Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[BU508A]

Grrrr... can't see that video, YT blocked if for French viewers based on copyright grounds... it's a video from a French TV station, might be why...

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Fabuleux_Destin_d%27Am%C3%A9lie_Poulain

It is Amélie's revenge, sitting on the rooftop and plugging out and in an antenna cable while listening to an important football game. 

[bd139]

So what you’re saying is I will need to tune it 

Out comes the nanovna 

 

Either that or considering sending 1kV pulses through the coax cable ...

  

The thought of using a Zerostat had occurred to me, but physically damaging her stuff isn't a good idea.

But if misterminating bd's outlet could affect her reception, I would guess that connecting that to the nanovna would be sufficient - no need for yagi/amps. You could turn it on/off every minute, and listen to see it was having the desired effect.

 

Well bd could always phone the emergency services again and have them smash her front door in again, she might be in trouble and need assistance, at least thats what he could claim, he could always say that couldn't get a response from her when he knocked at her door 

To be fair it was quiet up there for a couple of months after that 

[Specmaster]

Sounds like its time for a repeat, then?

[bd139]

They put a key locker on the wall so it won’t be as interesting this time 

[Vince]

Hmm...  just added a new search term the other day for my local ad site.
For the past few years I was searchign for "Tektronix", "Metrix" and "oscilloscope", mainly.

Now I also search for "Frequencemetre", to see if I can find a cool HP Nixies counter, or any interesting piece of gear.

The trouble is that there are 1157 (actual number) hits for "frequencemetre", and 95% of that are wrist watches that measure your heart beat when you go running. Useless to me. 4% are other sports related pieces of kit, larger machines. 0.5% is some random stuff. And only  0.5% are actually counters of the form we care about... .but half of them are CB radio counters/indicators, so useless.

In practice, I did check each and every of the nearly 1200 ads, initially, and found maybe a dozen bench counters. Most is junk.
Maybe 3 interesting pieces, but overpriced.

So today there is this new ad which for a change, looks like good value for money ? You tell me... but sounds decent to me :

https://www.leboncoin.fr/sports_hobbies/2030369291.htm

It's an old HP counter, compact form factor. Good nick and actually proved to be working ( a rarity !). 
50Mhz, 6 digits, and the guy pushed it to 60MHz and still holding up !

But what attracted me to it also is this cool dot matrix LED display !  Can't remember seeing an HP counter with such a display !
These era of compact HP counters I always see with the small 7 segments red LED displays.

All for 60 Euros asking price. By French standards this is a big bargain.

I would take it but I really don't like this era of HP industrial design, not my cup of tea.

But worthwhile ads are so rare over here I thought it was worth mentioning anyway...
If anyone wants it I can help communicating with the seller...

I think the fact that these counters are lost in such a sea of unrelated junk, is what "hides" them for the usual snipers.
So if I persevere maybe one day I will be able to score something nice I am after...

[factory]

Quick bit of RF fun. Neighbour has noisy TV because she's deaf. Zero luck talking to her because she's got a "fuck everyone else attitude". However we have a shared antenna which is not boosted and just split.

If I terminate my feed with a short then it's glorious silence! 🤔

Probably won't last, as I'm sure they would call someone out to replace the aerial & cable etc. or install a cable or satellite service instead.

Ordinary digital TV via an aerial is much less tolerant of interference than analogue TV & radio, as I know from the gas boiler we have. Few years ago it had an intermittent fault where it would run & work, but the spark ignition part would keep running every second or so, this caused havoc with the digital TV reception, making it unwatchable, but analogue TV just had a bit of noise in the picture & sound in time with the boiler sparking, same with the radio. Turning either thermostat down (water or heating) & back up would fix it, until it decided to play up again.
Annoyingly it took many years for this to be fixed, as whenever we called out someone to service the boiler it never played up when they were here.  Eventually it stopped working completely and when the circuit board & igniter were replaced, we never had the problem again. 

David

[beanflying]

Hmm...  just added a new search term the other day for my local ad site.
For the past few years I was searchign for "Tektronix", "Metrix" and "oscilloscope", mainly.

Now I also search for "Frequencemetre", to see if I can find a cool HP Nixies counter, or any interesting piece of gear.

The trouble is that there are 1157 (actual number) hits for "frequencemetre", and 95% of that are wrist watches that measure your heart beat when you go running. Useless to me. 4% are other sports related pieces of kit, larger machines. 0.5% is some random stuff. And only  0.5% are actually counters of the form we care about... .but half of them are CB radio counters/indicators, so useless.

In practice, I did check each and every of the nearly 1200 ads, initially, and found maybe a dozen bench counters. Most is junk.
Maybe 3 interesting pieces, but overpriced.

So today there is this new ad which for a change, looks like good value for money ? You tell me... but sounds decent to me :

https://www.leboncoin.fr/sports_hobbies/2030369291.htm

It's an old HP counter, compact form factor. Good nick and actually proved to be working ( a rarity !). 
50Mhz, 6 digits, and the guy pushed it to 60MHz and still holding up !

But what attracted me to it also is this cool dot matrix LED display !  Can't remember seeing an HP counter with such a display !
These era of compact HP counters I always see with the small 7 segments red LED displays.

All for 60 Euros asking price. By French standards this is a big bargain.

I would take it but I really don't like this era of HP industrial design, not my cup of tea.

But worthwhile ads are so rare over here I thought it was worth mentioning anyway...
If anyone wants it I can help communicating with the seller...

I think the fact that these counters are lost in such a sea of unrelated junk, is what "hides" them for the usual snipers.
So if I persevere maybe one day I will be able to score something nice I am after...

Dots are great 

[factory]

So today there is this new ad which for a change, looks like good value for money ? You tell me... but sounds decent to me :

https://www.leboncoin.fr/sports_hobbies/2030369291.htm

It's an old HP counter, compact form factor. Good nick and actually proved to be working ( a rarity !). 
50Mhz, 6 digits, and the guy pushed it to 60MHz and still holding up !

But what attracted me to it also is this cool dot matrix LED display !  Can't remember seeing an HP counter with such a display !
These era of compact HP counters I always see with the small 7 segments red LED displays.

All for 60 Euros asking price. By French standards this is a big bargain.

I would take it but I really don't like this era of HP industrial design, not my cup of tea.

But worthwhile ads are so rare over here I thought it was worth mentioning anyway...
If anyone wants it I can help communicating with the seller...

I think the fact that these counters are lost in such a sea of unrelated junk, is what "hides" them for the usual snipers.
So if I persevere maybe one day I will be able to score something nice I am after...

There has been a lot of those on German ePay recently, some with higher frequency modules, maybe everyone's getting rid of them for newer TEA  , the last three I watched didn't make a lot on auction. €60 for a 50MHz or lower one seems too much to me.


Annoyingly I had to edit those together from the individual listings, as some ePay pages only show the prices with 20% extra added. 

David

[beanflying]

I also have one like the bottom one which isn't Dotty (seems to be limited to 6 digit versions) but has the full LED display and the 1100Meg bottom. Fun being able to top and tail the bits and there is also a DMM bottom end.

[factory]

The seller with that TTi 15Mhz scope sent me an offer of 10% off the asking price just because I'm watching it, I think that they'll have to go much, much higher with the discount if they want to sell this, I like it because it is TTi and I've never seen one of them before, but just how did they ever get to value this thing at £171, even if it does appear to be working  That kind of money can get a full colour dual trace 50 / 60Mhz LCD display scope with far more capability.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265247910389

In comparison I paid £99 for that TBS1052B with 20 power ups 

The Black Star one is probably worth £10 for the interest only. It's barely useful compared to a 20MHz hameg

Does the 20MHz Hameg have a battery compartment, as the Black-Star does?

@Specmaster you should be able to make a counteroffer now they have sent one. And the silly price, I've noticed the seller, they know fuck all about what they are selling & it's value, hence why the 5326B is still listed at £360.  I've mentioned that one before on here.

David

[factory]

I also have one like the bottom one which isn't Dotty (seems to be limited to 6 digit versions) but has the full LED display and the 1100Meg bottom. Fun being able to top and tail the bits and there is also a DMM bottom end.

Trouble is the other modules never seem to turn up without another counter.

David

[Vince]

Dots are great 

Ohhh.... seems like the same unit but twice the volume, battery powered ?! First time I see a battery powered counter... used to that for scopes of course, but never saws other types of gear being battery powered...

Please do something for the time base knob, please, it breaks my heart ! 

[beanflying]

I also have one like the bottom one which isn't Dotty (seems to be limited to 6 digit versions) but has the full LED display and the 1100Meg bottom. Fun being able to top and tail the bits and there is also a DMM bottom end.

Trouble is the other modules never seem to turn up without another counter.

David

And the problem with having 'another' counter is? Remember where you are Dotty came with the 1100Meg bottom so I did a swap for the 50Meg that came with the LED display.

Ohhh.... seems like the same unit but twice the volume, battery powered ?! First time I see a battery powered counter... used to that for scopes of course, but never saws other types of gear being battery powered...

Please do something for the time base knob, please, it breaks my heart ! 

That was early days of ownership, I have a 3D printer and designed a series of replacements for the larger splined knobs.  (cant find a photo)

I also rolled some feet to fix the missing and broken ones

[Vince]

There has been a lot of those on German ePay recently, some with higher frequency modules, maybe everyone's getting rid of them for newer TEA  , the last three I watched didn't make a lot on auction. €60 for a 50MHz or lower one seems too much to me.


Annoyingly I had to edit those together from the individual listings, as some ePay pages only show the prices with 20% extra added. 

David

Oh, thanks for that ! I guess I should start checking ebay as well now, there are good deals on there it seems ! ...contrary to what I assumed ! 
Real cheap indeed! 
So, every now and then one can get cool gear for cheap... even today, even on Ebay.. incredible... but that makes me happy !

OK I think I will start watching ebay now ! Hell now I think of it, I got a good deal myself there once... a friend pointed to an ad on Ebay for a cheap Tek type 547, only 60 Euros SHIPPED. Could not resist at that price, so bought it...

[factory]

The thought of using a Zerostat had occurred to me, but physically damaging her stuff isn't a good idea.

But if misterminating bd's outlet could affect her reception, I would guess that connecting that to the nanovna would be sufficient - no need for yagi/amps. You could turn it on/off every minute, and listen to see it was having the desired effect.

 

Grrrr... can't see that video, YT blocked if for French viewers based on copyright grounds... it's a video from a French TV station, might be why...

Rather odd they blocked that as it's a clip from the French film Amélie. 

David

[Neper]

Can't you transmit on this channel? Ugly music, blaring children, barking dogs in an endless loop?

When I was young, our neighbour used to listen to Radio Luxemburg (the horrible German service, not good old 208) all day with a transistor radio at full blast. A small oscillator, just strong enough to cause a loud beat note, put an end to that.

Ralf

[Vince]

Rather odd they blocked that as it's a clip from the French film Amélie. 
David

Sounds logical to me rather ?! Just basic copyright issue. Copyright is probably only valid legally / enforceable (didn't believe it but apparently it's a valid word...) in France so YT shows the video to the entire TEA world but me.

[dl6lr]

Quick bit of RF fun. Neighbour has noisy TV because she's deaf. Zero luck talking to her because she's got a "fuck everyone else attitude". However we have a shared antenna which is not boosted and just split.

If I terminate my feed with a short then it's glorious silence! 🤔

Anecdote: I lived with my wife in the second floor of a house with the landlord in the first floor. His mother was a little bit deaf and lived in a room in the first floor too. At that time I was a little bit into packet radio. So one day I heard a loud humming sound from the first floor every time the computer sent a packet out. It took some seconds and my bell rang. And the landlord asking me what the hell I am doing. I shrugged and said I had no idea what he was talking about  At that second the computer sent out a packet and the loud humming was heard again. So now it was obvious to him that I had nothing to do with it as I was just talking to him The next day a new TV was delivered and installed. Problem solved 

A friend used the RF signal generator in the lab to just outvote a radio station with awful music, the colleague had tuned in.

[dl6lr]

Quick bit of RF fun. Neighbour has noisy TV because she's deaf. Zero luck talking to her because she's got a "fuck everyone else attitude". However we have a shared antenna which is not boosted and just split.

If I terminate my feed with a short then it's glorious silence! 🤔

Can't you transmit on this channel? Ugly music, blaring children, barking dogs in an endless loop?

The "Build a DVB-T2 modulator to D book 8 standards" project just might keep BD so busy that he'd no long notice the noise. And by the time he had finished she'd probably have popped her clogs.

Not really: https://github.com/drmpeg/gr-dvbt2

[med6753]

Here it is nearly 0900 hours and I'm just now rolling my sorry arse out of bed. Need coffee. Lots of coffee.

Anyway, the Type 547. It mocks me again although this time in a different manner. Since my last post yesterday showing status it has not failed with the dancing horizontal again. I had it on yesterday for hours and no issues. Even performed several shutdowns and cold starts and it came up and stabilized. Powered it up just now and other than a few unrelated jitters while warming up it's fine. I'd like to pronounce the horizontal issue fixed but I just know it will make a monkey out of me. So I'm going to tempt Murphy and go ahead and say that issue is fixed and then go have a banana. 

My plan today was to restore the vertical output circuit with a big unload of a parts cannon but I think I'm going to let it cook some more.  Given past history with this beast I think it's the prudent thing to do. I have all the time in the world and since I'm making progress for a change I'd rather take it slow. If all is well today then tomorrow I'll rebuild the vertical.

BTW, the current on the external +100V supply never exceeds 320mA which is within the 400mA design limit.         

[tggzzz]

Rather odd they blocked that as it's a clip from the French film Amélie. 

The French, in particular, are  fighting with google, farcebook and the like. This is part of that fight.

[Cerebus]

Quick bit of RF fun. Neighbour has noisy TV because she's deaf. Zero luck talking to her because she's got a "fuck everyone else attitude". However we have a shared antenna which is not boosted and just split.

If I terminate my feed with a short then it's glorious silence! 🤔

Can't you transmit on this channel? Ugly music, blaring children, barking dogs in an endless loop?

The "Build a DVB-T2 modulator to D book 8 standards" project just might keep BD so busy that he'd no long notice the noise. And by the time he had finished she'd probably have popped her clogs.

Not really: https://github.com/drmpeg/gr-dvbt2

Ah, but BD was holding forth against SDR, so he wouldn't be so morally ambivalent as to do that and then pursue the non-solder option when it came to his turn, would he? 

[bd139]

Correct!

[med6753]

OK, my Google is failing me today. One of the scale illumination bulbs on the Type 547 is burnt out. It is a #44 bulb which is a higher current version of the #47 bulb typically found in panel lamps. Mouser only has #47 bulb. Quick search elsewhere is yielding nada. Anyone know of a source?

[mnementh]

Grrrr... can't see that video, YT blocked if for French viewers based on copyright grounds... it's a video from a French TV station, might be why...

I can see it just fine up in the GWN... 

TL/DR version: Juvenile Amelie is tricked by a neighbor into thinking her shutterbug habit caused a car accident. When she realizes she's been duped, she gets revenge by sitting atop the roof, listening to the neighbor as he watches the World Cup on TV. At every important goal, and the replays, she unplugs his antenna cable just long enough that he misses it. 

mnem
This is how batshit crazy redheads are made.