Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Brumby]

Work is killing me today.

Why I do not start my company and do what I want how I want?
Who has his own company here?

I don't have a company - but I have done some casual "self-employment" style work.

The fun part is that all the structure, time constraints and prioritisation that an employer will dump on you is something you now have to pick up and run with yourself.  There are also additional administrative responsibilities (which will differ depending on where you operate) that you never had to worry about as an employee.

Sometimes, the simple act of getting up in the morning is a hard decision, since the boss (you) won't complain.

It is an extra level of discipline - but if you can get on top of it, then - yes - working for yourself has its perks!

[TERRA Operative]

Aw crap, just got an e-mail that the 8416 tube I ordered for $18 USD for the Type W plug-in is out of stock. Gotta do more searching. I am NOT paying those asinine Ebay prices. 

Cheapest one I was able to find is this one for 35 Euro (incl. VAT, excl. shipping):
https://btb-elektronik.de/en/product/2017/8416-6922-but-uf12-6v-doubletriode/

I could order and send it to you. Makes it probably a little bit cheaper.

All domestic vacuum tubes sites are out of stock. I just bit the bullet and ordered one on Ebay for $50. After your shipping from Germany would probably be about the same price. Appreciate you looking. 

Shipping might still be a killer, but I can take a look at the couple remaining tube stores here in Akihabara, Japan if you need any more tubes.

[bitseeker]

Work is killing me today.

Why I do not start my company and do what I want how I want?
Who has his own company here?

I don't have a company - but I have done some casual "self-employment" style work.

The fun part is that all the structure, time constraints and prioritisation that an employer will dump on you is something you now have to pick up and run with yourself.  There are also additional administrative responsibilities (which will differ depending on where you operate) that you never had to worry about as an employee.

Sometimes, the simple act of getting up in the morning is a hard decision, since the boss (you) won't complain.

It is an extra level of discipline - but if you can get on top of it, then - yes - working for yourself has its perks!

Well said, Brumby. Being a serial entrepreneur, I've always had some kind of company either alone or with others. Like most things in life, there are tradeoffs. With greater freedom comes greater responsibilities that you have to take on (or pay others to take care of).

[Saskia]

I was self employed / freelancing for a couple of years with very nice contracts from a bank, SGI, Eye bee Emm ..
average working hours 230/month at the contract, plus about 3-4 per day for admin, orga, Akquisition,...
back in those days I earned real money  which I lost when I got divorced. family life and contracting do not always mix.

[Saskia]

arrived , unloaded the car and ready for some serious zzzzs after being held up by some fuzzy creatures that explained to me that an H7 lamp (front right) had burned out

[Brumby]

..  you may call me batshit crazy.

We do ...but only in hushed tones around the water cooler.

It's important to note that we do this with admiration - and a healthy respect for your choice of condiments (in 50g portions).   

[med6753]

Progress, but this Type CA plug-in is still massively screwed up. The problem from earlier was due to a dead 12AU6. Open filament.

Channel 1 has extremely low gain which is affected and changed by channel 2's controls. The Sine wave applied to channel 2 does not show in any mode switch position. Seems to point to a problem in the channel switching area. Will continue with this tomorrow.

[med6753]

Aw crap, just got an e-mail that the 8416 tube I ordered for $18 USD for the Type W plug-in is out of stock. Gotta do more searching. I am NOT paying those asinine Ebay prices. 

Cheapest one I was able to find is this one for 35 Euro (incl. VAT, excl. shipping):
https://btb-elektronik.de/en/product/2017/8416-6922-but-uf12-6v-doubletriode/

I could order and send it to you. Makes it probably a little bit cheaper.

All domestic vacuum tubes sites are out of stock. I just bit the bullet and ordered one on Ebay for $50. After your shipping from Germany would probably be about the same price. Appreciate you looking. 

Shipping might still be a killer, but I can take a look at the couple remaining tube stores here in Akihabara, Japan if you need any more tubes.

Appreciate it but hopefully won't need it. The tube that I'm getting ass raped for $50 USD has "gold plated pins" and guaranteed to be tested. We'll see. 

[Kosmic]

Work is killing me today.

Why I do not start my company and do what I want how I want?
Who has his own company here?

I have my own company called "retired". 

"Where do you see yourself in five years?"

Owning a company called "retired" that runs teanonymous.com.

Sound like fun, let me know if you are hiring 

[beanflying]

Self employed or semi retired for nearly 20 years now and UNEMPLOYABLE 

You may not get rich but you get to pick if or who you work with and importantly who you work for.

[Kosmic]

Being employed is not always that bad. At work we leaned recently that we are going to switch to a 4 workdays per week schedule. Same salary, but we get our Friday off 

Will get a lot more TEA time suddenly 

[med6753]

Being employed is not always that bad. At work we leaned recently that we are going to switch to a 4 workdays per week schedule. Same salary, but we get our Friday off 

Will get a lot more TEA time suddenly 

You think so, eh? Wait until you tell your wife. 

[Kosmic]

Being employed is not always that bad. At work we leaned recently that we are going to switch to a 4 workdays per week schedule. Same salary, but we get our Friday off 

Will get a lot more TEA time suddenly 

You think so, eh? Wait until you tell your wife. 

yeah I know 

[Kosmic]

For God's sake, nice search algorithm Ebay.

I'm looking for a 10MHz oscillator (bk3-1b) and Ebay is proposing something else.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=bk3-1b

[bitseeker]

Yeah, eBay is broken in so many ways. Their suggestions are but the tip of the iceberg of fails.

[Zucca]

As your employer was progressive enough to be willing to pay for your relocation to the US, I have to admit I don't personally believe the FMS lifestyle can hold a candle to your current terms of engagement... but I also understand viscerally just how dire the need to escape that cage can feel.

Good luck, my friend. I expect you are going to need it.

mnem
 

Right now I am in the position with my knowledge to teach the bosses what they need to do. I do not want to do carreer... too much stress for not real money.
While keeping the big company nice stuff it will be fun to try to put on wheel some projects.

Only if I will start to make serious $$$ with some safety margin and only then I could say goodbye to the big company boat.

I am little over 40, there is still time to conquer the world I think...



I hate to think inside the box....

[Specmaster]

Work is killing me today.

Why I do not start my company and do what I want how I want?
Who has his own company here?

I have my own company called "retired". 

Same here.

[mnementh]

The guy (a ham) said now he doesn't want to sell the Boonton power meter to me. I had mentioned I wanted to test the meter to make sure the sensor was OK, because if it wasn't I didn't want the meter at all - I don't need it, I already have two fine hp power meters with sensors. I didn't want to buy a Boonton sensor for lots of money if it's defective. Now I think he realizes if the sensor is OK the meter and sensor is worth more than $15. I was talking with another ham friend who knows us both very well, and he said the other guy probably also was put off because I just didn't buy the meter without testing it first. But he knows me and agrees with what I wanted to do.

EDIT: Don't feel bad, x. You aren't the first TEA-er who's talked himself out of what should have been a "buy now, ask questions later" deal. I mean, for $15, it's a good shelf ornament.

Exactly. For $15, lots of old equipment, if not otherwise usable, can be nice sources of project boxes, switches, connectors, meters, indicators, etc. Of course, that's why I now have lots of potential project boxes, switches, connectors, ... 

mnem
A TEA-er's success is measured by the curb weight of the junk incredibly valuable historical artifacts s/he passes on to the next generation. 

[mnementh]

As your employer was progressive enough to be willing to pay for your relocation to the US, I have to admit I don't personally believe the FMS lifestyle can hold a candle to your current terms of engagement... but I also understand viscerally just how dire the need to escape that cage can feel.

Good luck, my friend. I expect you are going to need it.

mnem
 

Right now I am in the position with my knowledge to teach the bosses what they need to do. I do not want to do carreer... too much stress for not real money. While keeping the big company nice stuff it will be fun to try to put on wheel some projects.

Only if I will start to make serious $$$ with some safety margin and only then I could say goodbye to the big company boat.

I am little over 40, there is still time to conquer the world I think...      I hate to think inside the box....

Sounds to me like bd139 has led another disciple into the Church of the Sub-Genius. 

That's my idea of heaven. A nice messy DC to re-cable.

Apart from one I went to. Lifted a floor panel up and there was 5 inch deep water under it. Ran a fucking mile, especially as no one who worked there claimed to realize that it was the case. Must have been like it for a while.

Just chuck s bilge pump in and switch it on, soon lower the water line.

That's step 1. It's step 2 and above I didn't fancy. Consider Schrodinger's cat. Until you observe the state of the cat, you don't know if it's dead or alive. I'd rather someone else opened this box as it's a whole load less hassle for me

Since Harvey pummeled us, that's mostly all I've been doing.

I get the fun part... documenting the damage (mostly a matter of confirming and photographing the high-water line, and inventorying what gear/cabling was below it) then sending that all back to some management-type on a spreadsheet. From there they decide whether to have local talent repair what needs to be repaired, or whether to call in one of the national HazMat service providers. You can tell from the nature of the information they want which way they WANT to proceed; some deployments they clearly seem to feel only a reterm/refresh is necessary.

I think it's more a matter of "Can we shove the really expensive work off to another quarter?" vs "Is this piece of our network mission critical?"

You must be unaware of the concept of "slack" as described by the church of subgenius. Crudely defined as "something for nothing"

The function of slack is approximately: slack = return / effort

Too much on the denominator reduces slack. Work is usually about maximising return. I am about maximising slack. Slack is roughly "efficiency" but slack is more focused on decreasing effort than maximising return.  If you're asked to come in and evaluate something for a fee (£500 smackers in the case above) and you walk away having written a couple of emails saying you won't touch it with a barge pole, the ratio is maintained as the denominator is close to zero.

Yeah, that's the great part for me. I DON'T PULL CABLE, PERIOD. (your "slack factor" at work IRL) I'm to old and too fat for that crap; pulling cable is a young man's game. I'll reterm/cable manage a DC all day long; and while I'm at it I'll build a spreadsheet of what new drops need to be run BY SOMEONE ELSE.

That's why I refer to these service calls as a HALO drop; because the strategy is the same. Single objective (most often intel than actual repair), fixed extraction point, do all you can to reach the objective by the extraction point because everything beyond that extraction point is on a cost/plus basis and the buyer is already paying a premium for the intel.

Once you reach the extraction point, submit your paperwork and go home with a clear conscience knowing you've done your bit for god & country. 

mnem
"Good Night, and may your god go with you." ~ Dave Allen

[ch_scr]

Don't like it here? Get "selbstständig", then you can work "selbst" and "ständig" 

There's an even bigger joke: "You freelancers have it good. You can organise your working hours as you wish!"

Can't even laugh about that anymore.

I think over here it's more correctly called:
"You freelancers have it good. You can freely select which 12 hours of the day you work" 

[vk6zgo]

Don't get me wrong - there are hams that really know electronics and rf. But it seems more and more just don't have a clue. You don't have to understand electronics to be a ham, nor much of anything other than being able to memorize test answers. You could pass the Amateur Extra Class exam and know NOTHING about how to operate a real radio. But buy a radio and an antenna ... presto you are an Extra Class ham!

In fairness, in the old Australian AOCP, if you could answer the reasonably hard Theory & Regs papers, plus send & receive Morse code at the required speed, you were a "Full call", with all the benefits that implied.
Being able to actually operate a radio was not tested, so you could pass everything without ever having seen a ham radio.

In practice, it was never a problem, but interestingly, the modern "Foundation' licence requires the applicant to, under supervision, carry out a real contact with another station.

They now have a microphone and a radio. They breathe in air and blow it past their vocal chords and out come words yes ... but even smart birds can say words. So they seem to be instant experts on any subject among the following: medicine, engineering (of any kind), personal relationships, construction, oh and politics - they are the world's best political analysts!. You should listen to the local 2 meter simplex frequency for a couple of hours. You'd slit your wrists.

I could listen on our local 2 metre simplex frequency & hear "crickets", unless there was some sort of VHF contest on.

[psykok]

To all the TM500 aficionados here, here is a cheap one !

https://www.leboncoin.fr/bricolage/2075409013.htm

A big double width one (sold without the rack just the plugin)... a " distortion analyzer " !
Is it rare enough and sought after enough to really be worth 650 Euros  (800USD) ?!   
I am glad I am not in the TM500 game, I could not afford it ! 

Price is what it is and you know that you are never selling  something for the displayed price on this platform !

[Robert763]

Greetings, all. Ooh, music stuff. Time to start reading back in the thread.

Meanwhile,



this is the most boat-anchory bit of TE I've acquired thus far. I've been on the casual lookout for one of these test sets, either an 8920 or 8924, for a while but they tend to be pricey. I finally came across this one



It has a 6-Watt input, instead of the usual 3-Watt, but not the beefier 60- or 100-Watt. It does have the mechanical attenuator, which makes its calibrated bottom end 400 kHz instead of the 30 MHz of the ones with electronic attenuator.
...

If you have not bought the replacement bezel I have a spare you can have FOC.
Does t have the Spectrum Analyser fitted?

Hi Robert! I actually did purchase a bezel already (it's badged as an 8924E). If something happens to it on its way over here, or it turns out to look worse than I can tolerate , I'll let you know. Thanks for the offer!

Yes, the 8924C has the spectrum analyzer as default equipment. The only "problem" I ran into while verifying its operational condition was that it had been set up for CDMA operations, so some of the tests failed without the 83256B PCS interface. After reconfiguring it for regular analog operation, all was well. Having never used one of these before, it's been a bit of an adventure poking around all the menus and the built-in HP BASIC programs.

I take it you have seen this?
http://www.amtronix.com/poweron.htm

Ignore the 8924 manual and use the 8920B  manual.
I you want a copy of the RF Tools utility etc I have them on Flash card.
I passed my 8924C on to a friend just before Covid lockdown. I had picked up a very tidy 8920B cheap and have a R&S CMU-200 (Actually a CRTU-RU with CMU-200 software) so the 8924C was just taking up space. Still have some spare parts. If you ever need anything let me know. There is a small 8924C group on groups.io

[med6753]

The Type CA plug-in is fixed. Remember I stated that the plug-in as received was missing about a half dozen tubes? I discovered that some Gorilla had plugged existing V3393 with the WRONG vacuum tube. It should be a 12AT7. A 6DJ8/ECC88 was installed. 

Installed the correct tube and now we have a happy plug-in. Gain on both channels excellent. Will let it settle in for about an hour then will check DC balance and compensation. If they check out this Type CA plug-in will be complete.

[Vince]

To all the TM500 aficionados here, here is a cheap one !

https://www.leboncoin.fr/bricolage/2075409013.htm

A big double width one (sold without the rack just the plugin)... a " distortion analyzer " !
Is it rare enough and sought after enough to really be worth 650 Euros  (800USD) ?!   
I am glad I am not in the TM500 game, I could not afford it ! 

Price is what it is and you know that you are never selling  something for the displayed price on this platform !

No worries, I was not judging, was only honestly asking people if it was worth that much since I know nothing of the TM500 market.

I see you deleted your ad, for those who might be interested in this plugin, here is the link to the new ad with 25% discount, now down to 460 Euros :

https://www.leboncoin.fr/bricolage/2077201331.htm