Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Brumby]

if you want it, go for it. It is easily one of the best somewhat affordable preamps out there.

I was offering to post to you

This is Bean's modus operandi .... enabling, enabling, enabling......

Trust me - I know.

[Saskia]

I know and I appreciate it, it is certainly tempting. However having 2 TA-E 86 plus a Threshold is enough for me. I am not going to rip one of my 86' apart to cannibalize the PSU and the case, as both are working and have been refurbished to specs.

Thanks for the offer though

[beanflying]

if you want it, go for it. It is easily one of the best somewhat affordable preamps out there.

I was offering to post to you

This is Bean's modus operandi .... enabling, enabling, enabling......

Trust me - I know.

Mmm Brumby must find stuff for Brumby  Seriously all I do is point out the possibilities 

[tonyalbus]

If you ever doubted which to buy, the ADF4351 or the MAX2870
maybe this helps.

[med6753]

More capacitor work on the Type 503. Completed one of the two remaining 3 section cans.

I was able to mount 2 of the capacitors on the backside along with the ones previously installed. Additions are the blue capacitor and the black capacitor middle left.



Unfortunately there was no easy way to mount the 3rd capacitor on the backside without creating an undesirable long cable run to chassis ground so the can had to be pulled and the new capacitor mounted here. 



That leaves one more 3 section can to do and the PSU re-cap will be complete. That can will definitely have to be removed.

So far I have not found any evidence of Gorilla activity anywhere in the scope which is refreshing. But surprisingly I have found two factory assembly defects. The first one I posted when I first received the scope. No trigger due to a broken wire. That wire fractured at the point of connection due to it being installed too taunt at the factory. In order for me to reconnect it I had to add wire as shown and give it some slack. Also, the pix of the transformer. Bottom far left. Cold solder joint on that white wire. It was loose and ready to fall off. I'm surprised it made electrical contact.


 

I have to go out this afternoon and I may not be back in time for Discord.

[Robert763]

If you ever doubted which to buy, the ADF4351 or the MAX2870
maybe this helps.

Well the Square/Sine bit is testing the bandwidth of you oscilloscope, not the output of the generator.
You can't look at a 100MHz squarewave wih a 200MHZ 'scope.
You need at least 5 times the signal frequency in 'scope bandwidth to correctly show a squarewave. For accurate measurements ten times.
Trying to look at a swept generator with a unsynchronised swept spectrum analyser is also problematic.

The video just shows your lack of understanding.

[tonyalbus]

Thank you!

[mnementh]

I've never touched Aruba. My system is Cisco vWLC 8.5 on VMWare, with 2702 LWAPP access points.

My condolences.     Same misery, different icing. 

Oh, indeed. Every L2 technology is going to suck. Its suckyness, further, is inversely proportional to the perceived mean competence level of the envisioned user. Therefore, now near-extinct L2 systems like SDH (what those who achieve 56kbit in a 64kbit frame slot call Sonet) who never were supposed to be touched by mortals have an abundancy of useful status report bits and diagnostics and if your head is bell-shaped enough, can tell you exactly what's going on. This process in Ethernet is 130% based on guesswork and rumours, with baling wire and surplus gaffers tape holding the chewing-gum repairs together.. And, since its bastard child 802.11 (i.e WiFi ^(tm)) was supposed to be some Ethernet-compatible toy for line-of-sight comms in offices, it's inherited all the suck and invented its own to ice the cake.

I was supposed to be dealing with routing protocols, not this.

*chuckles softly; a sound not unlike a jet engine huffing just before it explodes*  I think I have a new favorite bit of picturesque speech.   

mnem
It could be worse: RADIUS over 802.11g   

[Cerebus]

It appears you have 2 dipshits in that little video.

Dipshit #1 is the van driver making a rushed right hand turn against traffic without taking into account all forms of traffic coming at him. Cyclist, pedestrian, etc. (Same deal as a left hand turn against traffic here)

Dipshit #2 is cyclist riding a vintage bike with no brakes in heavy traffic and going at an unreasonably high speed. And then it appears he turns LEFT INTO the van rather than right to avoid it.     

Classic case of when dipshits collide. 

Erm, hardly. I calculate his speed as 13.7 mph (1.3m wheel, 20 frames/rev @30 fps), not exactly excessive. Let's be clear, riding a Penny-Farthing on the street is asking to crash, but you can't legitimately accuse him of going at "an unreasonably high speed". Still, I can see how that might seem fast to a CR-V owner.

It is quite arguable that any speed on a Penny-farthing is too fast; also they are a public safety hazard, for just such reasons as this video demonstrates. No less reckless than kids riding go-karts in the street.

mnem
OTOH, the same can be said of allowing me to drive anything.

Why is it that some people seem incapable of reading a clearly qualified statement, and then proceed to effectively reiterate the qualification as if it wasn't there? Do I need to start writing for Kindergarten level comprehension capabilities?

[med6753]

The video just shows your lack of understanding.

Gee, could you possibly be a little more subtle rather than a swift kick in the nut sack?     

[Saskia]

Learning thru pain. Helps every time 

[Robert763]

I though about it but it's such a basic thing that my basic bluntness came to the fore. 
Other Videos of Tonys thatt I've looked at have been OK, so this is not directly amed at him but I'm fed up with the amount of bad information going out under slick videos. I guess it's an version of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
It's not just electronics, just about everthing "technical" on youtube suffers from it.

[mnementh]

It appears you have 2 dipshits in that little video.

Dipshit #1 is the van driver making a rushed right hand turn against traffic without taking into account all forms of traffic coming at him. Cyclist, pedestrian, etc. (Same deal as a left hand turn against traffic here)

Dipshit #2 is cyclist riding a vintage bike with no brakes in heavy traffic and going at an unreasonably high speed. And then it appears he turns LEFT INTO the van rather than right to avoid it.     

Classic case of when dipshits collide. 

Erm, hardly. I calculate his speed as 13.7 mph (1.3m wheel, 20 frames/rev @30 fps), not exactly excessive. Let's be clear, riding a Penny-Farthing on the street is asking to crash, but you can't legitimately accuse him of going at "an unreasonably high speed". Still, I can see how that might seem fast to a CR-V owner.

It is quite arguable that any speed on a Penny-farthing is too fast; also they are a public safety hazard, for just such reasons as this video demonstrates. No less reckless than kids riding go-karts in the street.

mnem
OTOH, the same can be said of allowing me to drive anything.

Why is it that some people seem incapable of reading a clearly qualified statement, and then proceed to effectively reiterate the qualification as if it wasn't there? Do I need to start writing for Kindergarten level comprehension capabilities?

I was agreeing with you, ya disagreeable ol' coot.   My point was to reinforce that very "qualification of statement", not counter it.

It was entirely tongue-in-cheek; hence my post-script.

mnem
*agreeable young coot*

[mnementh]

The video just shows your lack of understanding.

Gee, could you possibly be a little more subtle rather than a swift kick in the nut sack? 

Learning thru pain. Helps every time 

Here ya go Tony... a new mascot for yer video empire:

mnem
 

(eevBlog somehow breaks the gif; attached as zip below)

[tonyalbus]

haha.. yes 
i am well aware i do not know everything.
my channel is not called 'teaching tech' or 'learn electronics' or 'RF doctor' or 'i know it all'.
i just show how i think how it works... and sometimes it works different from what i think... my channel is clearly not for all here.
but i will try Roberts advice when i do have a scope that goes up to higher freqs once...
when you stick out your head... you get more wind... it has worked well... and that is also risk.. you sometimes get kicked in the nuts 
Thanks for the info Robert... i learn from this...
thanks guys for support!.

[Cerebus]

The video just shows your lack of understanding.

Gee, could you possibly be a little more subtle rather than a swift kick in the nut sack? 

What follows is qualified. I haven't watched the video in question, so I'm not commenting on the case in hand. I'm most definitely NOT commenting on Tony's competence or understanding.

I can understand the bluntness as a possible result of accumulated frustration. Something I've increasingly noticed recently around here (the whole board) is the amount of pontificating done by people who clearly don't know what they're talking about. There are people who act, in their interactions with others, as if they are experts. (Robert replied while I was writing this, I'm quite pleased that I guessed exactly where he was coming from.)

As an example: One frequent, high post count, poster who is always handing out advice about circuit design and component selection recently posted a question about a constructing a kit they'd bought. It was clear that the individual in question could not recognise basics. They couldn't spot particular types of components in the schematic, they were confused as to which of the supplied components belonged where in the circuit and how to identify them from the components that had come in the kit. They didn't even realise that generic part designations weren't an arbitrary manufacturer's part number. Yet, I've seen the poster in question hand out many an expert sounding opinion on how people should do things when clearly they haven't actually acquired the most basic level of electronics expertise.

So, I too am feeling a bit of frustration with the types that let their egos do the talking while not really knowing about that they are talking about. It's not fair to the people who want to learn something to present yourself as an expert but spout a lot of half-baked nonsense. It dilutes the efforts put in by people who do know what they're talking about, because now they have to deal with correcting the idiots (which usually results in an argument) as well as supplying useful information. I've noticed the disappearance of several people who clearly had genuine expert level knowledge and experience in some areas, were genuinely helpful, and put a lot of effort in, once they ran into the  self-appointed 'experts' who seemed in capable of recognising the real thing when they met it, and just continued arguing for their half-baked theories, generating much heat and no light.

One instance of this I saw was a guy who clearly had years of experience producing commercial metrology grade voltage references who got shouted down often enough by the voodoo voltage reference "experts" that he gave up in disgust. The forum lost a fantastically useful resource that day. Similarly, Conrad Hoffman (whose bona fides stretch back as far as solving resistor reliability problems on the Minuteman programme) conspicuously cut back his participation in the face of similar overblown egos.

[EV]

 Tony,

I attached some wave forms here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/aliexpress-$30-35mhz-4-4ghz-adf4351-touchscreen-signal-generator/

Thank you!

[Zucca]

Oh, indeed. Every L2 technology is going to suck. Its suckyness, further, is inversely proportional to the perceived mean competence level of the envisioned user. Therefore, now near-extinct L2 systems like SDH (what those who achieve 56kbit in a 64kbit frame slot call Sonet) who never were supposed to be touched by mortals have an abundancy of useful status report bits and diagnostics and if your head is bell-shaped enough, can tell you exactly what's going on. This process in Ethernet is 130% based on guesswork and rumours, with baling wire and surplus gaffers tape holding the chewing-gum repairs together.. And, since its bastard child 802.11 (i.e WiFi ^(tm)) was supposed to be some Ethernet-compatible toy for line-of-sight comms in offices, it's inherited all the suck and invented its own to ice the cake.

I was supposed to be dealing with routing protocols, not this.

When you retire you should take your time and write a book about all the network design history you experienced on your skin. It would be not only a nice document to read, but also a warning for the current/future network eng. generation.

It's always a pleasure to understand something no college could ever teach.

[bd139]

I’m (genuinely) writing that book on software at the moment. 

Ironically it merges neatly with Cerebus’ post and has a chapter titled “ego driven development” 

[capt bullshot]

Ironically it merges neatly with Cerebus’ post and has a chapter titled “ego driven development” 

Mwhahaha 

[Cerebus]

Oh, indeed. Every L2 technology is going to suck. Its suckyness, further, is inversely proportional to the perceived mean competence level of the envisioned user. Therefore, now near-extinct L2 systems like SDH (what those who achieve 56kbit in a 64kbit frame slot call Sonet) who never were supposed to be touched by mortals have an abundancy of useful status report bits and diagnostics and if your head is bell-shaped enough, can tell you exactly what's going on. This process in Ethernet is 130% based on guesswork and rumours, with baling wire and surplus gaffers tape holding the chewing-gum repairs together.. And, since its bastard child 802.11 (i.e WiFi ^(tm)) was supposed to be some Ethernet-compatible toy for line-of-sight comms in offices, it's inherited all the suck and invented its own to ice the cake.

I was supposed to be dealing with routing protocols, not this.

When you retire you should take your time and write a book about all the network design history you experienced on your skin. It would be not only a nice document to read, but also a warning for the current/future network eng. generation.

It's always a pleasure to understand something no college could ever teach.

Two problems:

1) Stuff gets out of date too fast. When I was actively building and managing service provider networks everything went over SDH or ATM at some point. I doubt any service provider has commissioned new SDH or ATM capacity in the last 10 years. Similarly, SDN (software defined networking) was a glimmer in the eye, now it's everywhere. Sure, there's core principles that don't change, but that only makes up the first three chapters of a 10 chapter book that's going to be of any use to practitioners or want-to-be practitioners.

2) Speaking as a one time professional writer who had colleagues who had written or were writing technical books: It's a pain in the arse. You don't get paid anywhere near enough for the effort that goes into it. Only worth doing as a labour of love. And that's talking from the position of writers who were commissioned to do a book; if you're starting out with "I'm gonna write a book" and you need to find a publisher then you have a whole new layer of pain to push through.

Basically, writing technical books is not fun and distilling a career's worth of information into a book in a rapidly changing field is probably not going to be that helpful to your readers.

[Cerebus]

I’m (genuinely) writing that book on software at the moment. 

Ironically it merges neatly with Cerebus’ post and has a chapter titled “ego driven development” 

The best bit of advice I have for management is that when dealing with software developers, look for the quiet, slightly worried looking chap/chapesse in the meeting and afterwards take them for a beer and listen to them.

[bd139]

The best bit of advice I have for management is that when dealing with software developers, look for the quiet, slightly worried looking chap/chapesse in the meeting and afterwards take them for a beer and listen to them.

As someone who has been frequently employed by organisations to review and fix problems, exactly that. My one bit of advice has always been "instead of complaining that the developers are whining, listen to what they are whining about". And lo and behold a hidden cost centre appears which consumes cash faster than satan's crack habit and eats more souls than the man himself too...

[Kosmic]

I’m (genuinely) writing that book on software at the moment. 

Ironically it merges neatly with Cerebus’ post and has a chapter titled “ego driven development” 

Kind of summaries what I'm doing in my day job. Preventing everybody to rewrite everything all the time.

[bd139]

I’m (genuinely) writing that book on software at the moment. 

Ironically it merges neatly with Cerebus’ post and has a chapter titled “ego driven development” 

Kind of summaries what I'm doing in my day job. Preventing everybody to rewrite everything all the time.

Problematic way of operating isn't it. My previous job was persuading people that they needed to finish the last several rewrites and all the bugs first before they took a new one on and rammed it into EKS at the same time 

business: "we have a problem houston!"

arch 1: "lets solve it with microservices"

arch 2: "on kubernetes!"

arch 3: "on amazon!"

arch 1 drags arch 2 and 3 off to the broom cupboard for something obscene

arch 4, now demoted, tutting and sitting in the corner saying: "Udi Dahan was right" unable to speak any other words after the conference he went to warped the peanut in his head.

arch 5, now also demoted, with one eye, a long beard sitting in an opposite corner under a pile of broken Surface tablets and confiscated USB sticks containing PII data: "Pfft wrong! Back in my day it was UML and Rational ClearCase and Enterprise Integration Patterns"

Edit: in walks someone from ThoughtWorks with a bermuda shirt, shorts, MacBook Pro and hipster beard and several hundred pages of powerpoint all with a black background just to be cool.

business: rubs hands together "this guy really looks like he knows what he's on about"