Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

Be careful with the mobility scooter - they might think you’re a ham  .

I have no shame w.r.t. getting a bargain; in that company I won't bother to have a bath and shave before I go

Honestly I thought the same today. I just rolled out of bed and into the car.

I suspect that was north (Sand Bay, now Pontins) or south (Brean Down, several). Either way, "all inclusive" is a "red flag" to me: they've got your money so why should they go to any effort to make the prison enjoyable. The local rag has monthly horror stories about such places.

Sorry just realised it was Minehead not Weston-super-Mare. I get confused with seaside towns fairly easily. Apart from Clacton which sticks out as a Morlock riddled shit show of a place. But yes same classification of prison camp. I was persuaded by someone with fond memories from childhood. I've learned that those memories are corrupt if you look deeper. For example my trip to the New Forest with my grandmother and aunt when I was a kid was a fond memory until I thought deeply and remembered it was boring as hell (they just sat there on a campsite in a caravan watching TV and went nowhere), the food was terrible and I smelled of cigarettes for the week.

Edit: got to be honest here and say that the stuff at hamfests these days is mostly trash. Has been since before Covid hit, declining rapidly in quality and increasing in price and dishonesty as of 2019. I might skip them in future. I had another option today of a day out I wish I’d taken instead which involved potentially falling in the Thames and in retrospect that looked more attractive.

I tend to agree - I wouldn't go far, an 45mins at the most. I'll reassess that after things become more normal - perhaps there will be more silent key sales then. I did get a couple of entertaining Tek instruments at pleasing prices that way.

Yes I'm setting that limit as well now. Harwell is borderline on distance but tends to be worth it.

There was some tek stuff there including a full trolley of 585A with lots of plugins and a 310A but I don't have the room or inclination. I'm not sure the 585A would fit in the car either. Apart from that there were some wet HP 141T's, some wet Thurlby 1.3GHz counters, a wet HP 3335A, a wet Marconi VTVM, lots of wet radios and wet boxes of crud which really should go to WEEE. 

[bd139]

Dropped into hunts rally. Pissing it down. Bought SFA. Sellers were either taking the piss or selling wet things. Mirfield were there selling fake tinySA’s so that’s intent for sure. Have reported it back to Erik. Waste of fuel 

Hmm, you didn't see the Tek 585A with scope mobile and multiple plug-ins including SA nd test? Only £85 ONO?
I would have loved to rescue it but literally don't have anywhere to put it. It also ads nothing to my capability.
I bought  bunch of kit including:
HP 1653B LA with 'scope option
HP 33335A Synth with OCXO and printed manual
HP 5090A
HP 5090B
Shuttle DS81 micro PC
Pico ADC 12 interface (12 bit logger / scope adaptor)
Olsen IEC power  strip new C/W plugs.
Sony Video Walkman + 3 non display portable recorder and box of bits.
Greenpar interseries abaptor and attenuator (NIB)
Various other bits.
Total spend including entry fee £55 

Yes saw all that. The 3335A was broken and had been repaired. I would have had it if it hadn't been repaired 

[mnementh]

Or the way French words look like Italian words, except they drop the last few letters when they are spoken.

Yonks ago, I travelled through Italy, Switzerland, & into France.

As Aussies wave their hands around a lot when speaking, just like Italians I could communicate pretty well, & also picked up quite a few useful words, which mostly were pronounced as they were spelt.
An Italian/English dictionary & some handwaving worked well.

Alas, this did not work in France.
Looking up a word, it quite often looked like an Italian or English word, but the pronunciation was something else again!

Perhaps, a French phrasebook would've been helpful, then. Something similar like the famous Hungarian phrasebook from the 70's.

After 2 decades down there, I know just enough Texican Español to to get my face slapped. I expect this is pretty much all you need to know in Français to get similar results. 

mnem
Sorry aboot the ugly subtitles... it was the only vid I could find where the audio wasn't just matière fécale...

[tggzzz]

Sorry just realised it was Minehead not Weston-super-Mare. I get confused with seaside towns fairly easily. Apart from Clacton which sticks out as a Morlock riddled shit show of a place. But yes same classification of prison camp. I was persuaded by someone with fond memories from childhood. I've learned that those memories are corrupt if you look deeper. For example my trip to the New Forest with my grandmother and aunt when I was a kid was a fond memory until I thought deeply and remembered it was boring as hell (they just sat there on a campsite in a caravan watching TV and went nowhere), the food was terrible and I smelled of cigarettes for the week.

My parents always dragged me along to do things. Sometimes it was good, e.g. Camber Sands beach (and walled ghetto which put me off the concept of holiday camps). More often it was boring, e.g. antique shops in Brighton, and usually I ended up only seeing the last 10 minutes of Thunderbirds - which pissed me off, of course.

In retrospect, it was better than the alternative, but you don't realise that as a kid.

[mnementh]

Computers : you all seem from another planet ! 

My computer I built 15 years ago. In 2006, I was wiating for the Core2Duo to come around.

So in 2006 I got a Core2duo 8200  2,6GHz 2MB cache IIRC.
4GB of RAM
x2 HDD 500GB Samsung, mechanical/ spinning of course.

17" CRT monitor. Was using my existing monitor from my previous machine. NEc M700. Now using a Samsung Syncmaster 700p, still 17" CRT.

Graphics card ? GeForce 6200. The lowest spec I could find at the time, as I am not a gamer. Just needed basic 3D not heavy duty stuff. Goal was to be cheap and passive cooling and as low power as possible. Aim was a machine that's very quiet and doesn't draw too much power, because electricity you have to pay.

Printer : HP Lasert 6P B&W, bought brand new in 1997. First toner lasted 10 years and 4000 pages a promised by HP. Replacement toner I didn't even pay, daddy got one from work. It lasted for 13 years and also 4000 pages. Replaced it last year, was seifed, druims would not turn anymore... Replacement toner 20 Euros from Ebay Germany. Printer now prints just as good as new.
Lowest cost per page, highest reliability one could hope for. I certainly got money money's worth on that printer ! Of course now it's got a new toner it will last a few more years still and maybe reach 30 years, that would not surprise me.


RAM : 3 years ago Firefox, a memory hog, forced me to up that to 8GB, max the motherboard would take.


So 15 years later, still very happy, machine works just fine and does what it needs to do ! The 2 HDD never failed even though machine ran 24/7 for those 16 years. They are still super silent too, no weird high-pitch noise like some drives do when their crappy bearing is on the way out.


However I do intend to replace it in a year or so, but mostly because Firefox wants more nad more RAM as years go by... now even 8GB is not enough. FF alone takes 10GB, have only on the machine. So have 2GB on the swap.. well more than that since the OS and other apps need to run too !
Have 4.7GB of swap. The other day it nealry used it all up and computer was down to a crawl, an the verge of freezing. Took 20 minutes of trashing the HDD, but I managed to switch to console to fire up 'top' to kill FF. Couldn't do it on the desktop as the mouse was not responsive enough...

So I mostly want t a new machine so that I cna put a ton of RAM on it. 16GB minimum to fix the current situation. 32GB to cater for future needs. Ideally MB would need to support 64 and I would put that much once the price of the RAM sticks decreases enough. But 32GB to start with that's for sure.

Then also wnat to change it because I only have PCI slots on the MB and my Geforce 6200 is not supported anymore by Nvidia. Need a more modern card which means PCI-X not vanilla PCI.  Still, same logic : the lowest power one, passive cooling and small heat sink. Just like the GF6200.

Also fancy switching to an SSD as nowadays tehy seem decent, and available in large capacities for cheap even from reputable brands.

Also need a faster Ethernet adapter as I would like to setup a NAS to share files with the soon to come second computer, want one in the lab. NAS also would act as a backup if the SS in one machine crashed.. I hear they do like to crash after just a few years, sometimes only 3 years, unbelievable.
So would need faster than 100MBps. I understand the newer NIC's can do 1GB, that would do it ! 

Would also not mind USB 2 or 3, as USB vanilla is slow as a dog for file transfers.

Would also like a faster memory  and memory controller, so I can shift large amounts of data around quickly, like when I am in Gimp working on large pictures.

Might switch to an LCD screen to get a slightly larger screen, but it really kills me, I love my old CRT. Just a bit too bulky and power hungry.

However I still want that next computer to have, of course, serial ports and a parallel port so I can use my HP Laserjet, and a VGA port so I can use my CRT, as I doubt I will get rid of it this easily.
So I guess I would have use some adapter or add come extension cards to get the UART and parallel port.


Anyway that's the plan...

All that to confirm what others have said a few messages ago : computers have now reached a point where evne the crappiest is good enough for most people... hence why mine still does the job 15 years later !  That would have been impossible in the '90's where the life expectancy was 3 years or so... was moving so fast !

No no, Firefox doesn't need 10Gb, it is much less as this test here shows, much the same is required for all of the top three browsers, with Edge just a fraction  less than both Firefox and Chrome.

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/chrome-firefox-edge-ram-comparison

Yeah.... as long as you don't have too many tabs open, sure. *counts* I have 98 tabs right now. FF will gag around 125-150 on my machine; edge/Chrome won't do half that.

Yeah, I'm a lazy bastard and I only cull the tabs when I have to. Hey... I spent the money on all that RAM and CPU; may as well use it.

Thew only real problem I have with FF is that one of their development tracks... I think the one with their better SSL security implementation... has a problem with memory leaks. Once or twice a year, (or maybe it's whenever the media is all up in arms aboot IntardNet Security/Privacy) they rotate it into the "current release" and everything aboot FF changes. The way it handles new tabs, the hover text/drop-downs... and when that happens, the memory leaks come back.

mnem
 

[AVGresponding]

Yeah, perish the thought that they might actually test something before they release it...

Hell, even console games effectively ship in open beta these days.   

[Robert763]

Dropped into hunts rally. Pissing it down. Bought SFA. Sellers were either taking the piss or selling wet things. Mirfield were there selling fake tinySA’s so that’s intent for sure. Have reported it back to Erik. Waste of fuel 

Hmm, you didn't see the Tek 585A with scope mobile and multiple plug-ins including SA nd test? Only £85 ONO?
I would have loved to rescue it but literally don't have anywhere to put it. It also ads nothing to my capability.
I bought  bunch of kit including:
HP 1653B LA with 'scope option
HP 33335A Synth with OCXO and printed manual
HP 5090A
HP 5090B
Shuttle DS81 micro PC
Pico ADC 12 interface (12 bit logger / scope adaptor)
Olsen IEC power  strip new C/W plugs.
Sony Video Walkman + 3 non display portable recorder and box of bits.
Greenpar interseries abaptor and attenuator (NIB)
Various other bits.
Total spend including entry fee £55 

Yes saw all that. The 3335A was broken and had been repaired. I would have had it if it hadn't been repaired 

Hmm, it's still in the boot. What was broken? I've bought from the seller before and not haad any issues. He's  retired professonal.
A bit of drizzle won't do an HP any harm if wiped off and dried.

[bd139]

Apparently power supply issues and occasionally drops lock. “Needs a recap” was his opinion.  The lock issue has been fixed a couple of times. Also it has some amplitude instability when sweeping.

I honestly nearly had a 141T off him for the offered £40 but just couldn’t pull the trigger.

[BU508A]

Somebody here in Germany which wants to pick up a Tektronix 7603 including the scope-mobile for EUR 70? (NAWTS)

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/oscilloscope-tektonik-7603-mit-messwagen/1855268001-168-8752

[med6753]

Apparently power supply issues and occasionally drops lock. “Needs a recap” was his opinion.  The lock issue has been fixed a couple of times. Also it has some amplitude instability when sweeping.

I honestly nearly had a 141T off him for the offered £40 but just couldn’t pull the trigger.

There's a ham fest local to me on September 12th. Same one I scored an hp power supply.

I wish that Type 585 were here and yes, it will fit in the CR-V. But do I really want that sort of punishment?   

[Kosmic]

I like to play things like Command and Conquer and things like that, strategy etc.

If you had a train set as a kid, you'll probably find OpenTTD addictive. Build road/rail/air transport systems including surprisingly complex and subtle signalling to everything running smoothly.

It started out in 1994 as a Transport Tycoon Deluxe. When that eventually became abandon ware, lots of people recreated it as OpenTTD, and extended its capabilities.

Transport Tycoon Deluxe was a really good game. I spent a lot of time playing that game back in the days.

I didn't know about OpenTTD. Will look into it, thanks.

[Saskia]

There is a nice Sony TA-D88 in ebay classifieds. For those unfamiliar with it, it is a hifi crossover for up to 4 channels.
Seller wants 1500 for it, I would be offering 600 - 800, so we won't be closing a deal.

This is a nice crossover though, and if I did not already have a high end crossover, I might be tempted.

btw most addictive game for me was Civilization II. I did play Ultima 1-5 and Wing Commander, though.

[tggzzz]

Transport Tycoon Deluxe was a really good game. I spent a lot of time playing that game back in the days.
I didn't know about OpenTTD. Will look into it, thanks.

OpenTTD is the same, but better

Graphics are good old-school, but the playability remains wonderful. The new signals allow complex tracks to be built.

[bd139]

Wing Commander

Ah yes. I also spent many an hour on the TCS Tiger's Claw mon amie

[BU508A]

That's what I'm playing if I find some leisure time:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/221540/DG2_Defense_Grid_2/

[factory]

Dropped into hunts rally. Pissing it down. Bought SFA. Sellers were either taking the piss or selling wet things. Mirfield were there selling fake tinySA’s so that’s intent for sure. Have reported it back to Erik. Waste of fuel 

Hmm, you didn't see the Tek 585A with scope mobile and multiple plug-ins including SA nd test? Only £85 ONO?
I would have loved to rescue it but literally don't have anywhere to put it. It also ads nothing to my capability.
I bought  bunch of kit including:
HP 1653B LA with 'scope option
HP 33335A Synth with OCXO and printed manual
HP 5090A
HP 5090B
Shuttle DS81 micro PC
Pico ADC 12 interface (12 bit logger / scope adaptor)
Olsen IEC power  strip new C/W plugs.
Sony Video Walkman + 3 non display portable recorder and box of bits.
Greenpar interseries abaptor and attenuator (NIB)
Various other bits.
Total spend including entry fee £55 

I'm curious, have either the hp 5090A/B been modified to work with 198kHz LW (from the original 200kHz)? If they have, will you be keeping them?

Neither of mine have, I did buy some bits for converting the 5090B, but since I've tried & failed to create a board layout with various CAD programs, the project has stalled. 

Note: only the 5090A manual is online, no 5090B manuals exist as far as I know (apart from a mention on an old defunct website). Look for the Radcom November 1989 pdf* for conversion info and note the hp uses negative PSU rails, I was going to use a separate transformer for this, as a previous owner has already had a PSU burn out with some kind of mod (not the Radcom one).

*pdf too big to add here.

Here are a few pictures I took a while ago of my 5090B.



The high quality modification.



Underneath the bodgery.


The two boards, one of which looks to be a divider assembly used in the 5232 (& others) counter.



David

[Cerebus]

Dropped into hunts rally. Pissing it down. Bought SFA. Sellers were either taking the piss or selling wet things. Mirfield were there selling fake tinySA’s so that’s intent for sure. Have reported it back to Erik. Waste of fuel 

You sound like you feel like this:

[Cubdriver]

Apparently power supply issues and occasionally drops lock. “Needs a recap” was his opinion.  The lock issue has been fixed a couple of times. Also it has some amplitude instability when sweeping.

I honestly nearly had a 141T off him for the offered £40 but just couldn’t pull the trigger.

There's a ham fest local to me on September 12th. Same one I scored an hp power supply.

I wish that Type 585 were here and yes, it will fit in the CR-V. But do I really want that sort of punishment? 

Yeah, I’d have jumped on that 585 and the plug ins too!

-Pat

[bd139]

Dropped into hunts rally. Pissing it down. Bought SFA. Sellers were either taking the piss or selling wet things. Mirfield were there selling fake tinySA’s so that’s intent for sure. Have reported it back to Erik. Waste of fuel 

You sound like you feel like this:

Wasn’t even that much water. That would have been amusing at least watching everyone slipping around in it and stuck mobility scooters being dug out 

I just did a quick differential analysis of my mindset on this which was interesting. Earlier it was that pissy drizzle that sort of makes everything damp and rotten and throughly miserable. It’s like that here this afternoon so I went for a walk instead. I enjoyed the walk. I did not enjoy the hamfest.

Conclusions to be drawn later.

[duckduck]

I bought a Keithley 197A off of Craigslist. It's in excellent physical condition. Date codes on ICs are 1996. Came with folding bale and original IEC cord. Everything seems to work OK on it. Best part: I paid USD20. 

Green backlight is pretty dim. Probably just right for working in a coal mine on a clear, moonless night. It has a "regular" fuse in a panel mount holder in the front. It's got another one on the PCB by the IEC entry connector. What's up with the funny fuse with the resistor inside?

You'll just have to take my word on the voltage comparison side-by-side. I couldn't be arsed to Dig the GW Instek out of the shelf. Keithley had no warm-up.

Had to use the cell phone for the main PCB shot. I removed the aluminum shield over the analog part in the front for you, dear reader.

EDIT:

Added a couple o' more pictures. Check out the adjustable thingy that looks like it's just a gold-plated wire and a screw.

[Specmaster]

That's what I'm playing if I find some leisure time:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/221540/DG2_Defense_Grid_2/

That looks quite good fun, is also a single player game or is it only a on-line game with others?

[McBryce]

Sorry just realised it was Minehead not Weston-super-Mare. I get confused with seaside towns fairly easily. Apart from Clacton which sticks out as a Morlock riddled shit show of a place. But yes same classification of prison camp. I was persuaded by someone with fond memories from childhood. I've learned that those memories are corrupt if you look deeper. For example my trip to the New Forest with my grandmother and aunt when I was a kid was a fond memory until I thought deeply and remembered it was boring as hell (they just sat there on a campsite in a caravan watching TV and went nowhere), the food was terrible and I smelled of cigarettes for the week.

My parents always dragged me along to do things. Sometimes it was good, e.g. Camber Sands beach (and walled ghetto which put me off the concept of holiday camps). More often it was boring, e.g. antique shops in Brighton, and usually I ended up only seeing the last 10 minutes of Thunderbirds - which pissed me off, of course.

In retrospect, it was better than the alternative, but you don't realise that as a kid.

Wouldn't the alternative be getting to see the entire episode of Thunderbirds? What would be so bad about that?

McBryce.

[Cerebus]

Earlier it was that pissy drizzle that sort of makes everything damp and rotten and throughly miserable.

It's a pointed comment on the climate in Scotland that a Scot can replace that whole sentence with "It was dreich".

[Robert763]

Dropped into hunts rally. Pissing it down. Bought SFA. Sellers were either taking the piss or selling wet things. Mirfield were there selling fake tinySA’s so that’s intent for sure. Have reported it back to Erik. Waste of fuel 

Hmm, you didn't see the Tek 585A with scope mobile and multiple plug-ins including SA nd test? Only £85 ONO?
I would have loved to rescue it but literally don't have anywhere to put it. It also ads nothing to my capability.
I bought  bunch of kit including:
HP 1653B LA with 'scope option
HP 33335A Synth with OCXO and printed manual
HP 5090A
HP 5090B
Shuttle DS81 micro PC
Pico ADC 12 interface (12 bit logger / scope adaptor)
Olsen IEC power  strip new C/W plugs.
Sony Video Walkman + 3 non display portable recorder and box of bits.
Greenpar interseries abaptor and attenuator (NIB)
Various other bits.
Total spend including entry fee £55 

I'm curious, have either the hp 5090A/B been modified to work with 198kHz LW (from the original 200kHz)? If they have, will you be keeping them?

Neither of mine have, I did buy some bits for converting the 5090B, but since I've tried & failed to create a board layout with various CAD programs, the project has stalled. 

Note: only the 5090A manual is online, no 5090B manuals exist as far as I know (apart from a mention on an old defunct website). Look for the Radcom November 1989 pdf* for conversion info and note the hp uses negative PSU rails, I was going to use a separate transformer for this, as a previous owner has already had a PSU burn out with some kind of mod (not the Radcom one).


David

Neither have been converted AFAIK. The B is pretty rough. I don't think I'll convert the A. It is still useful as a phase comparator for 1 and 5 MHz even unlocked. I could also divide the 800kHz from one of the Marconi Rb's by 4 and lock it to that......
I only paid £1 each for them.

[factory]

There will be some teardown pictures when I've edited them, it cleaned up nicely the other day. 




David

As promised some teardown pictures of the hp (Dymec) 2590A microwave frequency converter.

Top cover removed, first thing I noticed was the screw falling out of cover of the RS Electronics Corp. I.F. strip, this was the bought-in-part that was eventually replaced with a Dymec built design for the 2590B.


Bottom cover removed, showing all the RF plumbing underneath the die cast assemblies.


The PSU section, don't think I've ever seen one of those little transistor heatsinks screwed to the side of the frame like that before, it's fully insulated too.




Next to the PSU is this little modification, it looks to be a simple crystal based 10MHz oscillator, these normally rely on the 10MHz reference signal being provided by the hp 5245L counter.


In the front is a hp 934A harmonic mixer (as used in the hp 540B), a little roll chart and some of those nice slide switches.




David