Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[DH7DN]

Thanks @med6753 @Peter_O and @Rob

I tried the IEC C8 / IEC 60320 "figure-8" socket and the pins do fit into the rubber. I wasn't able to push the 3 mm pins into 2.85 mm sockets as they are slightly oversized. It was possible to establish electrical contact but it's not very safe from the electrical safety point of view. The pins have contact on the tips and the connection isn't very reliable, nevertheless I was able to power the unit on for a short time. 






I'll try to find a different C8 connector from a dumpster and stretch the sockets a little bit (maybe a little bit of brute force will help) 

On the other hand, I may have found a suitable connector on eBay which also complies with the dimensions taken. At least it fits. They are advertising the cable as 6 ft vintage "Hammond organ Model 2300/2312m" AC power cord (nwtradepost from Spokane, Washington, US - not associated with this seller).


(Image: courtesy of nwtradepost @eBay)

[Neper]

RE: Ham Radio. Many, many years ago I considered getting my ticket but at that time CW was still a requirement for all classes of operators and I was put off by it. Actually, I was too lazy to try to learn it.

Sour grapes...

I actually thought about getting an amateur radio licence at one time too.  It was a ride in a friend's car that started changing my mind.  The friend has a bunch of scanners going all the time and a bunch of ham radio operators did this check in thing.  I asked what this was and the friend explained that they routinely do this.  I couldn't stop laughing because it sounded like they were taking attendance at school.

If all you know of ham radio is fleamarkets (hence the name) and vhf repeaters you actually don't know much of it.

Then again, we already have our share of frustrated old geezers around so we don't need any more on the air. Thanks for deciding to stay away.

Ralf, DL9KCG
...no longer active as a radio amateur because of too much interference from processors and SMPS but who still has a shower and changes his underwear every day.

[bd139]

RE: Ham Radio. Many, many years ago I considered getting my ticket but at that time CW was still a requirement for all classes of operators and I was put off by it. Actually, I was too lazy to try to learn it.

Sour grapes...

Actually I think it’s on point. It was an artificial barrier from the 1950s. As mentioned before the entire hobby is an anachronism.

I say that as a former CW only operator. I think i did about 5 SSB QSOs in total.

[mnementh]

...As for showers, the utility bills have these styleized meter gauge graphs and the one for water consumption is consistently in the yellow.  There's no such thing as a short shower for me.  And clean clothes.  Definitely.  And I prefer coveralls to overalls.

https://www.adultswim.com/videos/the-venture-bros/deans-first-speedsuit

"It all comes with the speedsuit, Dean." 

mnem

[Neper]

As mentioned before the entire hobby is an anachronism.

...as opposed to collecting barns full of obsolete electronics from the last millenium?

[factory]

If you're looking for that specific image, string DA8703 shirt returns a lot of hits, at least over on this side of the pond.

Thanks. This one for example?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/154604074331

Apart from the fact that the product is located in China and has the following caveat:-

Estimated between Wed, Jan 29 and Thu, Feb 20
This item has an extended handling time and a delivery estimate greater than 2705 business days.
Please allow additional time if international delivery is subject to customs processing.

So after allowing for weekends etc, that equates to something like 10.5 years before it is estimated that you will receive it...

So all is good then 

Look again. May also be in Moscow...

So... delivery some unspecified time after UPS resumes service to Russia, then... 




EDIT: Oh, this just gets better and better... 


mnem
Or are they saying Moscow, China...? Is there a city/town/dorp named Moscow in China...?

It gets better still, I just did a Google Earth search for Moscow, China and it took me to a suburb in Moscow, Russia, very strange. Is the Kremlin trying to finance their war effort   

They are definitely located in Russia, they have tried to hide their location in the listing, exactly the same as the Ex-USSR component seller, I bought from before the invasion started.
Of course both sellers have since taken an extended break from ePay, after most payment systems to Russia were blocked.


David

[xrunner]

As mentioned before the entire hobby is an anachronism.

...as opposed to collecting barns full of obsolete electronics from the last millenium?

LOL barns full?

 

Much of it is strewn in their yards. 

Here's a pic of a local ham's yard taken some years ago by an associate who will be anonymous. He was going over there to help with the guy's antenna because he couldn't understand what was wrong with his SWR. He asked me if I wanted to go help and I refused. The guy in the trailer house smoked like a locomotive (and so did his wife) and I knew I couldn't breath inside there. I had gone with this guy to the ham's previous residence so I knew what I would be subjected to as far as air quality. The picture is of only one side of the yard.

[capt bullshot]

Yep, they kind of tend to outlive their counterparts ( A6302,  A6312, A6303).

It is one of the great mysteries of the universe why the Tek current probes mostly disappear down a black hole while the corresponding amplifiers mostly don't. Consequently, the number of AM503s on offer at the usual auction sites vastly outnumber the number of probes on offer.

I doubt it's such a great mystery (from my observation):
- the probes are more delicate to handle than the amplifiers, so they just might break and get discarded while the amplifier is kept
- technically ingenuous persons might just see a useless cable in them, discard them and keep the interesting amplifier box
- people who know will keep them as a the precious they deserve

[GreyWoolfe]

RE: Ham Radio. Many, many years ago I considered getting my ticket but at that time CW was still a requirement for all classes of operators and I was put off by it. Actually, I was too lazy to try to learn it.

Sour grapes...

I actually thought about getting an amateur radio licence at one time too.  It was a ride in a friend's car that started changing my mind.  The friend has a bunch of scanners going all the time and a bunch of ham radio operators did this check in thing.  I asked what this was and the friend explained that they routinely do this.  I couldn't stop laughing because it sounded like they were taking attendance at school.

If all you know of ham radio is fleamarkets (hence the name) and vhf repeaters you actually don't know much of it.

Then again, we already have our share of frustrated old geezers around so we don't need any more on the air. Thanks for deciding to stay away.

Ralf, DL9KCG
...no longer active as a radio amateur because of too much interference from processors and SMPS but who still has a shower and changes his underwear every day.

My favorite part is contacting special event stations and exchanging QSL cards, the special event stations always have the best ones.  I really need to figure out my antenna situation.

[med6753]

RE: Ham Radio. Many, many years ago I considered getting my ticket but at that time CW was still a requirement for all classes of operators and I was put off by it. Actually, I was too lazy to try to learn it.

Sour grapes...

I actually thought about getting an amateur radio licence at one time too.  It was a ride in a friend's car that started changing my mind.  The friend has a bunch of scanners going all the time and a bunch of ham radio operators did this check in thing.  I asked what this was and the friend explained that they routinely do this.  I couldn't stop laughing because it sounded like they were taking attendance at school.

If all you know of ham radio is fleamarkets (hence the name) and vhf repeaters you actually don't know much of it.

Then again, we already have our share of frustrated old geezers around so we don't need any more on the air. Thanks for deciding to stay away.

Ralf, DL9KCG
...no longer active as a radio amateur because of too much interference from processors and SMPS but who still has a shower and changes his underwear every day.

Sour grapes? Perhaps. But sounds like you mad and I guess I can't blame you. To look at Ham Radio today the smart and intelligent ones are quickly becoming SK's and what you have left are "appliance operators" who haven't got a clue other than key down and talk BS. Nothing more than an extension of the 11 meter Crap Band.   

[bd139]

As mentioned before the entire hobby is an anachronism.

...as opposed to collecting barns full of obsolete electronics from the last millenium?

I made some comments about that earlier as well 

[nixiefreqq]

RE: Ham Radio. Many, many years ago I considered getting my ticket but at that time CW was still a requirement for all classes of operators and I was put off by it. Actually, I was too lazy to try to learn it.  I guess today that even for advanced class operators it's no longer required. Pass a theory test and you're in.

And I never learned, or wanted to learn, the gift of gab about nothing. Some of these guys key down for 20 minutes and what the fuck did he just say? Babble on and on. One group I did enjoy listening to was the AM'ers on 80 meters (3.885MHz). They at least for the most part talked radios and modifying and restoring equipment. And most of them had fantastic audio and full 10kHz B/W which pissed off the slop bucket crowd. (SSB).

And finally. I do like to shower and change my clothes everyday. Bib overalls, fat stomachs, scraggly beards, matted hair ain't my style.     

in the old days used to see those 3.885 guys every year at the timonium fest.  they were easy to spot due to them being the hammiest of hams. (to include bib overalls).  but most of them are SK.   is wa1hlr still around?  he was a freakin' piece of work (but sure knows his shit)

all this ham chatter reminded me.  have to start getting my 6 band vhf/uhf stuff mounted on the truck for a contest next weekend.  the weak signal vhf/microwave guys are pretty well behaved and it gives me a reason to sit on top of a mountain for a day.   hf is a wasteland of morons, drunks, and whackjobs.

ps  my old boss has fallen in with the moon bounce crowd.  holy crap!  talk about an obsessive compulsive bunch of guys.  it takes a special kind of weird to want to work with a path loss greater than 250 dB.

[vk6zgo]

Well, congrats. I worked with one at one time and found the 50Ohms-only inputs annoying. But if you don't bother exchanging the scope on your desk when you want to do general-purpose, 1MOhms measurements, you got now as much speed as this series can provide.

Yeah, I'll keep my TDS784D, it has TV trigger too which the TDS794D doesn't support.

One for general use, and then this hotrod for special use.


It needs some love though, it has a "ERROR: diagnostic test failure, dsyRastModeV0Walk, raster fail @ 1,1 read: 8, expect: f" error to track down, and channel 2 is showing spurious spikes, might be a RAM issue. Luckily I have spare parts from other boards....

Real oscilloscopes "don't need no steenkin' TV trigger", they can trigger perfectly adequately without it!

[vk6zgo]

Nope. Would not wear.

Double nope.

For the people who are not quite as versed as med6753 on dressing, ask yourself these questions before you wear something. If the answer is YES to any, do not buy it and do not wear it:

1. Would it attract the wrong kind of friendship, of either kind, in a prison cell?
2. If I bumped into someone of the opposite gender of interest, would they run away before I got a chance to scare them off with my personality?
3. Does it reveal anything that shouldn't be revealed at my age, or for matter any age?
4. If I died wearing it, would it negatively effect my dignity?
5. Does it make me look like a ham?

Nah! That's much geekier than any ham!

The last thing you want to do is die saving someone's life but all people remember you for is the hentai T-shirt.

[Vince]

But cutting these labels accurately, again was not that easy... lack of cutting mat and large SS ruler and sharp blade didn't help. It was a chore to do a single A4 card. Ideally I think I will end up buying one day something like this : 

How about something not as heavy-duty but still more than capable of dealing with labels and even some thin card stock:
https://www.grainger.ca/en/product/p/GWN154540?gucid=N:N:FPL:Free:GGL:CSM-1946:tew63h3:20501231

Nah, this style of trimmer is not much improvement over me just using a ruler and box cutter. For a significant increase in productivity and quality of the cut, I need a proper trimmer with a heavy duty blade, and large enough, not just the size of a post card. As I said I am not going to waste money on a bottom of the barrel thing. There is no need to buy anything right now as I have already done the labels I needed, an A4 page worth of. I want a good quality and large full A4 size blade trimmer so I can use it for anything in the long term, not just cutting labels... but it would allow me to cut labels among it's duties.
So, for now, I have enough labels to do my entire 50 drawer cabinet, that's enough. If I somehow need more of them, I think I would just get a cutting mat and SS ruler and a sharp blade. Would improve the process quite a bit, yet not cost a fortune, and I meant to buy these things anyway as general equipment, not just for labels. So it's an opportunity to pull the trigger on these items, especially now that I know that cutting mats are not at all as expensive as I though they might be. SS ruler will cost a litte bit but again it's general purpose stuff needed for general work not just on the lab. So that's something I was planning on buying at some point anyway. Scalpel too, was planning on getting one as well as useful in the lab for fine cutting work.

But thanks for the URL anyway.. taught me how these things are called in English. So it's a " trimmer", and comes either in a "roller" type, or " blade" type, what I had in mind.

[McBryce]

  ebay and their silly algorithms... "You searched for transistors recently, here's some helpful links to similar products" followed by a list of random auctions for every type of transistor you could think of... 

ebay obviously doen't understand that people don't search for ANY transistor, but a particular part No. Even worse, the search was for a 7912CV linear regulator, NOT a transistor.

McBryce.

[bd139]

My favorite part is contacting special event stations and exchanging QSL cards, the special event stations always have the best ones.  I really need to figure out my antenna situation.

Ah yeah that's a wonderful experience.

So I'm sitting on the top of Walbury Hill after Newbury Rally 2019 with the K2 and a 40m dipole up. Managed to break through a pileup on an event station despite being on only 5W SSB and got a contact confirmed. Big happy. Still haven't received the QSL card. So I joined Fists CW club, made a few contacts on there. RSGB member as well for their QSL handling. Oh wait, still no QSL cards.

My life is enough administrative hell without having to deal with the eventual inconsistency of receiving QSL cards 

[med6753]

RE: Ham Radio. Many, many years ago I considered getting my ticket but at that time CW was still a requirement for all classes of operators and I was put off by it. Actually, I was too lazy to try to learn it.  I guess today that even for advanced class operators it's no longer required. Pass a theory test and you're in.

And I never learned, or wanted to learn, the gift of gab about nothing. Some of these guys key down for 20 minutes and what the fuck did he just say? Babble on and on. One group I did enjoy listening to was the AM'ers on 80 meters (3.885MHz). They at least for the most part talked radios and modifying and restoring equipment. And most of them had fantastic audio and full 10kHz B/W which pissed off the slop bucket crowd. (SSB).

And finally. I do like to shower and change my clothes everyday. Bib overalls, fat stomachs, scraggly beards, matted hair ain't my style.     

in the old days used to see those 3.885 guys every year at the timonium fest.  they were easy to spot due to them being the hammiest of hams. (to include bib overalls).  but most of them are SK.   is wa1hlr still around?  he was a freakin' piece of work (but sure knows his shit)

all this ham chatter reminded me.  have to start getting my 6 band vhf/uhf stuff mounted on the truck for a contest next weekend.  the weak signal vhf/microwave guys are pretty well behaved and it gives me a reason to sit on top of a mountain for a day.   hf is a wasteland of morons, drunks, and whackjobs.

ps  my old boss has fallen in with the moon bounce crowd.  holy crap!  talk about an obsessive compulsive bunch of guys.  it takes a special kind of weird to want to work with a path loss greater than 250 dB.

Yes, Tim (WA1HLR) is still around. And yes, he knows his shit. And yes, hobo material. 

[nixiefreqq]

my favorite hilltop rover site.

[bd139]

As mentioned before the entire hobby is an anachronism.

...as opposed to collecting barns full of obsolete electronics from the last millenium?

LOL barns full?

 

Much of it is strewn in their yards. 

Here's a pic of a local ham's yard taken some years ago by an associate who will be anonymous. He was going over there to help with the guy's antenna because he couldn't understand what was wrong with his SWR. He asked me if I wanted to go help and I refused. The guy in the trailer house smoked like a locomotive (and so did his wife) and I knew I couldn't breath inside there. I had gone with this guy to the ham's previous residence so I knew what I would be subjected to as far as air quality. The picture is of only one side of the yard.

That's actually not as bad as the dude I know who lives in Feltham. I went round his house before Covid. It's a typical 2 bedroom house in UK. Or at least was until his wife clearly had enough of him. The first sign is the Ford Mondeo in the front garden which is devoid of wheels, glass and appears to have become a pigeon loft. Since his former hostage left, it has evolved into an electronic component storage operation. It clearly started in the front room which was turned into an electronics laboratory. I'm not talking one of those nice well lit things that you see in the TEA thread. No, this is a dungeon of mutilated equipment from floor to ceiling with lighting inspired by the last few Saw movies. It crept all the way out of the room and down the hall like cancer spreading piles of rusty shit and cheap drawer units stuffed with organs of the deceased and mutilated. When offered a cup of tea, which I took only for politeness, the kitchen was found to have devolved into a trash pile with enough space to microwave ready meals and for a couple of cups. On top of that the entire place was yellow from floor to ceiling and smelled like a Wetherspoons on a Saturday morning. I had to have a shower when I got home.

I didn't get to see the garden but I imagine it looks like outside that trailer 

[vk6zgo]

Wise move.

I've been asked a couple of times recently if I'd recommend it as a hobby and quite frankly I've had to say no. While there are a couple of notable exceptions, I actively dislike the community as a whole. It's got some really bad social problems and a poor but accurate reputation. From various life experiences, I've learned the best thing to do when you come across such communities is to disassociate yourself from them.

Edit: I consider saving test gear they kept prisoner to be a socially responsible thing to do

From what I've seen locally, it's the same here.  Amateur radio has the reputation it deserves.

I'm pretty sure I've written before about how I was told that hamfests were the place to go to get "the good stuff, cheap" when I was setting up my own workshop a number of years ago and how I was taken by surprise just how filthy the people were and how little good equipment there was and how expensive it was.  Typically it was disgusting old fogies selling totally destroyed junk for high prices:

"I don't know what it is, I don't know what it does, I don't know if it works, but I do know I want top dollar for it."

That was practically the rule of thumb.  After a couple of these experiences, I found I had far better success with Kijiji and gcsurplus.ca and the local surplus shops.  The one outstanding exception:  Facebook Marketplace.  I think I've had one successful transaction on there.  The rest of it has been busts where the item's already sold and the ad hasn't been taken down or no responses at all.  Case in point, I'm trying to buy something locally and I've sent two messages and neither have been replied to.  You'd think if you're selling someone and someone eager to give you money has contacted you twice...

Funny,---- the hamfests here in Perth often have good test equipment, & real "junk" is relatively rare.
Hams here, almost universally have a shower & "spruce themselves up", prior to attending.
I've given up looking for anything ham or TE  oriented  on "Gumnut", & I shy away from eBay, so that leaves hamfests, "carboot" sales, & "shack clearances" by individual hams.
Facebook?---Nah!

[med6753]

There's a ham about an hour from me who regularly adverts radio equipment and TE on Craig's List. He's a former repair tech but he suffered a stroke years ago and is on disability. I've bought at least 8 or 9 pieces of Tek gear from him for dirt cheap prices and he's always honest about what works and what doesn't. Of the stuff I bought from him I only wound up with 2 duds. A 465/DM44 with multiple issues including a mutilated atten switch deck and a Type 454 with a hosed vertical output. I recovered some of that by selling the functional DM44 board and the Type 454 is a parts mule for the Type 454 that I got from him that I restored.

His shack is in a corner of his house which is piled floor to ceiling with equipment. Most of it is junk. But the rest of his house is neat because he managed to keep a wife who takes care of it but obviously never ventures into his shack.     

[bd139]

But the rest of his house is neat because he managed to keep a wife who takes care of it but obviously never ventures into his shack.     

This old picture came into my head 

[mnementh]

Found this T-Shirt on AliExpress (nawts). Goes up to 5XL.   https://de.aliexpress.com/item/1005003009110719.html   

Double nope.

How about one with nice glowing tubes on it?

Admit it, you're just looking for an excuse to wire your nipples up to an H.V. supply aren't you, you little pervert? 

*mnem's earfrills perk up*

"Oooooh... tingly."   

mnem
"I am not a pervert; I am a provert. I get paid to be this way." 

[med6753]

But the rest of his house is neat because he managed to keep a wife who takes care of it but obviously never ventures into his shack.     

This old picture came into my head 

The good old days when women knew their place. 

Why is there suddenly a mob outside my place with tar and feathers?