Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[cyclin_al]

Yes it’s the whole “chemicals” thing again. I had a fun discussion about that with the ex mother in law once. She won’t eat margarine because “it’s all chemicals” apparently. Same with a person recently on a random eating out thing. This devolves always into there being good chemicals and “bad chemicals”. Of course no one can name a bad chemical or for that matter a good chemical.

I rather like our post industrial society! We live long and don’t have to walk up to the end of the garden for a shit.

I don't eat margarine because it's 'orrible, butter's much nicer. That aside, older formulations of margarine used to contain very high levels of trans fats, modern ones often contain palm oil which directly or indirectly is a cause of rainforest deforestation for palm planation.

As far as 'bad' chemicals goes, most metallorganics come close to fitting the definition.

In the GWN, all the modern ones use Canola.  Then again, we have lots of that since rapeseed is grown here.  Yes, it is incorrect to say "rapeseed" in public in these parts.

[AVGresponding]

Hi Guys,
it has been a while. Hope everyone is good! 

during my time away i have been collecting.
i am now looking for a list of specs and ages of the following FLUKE meters.
Fluke 23,25,27,73,77, 8025B
Maybe Med or BD will maybe have a list of this old Fluke meters as i think they have them.

Hope you can help me.
   
Tony

Fluke 27/AN is what a bunch of us have.  Every second one came with two service manuals.  Luckily, TEA membership helped get the service manuals properly distributed. 
Are you looking for the complete manual, or just certain specs?

I still have my second manual. It's very nice but not as good as a second breakfast.

[bd139]

Oh they are terrible. Hence why the project I was working on ended up in the national press for going extremely over budget, then spiralled down the toilet, got renamed twice and then got scrapped before the end of its service life  . Everyone got paid though!

If it was renamed twice, it couldn't have been the Nimrod ASW aircraft.

I alway regarded it as remarkable that the first variant was designed to use an obsolete commercial 1950s airframe, albeit heavily modified.

They then repeated that, with a 2003 variant built on the same airframes!

Not far off it. Bombardier Global Express was the airframe though.

There were numerous comedy cock ups on that project. I will write a book one day.

Hmmm... it seems the bar wasn't set terribly high to begin with; it was the then ~40-year-old Avro Shackleton that they were supposed to be replacing, right?


mnem
   

The South Africans replaced C47s (Dakota) with Shackletons. When the Shacks ran out of airframe life the put they C47 back into use.
A google search for Bombardier Global ISR turned this up
https://www.timesaerospace.aero/features/defence/a-game-of-high-spy-with-project-dolphin

And yet, in the place where they manufacture assemble the Bombardier Global, they are still using the Aurora (CP-140), which was pre-Nimrod (there, we made it full circle).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_CP-140_Aurora
By the way, the Auroras were purchased from another fleet when they had already reached their design life.  They have already surpassed the life extension limit by a few years and still flying... 

Extensions go until the idea is no longer viable from what I have seen.

The whole manned ISTAR concept is dying now which is why they are disappearing. The endurance was pretty low, they had limited countermeasures, a high crew compliment (and body count), poor manoeuvrability, large radar surface area, high cost. The only advantage was they had a high ceiling which meant the sensors could reach into territory without the aircraft entering the airspace.

Reaper and subsequent Protector aircraft seem to kill off a lot of those problems. Plus they can drop Paveways and Brimstones

[ch_scr]

What would one use these for?



Note to ch_scr: you're not allowed to post the answer to this question here

But I can say: "I like what I see"   

[mansaxel]

The whole manned ISTAR concept is dying now which is why they are disappearing. The endurance was pretty low, they had limited countermeasures, a high crew compliment (and body count), poor manoeuvrability, large radar surface area, high cost. The only advantage was they had a high ceiling which meant the sensors could reach into territory without the aircraft entering the airspace.

Reaper and subsequent Protector aircraft seem to kill off a lot of those problems. Plus they can drop Paveways and Brimstones

The ASW rôle does not seem to be filled by drones, yet. Probably is still a bit too complicated to do on distance?

[med6753]

And yet, in the place where they manufacture assemble the Bombardier Global, they are still using the Aurora (CP-140), which was pre-Nimrod (there, we made it full circle).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_CP-140_Aurora
By the way, the Auroras were purchased from another fleet when they had already reached their design life.  They have already surpassed the life extension limit by a few years and still flying... 

Still using the P-3C Orion here which is essentially the same as the CP-140 except internal electronic gear is different. Will all eventually be replaced by the P-8.

The P-3/CP-140 is based upon the Lockheed Electra commercial airliner which had limited success.

[bd139]

The whole manned ISTAR concept is dying now which is why they are disappearing. The endurance was pretty low, they had limited countermeasures, a high crew compliment (and body count), poor manoeuvrability, large radar surface area, high cost. The only advantage was they had a high ceiling which meant the sensors could reach into territory without the aircraft entering the airspace.

Reaper and subsequent Protector aircraft seem to kill off a lot of those problems. Plus they can drop Paveways and Brimstones

The ASW rôle does not seem to be filled by drones, yet. Probably is still a bit too complicated to do on distance?

Indeed.

Although they were doing research on space-based laser doppler velocimetry and LIDAR 20 years ago. I wonder if they cracked it or not...

[Specmaster]

What would one use these for?



Note to ch_scr: you're not allowed to post the answer to this question here

But I can say: "I like what I see"   

For comparing meters, surely the red and black leads should be plugged in the middle of the chain?

[Neomys Sapiens]

Today, I took the DMMcheck to the company lab and having prepared a form, I announced that all users of multimeters which are not subject to mandatory calibration are required to show up now in my lab. One by one they showed up with their crutches and cucumbers.
4x Benning MM1 - how can something be SO off and still called a 'meter'? DCV and R ok, AC wayyyy off and µA useless. 
An Amprobe 5XP-A which was ok but with the usual deviation of non-RMS meters when measuring that square wave
An Exact (whatever) which was RMS and ok
The Amprobe 37XR-A of my technician, which is in worse shape than mine and did funny things instead of measuring current - but besides that was spot on. I expect him to find a cooked shunt or two. 
And a Beha + an Voltcraft which are lab inventory and were passable. And my Amprobe 37XR-A which did not disappoint me - actually I'm thinking that it could be nicely paired with an 38XR-A.
Although one thing is strange about them. The C and L ranges (yes, it does inductance) connect to the µA/mA jack and not the one for U, R and everything else.
The SE guy who has one shabby little thing (about your Harbour Fright quality) 'did not find it' and one guy who has at least an Amprobe and a Philips did go AWOL. Verry suspect, that.

Let them know their errors and be disgusted. 

[mansaxel]

The whole manned ISTAR concept is dying now which is why they are disappearing. The endurance was pretty low, they had limited countermeasures, a high crew compliment (and body count), poor manoeuvrability, large radar surface area, high cost. The only advantage was they had a high ceiling which meant the sensors could reach into territory without the aircraft entering the airspace.

Reaper and subsequent Protector aircraft seem to kill off a lot of those problems. Plus they can drop Paveways and Brimstones

The ASW rôle does not seem to be filled by drones, yet. Probably is still a bit too complicated to do on distance?

Indeed.

Although they were doing research on space-based laser doppler velocimetry and LIDAR 20 years ago. I wonder if they cracked it or not...

On sub hunting; there are two things that are hard;

• Finding a swedish AIP sub if you've spent your training listening for nukes. The USS Ronald Reagan was "sunk" several times over in exercises.
• Finding any sub, if properly handled, in the Baltic. The limited salinity and the thermal layers, with the generally littoral qualities to boot, are very complicated for the hunter.

[tggzzz]

The P-3/CP-140 is based upon the Lockheed Electra commercial airliner which had limited success.

iSTR the early Electras had an unfortunate tendency to shed their wings in flight.

[Robert763]

The whole manned ISTAR concept is dying now which is why they are disappearing. The endurance was pretty low, they had limited countermeasures, a high crew compliment (and body count), poor manoeuvrability, large radar surface area, high cost. The only advantage was they had a high ceiling which meant the sensors could reach into territory without the aircraft entering the airspace.

Reaper and subsequent Protector aircraft seem to kill off a lot of those problems. Plus they can drop Paveways and Brimstones

The ASW rôle does not seem to be filled by drones, yet. Probably is still a bit too complicated to do on distance?

ASW still depends on dropping various sensors etc into the water. That and low level rough weather operation is not a good fit for typical drones. It's not even a good fit for jets which is why the turboprops are still used. This includes more modern ones like ATR42 and the "Dash 8" series. 

[Neomys Sapiens]

The whole manned ISTAR concept is dying now which is why they are disappearing. The endurance was pretty low, they had limited countermeasures, a high crew compliment (and body count), poor manoeuvrability, large radar surface area, high cost. The only advantage was they had a high ceiling which meant the sensors could reach into territory without the aircraft entering the airspace.

Reaper and subsequent Protector aircraft seem to kill off a lot of those problems. Plus they can drop Paveways and Brimstones

The ASW rôle does not seem to be filled by drones, yet. Probably is still a bit too complicated to do on distance?

One must not forget that is IS a Navy job. 'Lash that bloody landlubber drone to the mizzenmast and don't let it off until it can stand it's ration of rum!'

[Robert763]

On maritime patrol, I can't talk about my work much, but here is one I did 30 years ago. Not submarine but still maritime surveillance.
This had the Ferranti Seaspray 2000 search radar. Being pre GPS it had Litton VLF/Omega and inertial navigation equipment. No video either but the Agiflight 70mm film camera had a ARINC 429 datalink to the nav system and minature LEDs that imprinted the LAT/LONG and time on the film. This was important legally. We were a small company (now long gone) and apart from the design building and indstallation I flew on the aircraft for certification and operational testing.  Roaring in at 250ft towards a boat seemed to frighten the fishermen a bit 

[Neomys Sapiens]

The whole manned ISTAR concept is dying now which is why they are disappearing. The endurance was pretty low, they had limited countermeasures, a high crew compliment (and body count), poor manoeuvrability, large radar surface area, high cost. The only advantage was they had a high ceiling which meant the sensors could reach into territory without the aircraft entering the airspace.

Reaper and subsequent Protector aircraft seem to kill off a lot of those problems. Plus they can drop Paveways and Brimstones

The ASW rôle does not seem to be filled by drones, yet. Probably is still a bit too complicated to do on distance?

Indeed.

Although they were doing research on space-based laser doppler velocimetry and LIDAR 20 years ago. I wonder if they cracked it or not...

On sub hunting; there are two things that are hard;

• Finding a swedish AIP sub if you've spent your training listening for nukes. The USS Ronald Reagan was "sunk" several times over in exercises.

Not THAT much of a problem once youv'e learned to listen for the hårt bröd crunching.

• Finding any sub, if properly handled, in the Baltic. The limited salinity and the thermal layers, with the generally littoral qualities to boot, are very complicated for the hunter.

Pull the plug and let out 1m of water?

[AVGresponding]

What would one use these for?



Note to ch_scr: you're not allowed to post the answer to this question here

But I can say: "I like what I see"   

For comparing meters, surely the red and black leads should be plugged in the middle of the chain?

No, the best way is to reverse the end you plug in at, so plug your red in meter one, and black in at meter six. That way the lead resistance is the same for all the meters.



EDIT: Basically the same way you balance lead resistance in a battery string.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Oh they are terrible. Hence why the project I was working on ended up in the national press for going extremely over budget, then spiralled down the toilet, got renamed twice and then got scrapped before the end of its service life  . Everyone got paid though!

If it was renamed twice, it couldn't have been the Nimrod ASW aircraft.

I alway regarded it as remarkable that the first variant was designed to use an obsolete commercial 1950s airframe, albeit heavily modified.

They then repeated that, with a 2003 variant built on the same airframes!

Actually, while I think that a P-3 would handle nicer flying-wise, the ASW Nimrods were capable planes with a lot of endurance and a bit more speed. The systems were generally well regarded, albeit the user interfaces of a P-3C are certainly preferrable.
I had the honour?/fun? (let's keep it neutral: job) of taking some trips in one out of RAF Kinloss. Needless to say that the weather was shit. Funniest thing about Kinloss at that time was the large gathering of hippies and esoteric types living exactly under the flight path close to the runway. One could only wonder why - but they had some appealing girls among them.
Where things became REALLY crappy was when they tried to build that AEW version.

[capt bullshot]

No, the best way is to reverse the end you plug in at, so plug your red in meter one, and black in at meter six. That way the lead resistance is the same for all the meters.

Correct. Now, what about six meters in a box ...

[Cerebus]

The whole manned ISTAR concept is dying now which is why they are disappearing. The endurance was pretty low, they had limited countermeasures, a high crew compliment (and body count), poor manoeuvrability, large radar surface area, high cost. The only advantage was they had a high ceiling which meant the sensors could reach into territory without the aircraft entering the airspace.

Reaper and subsequent Protector aircraft seem to kill off a lot of those problems. Plus they can drop Paveways and Brimstones

The ASW rôle does not seem to be filled by drones, yet. Probably is still a bit too complicated to do on distance?

Indeed.

Although they were doing research on space-based laser doppler velocimetry and LIDAR 20 years ago. I wonder if they cracked it or not...

That falls into the category of things that, if found to be effective, would be kept on the hush hush for as long as TPTB could manage to do so, like with SOSUS that was operational from 1952 but wasn't publicly acknowledged until 1991.

[Cerebus]

Finding a swedish AIP sub if you've spent your training listening for nukes. The USS Ronald Reagan was "sunk" several times over in exercises.

Not quite as satisfying as the RAF "nuking" the USA with Vulcan bombers during operation Sky Shield. 

[mansaxel]

Not THAT much of a problem once you've learned to listen for the hårt bröd crunching.

Subs are supplied with Limpa for this very reason.  (Limpa is a soft semi-sweet bread, made with molasses, on finely ground rye and wheat flour  -- it is best with butter and a mild cheese, like an Emmentaler or similar. Very swedish. )

• Finding any sub, if properly handled, in the Baltic. The limited salinity and the thermal layers, with the generally littoral qualities to boot, are very complicated for the hunter.

Pull the plug and let out 1m of water?

Not enough. See attached pic; it's a screen dump of the sea chart covering the Landsort Deep, just south of Stockholm. The lake in which I live is also deep; the Lambar Bay is the deepest, with 66m noted.

[vk6zgo]

The P-3/CP-140 is based upon the Lockheed Electra commercial airliner which had limited success.

iSTR the early Electras had an unfortunate tendency to shed their wings in flight.

Not a great handicap when your competition is Viscounts!

[mnementh]

What would one use these for?

Ummmm... testicular homicide on a whole volleyball team...?


mnem
very few could deserve it more...   

[med6753]

Next TE project on bench 1. Anyone care to guess what it is and what is planned? 

[Specmaster]

Next TE project on bench 1. Anyone care to guess what it is and what is planned? 

Tektronics scope and a full re-cap by any chance?