appearing) has low electrical and mechanical noise. Bugger.

Anyway, I used a standard 12V fan, dreamt up a way of using a thermistor to control the fan's speed (including min and max rpm), stuck in some big caps and inductors to minimise the electrical noise, LTSpiced the lot to check on noise and performance, and managed to reuse the original very loosely coupled fan mounts. The fan is suspended at each corner by a piece of foam rubber

Got it all back together, and it worked, phew.

The amusing thing was the the previous owner had clearly found a blown 500mA 1-1/4inch fuse, but only had 20mm fuses. That was not an impediment...



It worked, but I replaced it anyway.

[bd139]

That's impressive. At least the previous owner cared enough to not use a bolt or something!

Good to hear your plan worked.

[Neomys Sapiens]

@AVG the package got lost when the sender brought it to the post kiosk. They never traced it there and it had remained in limbo for the past 5 days. DHL customer disservice told me to wait another 2 days before I could file a complaint.

Now I will not voice what I think of them to remain in politically adequate waters.

I still hope it may turn up, I want that friggin X99 board because it is splendid for running stuff I am used to and I hate to lose ...

I hate them too. Frequently they manage to leave two or more notifications on a single day requiring me to visit two different places to optain my packages. And both of those places are stationery shops run by elderly women which are not very attentive and talk too much. A special nuisance is when the declared time/date for retrieval does not match the real situation and you have to repeat those errands. Arrrgh!

[bd139]

At least you guys have never experienced the "Royal Mail Delivery Office" experience. Always starts with a red slip being quietly slipped into your letter box even though you're in. Then a drive to some shonky warehouse with not enough parking that smells of dust, tea and a faint smell of apathy.

Me: "I've come to collect a package"
Them: (with a look of absolute disgust) "have you got a red slip"
Me: "Yes I put it on the counter in front of you"
Them: (frowning) "grmph"

This is followed with about 2 minutes fumbling on a partially obscured computer screen with solitare running in the background:

Them: "i cant find this in the system"
me: "can you find someone who can?"
Them: "grmph"

Disappears out the back for 5 minutes by which time a woman parked on a double yellow line because you got the last "20 minutes only parking bay" or needs a wee is standing behind you tutting.

Them #2: "how can I help you?"
Me: "red slip, pick up package"
Them #2: "grmph"

Fumbles on computer squinting terribly.

Them #2: "back in a tick mate"

Disappears out the back for 10 minutes after clearly going for a tea, a chat with fellow slackers about Chelsea Football Club based on the tattoo on his head or a wank based on the fact that he was a wanker. Woman behind you starts hopping slightly on one leg and passively aggressively banging loudly on her smartphone screen.

Them #2 comes back with the package, clearly used as a football but you're so pissed off and worried about the parking by then you don't argue it.

Them #2: "got any ID mate?"

I point at the driving license already sitting on the side

Them #2 (while putting on reading glasses): "hrmph"

Tappety tap on computer. Zip with the barcode reader.

Them #2 (mustering their best customer service face which is reminiscent of a shriveled dog turd): "here's your package mate"

So you walk past the woman who gives you the stink eye, out of the door and there's a fucking traffic warden who's entire job is to sit outside and wait for the flies to land. One look at him and he gets the point that if he even thinks that fucking ticket is going near my car then I'm going off anime style



And you get it home and whatever inside is broken.

[Neomys Sapiens]

so congratulations on snagging the one unit every time nut drools over.

Damn! Now you got me reading up on it. I want it for my experiments at work. I've expensed Ethernet taps off Ebay before. Now, I wonder how to pull this off..

Have a read of the August 1978 HP Journal article on the HP5370A. It uses a clever combination of two techniques, vernier counting and triggered phase locked loops. If I can dream up a way to create the triggered PLL VCOs without a hybrid (as used in the 5370) I'm gonna design me one. I can do something similar, but not as precise or as satisfying with dual slope time interpellators for the start and stop pulses. There's also a possibility of using something like the Texas TDC7200 time to digital converter to do the timing between start/stop pulses and a standard clock. But the triggered vernier oscillators is so elegant that it would be a shame not to steal the technique if at all possible.

I tried bidding on a Pendulum CNT90 today. It came with OCXO and the 3GHz input.  I was willing to go to around 500€ as the unit was looking a bit wrong from the rear. Like having deformed parts.
It finished over 900.- The good side of it was that I read up on those instruments and now I know that there is a CNT91, which gives 50ps resolution instead of 100.

[worsthorse]

Why are we posting this crap here? Doesn't belong here. I'm almost to the point where I'm going to break my rule of no political commentary which drive the anti gun nuts ape and certainly also get the dragon fired up and down the hell hole we go.

Stop.

excuse me med but which part of the phrase "anti gun nuts" would you classify as "no political commentary"?

just sayin'

[tggzzz]

At least you guys have never experienced the "Royal Mail Delivery Office" experience. Always starts with a red slip being quietly slipped into your letter box even though you're in. Then a drive to some shonky warehouse with not enough parking that smells of dust, tea and a faint smell of apathy.

Me: "I've come to collect a package"
Them: (with a look of absolute disgust) "have you got a red slip"
Me: "Yes I put it on the counter in front of you"
Them: (frowning) "grmph"
...

You live in the wrong place. Much more civilised near (but not in) Brizzle.

Even the Herpes drivers seem to be human, without scars on their (dragged) knuckles.

[bd139]

Can I swap some of our local postal goblins for your humans and balance things out a bit?

[Neomys Sapiens]

@med: I've not closed that matter of the Tek 2330. But first I have to finish writing a totally annoying installation manual. It sucks like a vampire Hoover leach.

[tautech]

Why are we posting this crap here? Doesn't belong here. I'm almost to the point where I'm going to break my rule of no political commentary which drive the anti gun nuts ape and certainly also get the dragon fired up and down the hell hole we go.

Stop.

excuse me med but which part of the phrase "anti gun nuts" would you classify as "no political commentary"?

just sayin'

Don't get up Med as he's just not quite as passionate about shooting as he is about TEA. I fully understand that however for those of use here that are, the continual negative news and the nutters out there are the real issue. 

[Cubdriver]

@AVG the package got lost when the sender brought it to the post kiosk. They never traced it there and it had remained in limbo for the past 5 days. DHL customer disservice told me to wait another 2 days before I could file a complaint.

Now I will not voice what I think of them to remain in politically adequate waters.

I still hope it may turn up, I want that friggin X99 board because it is splendid for running stuff I am used to and I hate to lose ...

I hate them too. Frequently they manage to leave two or more notifications on a single day requiring me to visit two different places to optain my packages. And both of those places are stationery shops run by elderly women which are not very attentive and talk too much. A special nuisance is when the declared time/date for retrieval does not match the real situation and you have to repeat those errands. Arrrgh!

They used to drive me nuts at my previous job - if something was shipped via DHL, I could pretty much count on getting a call from the receiving department of a company (with a completely different name and street number, but about a quarter mile up the road on the opposite side of the street - and mind that this was not a crowded, heavily built up area)to tell me that DHL had left my package there and I could come by to pick it up or they would hand it back off to DHL the following day for redelivery.  Needless to say, I welcomed the call and would always go and get it rather than risk it being handed off to those bozos to give them another opportunity to misdeliver it again.  UPS, FedEx and the USPS had no issues finding our building.  DHL?  Not so much...

-Pat

[Specmaster]

At least you guys have never experienced the "Royal Mail Delivery Office" experience. Always starts with a red slip being quietly slipped into your letter box even though you're in. Then a drive to some shonky warehouse with not enough parking that smells of dust, tea and a faint smell of apathy.

Me: "I've come to collect a package"
Them: (with a look of absolute disgust) "have you got a red slip"
Me: "Yes I put it on the counter in front of you"
Them: (frowning) "grmph"

This is followed with about 2 minutes fumbling on a partially obscured computer screen with solitare running in the background:

Them: "i cant find this in the system"
me: "can you find someone who can?"
Them: "grmph"

Disappears out the back for 5 minutes by which time a woman parked on a double yellow line because you got the last "20 minutes only parking bay" or needs a wee is standing behind you tutting.

Them #2: "how can I help you?"
Me: "red slip, pick up package"
Them #2: "grmph"

Fumbles on computer squinting terribly.

Them #2: "back in a tick mate"

Disappears out the back for 10 minutes after clearly going for a tea, a chat with fellow slackers about Chelsea Football Club based on the tattoo on his head or a wank based on the fact that he was a wanker. Woman behind you starts hopping slightly on one leg and passively aggressively banging loudly on her smartphone screen.

Them #2 comes back with the package, clearly used as a football but you're so pissed off and worried about the parking by then you don't argue it.

Them #2: "got any ID mate?"

I point at the driving license already sitting on the side

Them #2 (while putting on reading glasses): "hrmph"

Tappety tap on computer. Zip with the barcode reader.

Them #2 (mustering their best customer service face which is reminiscent of a shriveled dog turd): "here's your package mate"

So you walk past the woman who gives you the stink eye, out of the door and there's a fucking traffic warden who's entire job is to sit outside and wait for the flies to land. One look at him and he gets the point that if he even thinks that fucking ticket is going near my car then I'm going off anime style



And you get it home and whatever inside is broken.

Nailed it