Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bd139]

Marconi 2022 arrived. Sticker on top “NO STD”.

No shit!  . Someone stole it.

The standard one is garbage so I was going to replace it anyway.

Needs a 10Mhz ref. Will make up an OCXO module for it. But for now I will jump with my AWG and see if it boots.

Rest of it is complete. Pictures coming later.

[Vince]

Good man! How much the 30K will become after tax?

Net salary is about Gross minus 20%.

So that's about 2,000 Euros net. Was making 1,600 before, plus 150 for food and travel, so I got about 1750 Total.
In that new company I also get some money for food and travel/commute, I reckon about 200+ Euros.
so  I will make 2200 Euros instead of 1750. It's a tremendous step up considering that in 10 year at my old company, I got only one single raise, 30 Euros gross.

So getting 500 Euros more here, is the equivalent of staying at my old company for about 5 centuries, at least.

For reference, minimum wage here is a bit over 1,300 Euros and climbing fast since law makes it follow inflation automatically. However all other non-minimum salaries do NOT follow inflation, so that means me/middle class get poorer and poorer every year, and get closer and closer to minimum wage. So you wonder why the hell you bother studying for years, when a guy sweeping the streets earns only a little less than you do... and pays zero income tax, but you, do.

Income tax will be about 1,000 Euros or so, which is now deduced automatically from your salary.

So net salary, minus income tax, I should get about 2,100 Euros per month or so I reckon.

Anything above 2,000 net per month here is considered high salary. Having a '2' digit in front of my pay check is me going upper class ! 
Normal salary is usually 1500/1750 depending on experience and studies/skills.

Of course I am not including business or banking or insurance or lawyers etc,  those guys of course live in a different world.

But the average joe, minimum wage 1,300 net, 1500 average, 1750 is good, anything from 2,000 is upper class, and am only half kidding.

[Cerebus]

Do you guys use the the term "cooked data" as opposite of "raw data"?

Today first time I heard it....

Pah, it's a sin "cooking" data. It should be served al Dente. 

[Vince]

Normal pliers reviews can now resume, sorry for the disturbance.

I had an interview with a company in Italy (seems not too far away from France standards....). They really liked me and I smashing them down with technical questions and discussion. It was fun.
Then the HR lady asked me how much I was making in my current position in Germany, and I told them.

20sec of silence and temperature went quickly.

The next 5 minutes were small talk, and goodbye.

 

That's because you had an interview with FIAT, they make cheap cars so the pay is cheap as well, makes sense.
Since you work for BMW which makes gigantic margins selling overpriced junk, they can afford to offer you an excellent salary ! 

However money is not everything in life. I could try to work for Airbus, but I chose not to even apply, because I know the mentality in there, and it's not great to say the least.
I prefer to be a subcontractor and have my freedom, say fuck you to Airbus when they get on my nerves, and if it gets nasty, ask to go somewhere else, working on submarines or giant wind mills we make here as well, or whatever else.

I value this  freedom a lot.

[AVGresponding]

Just bagged this little weirdo for £40 shipped:



There's no probe with it, but it's just too interesting to pass up on for the price.



Couple more 34401's...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/374185544052




https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225085441206




Keep meaning then forgetting to post these:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265785053126


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255635245850


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265785056410




Biggest transformer I've seen for sale this week:  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325276441668




This is not a sex toy, apparently:  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325278888611




Might be easily fixable, and it's not a Tek, @bd139    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255635976433




Wobbly pointy stuff for the oddballs on here:  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/374178752692




This sold for more than I expected:  https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/225074402907

[Vince]

...So I think I will accept their job offer anyway. I have one week to reply to their offer via e-mail. So, next Wednesday dead line. Think I will e-mail them on Monday.  You don't want to reply the same day, makes you look desperate 

So, well, very anxious that I might not make it past the first week, but at the same very excited to have job and a decent salary for the first time in my 20 years of professional life !

Oh, forgot, they want me to start in a couple weeks, Monday 8th of August. Last week of July and first of August, that's when Airbus closes, every year. So I will start once they reopen.

Oh, and it looks like they want to force me to wear a polo shirt (Airbus "requirement" for office workers, T-shirts for workers in the workshop). I despise polo shirts and shirts or anything that has plastic buttons on it, I will never wear one. I hope I can negotiate and get a T-shirt instead. Me being very big is hoping they will not have my size and let me use my personal T-shirts instead.

Normal pliers reviews can now resume, sorry for the disturbance.

Good for you, V. 

Seeing how you generally adapt pretty well once you get into problem-solving mode... I don't think you'll have any trouble "self-starting" in this new position. And i suspect you undersold yourself heavily... any entry-level lower-management position nowadays is probably more like 40-45K, so that's probably why they jumped on your offer. Hell, I grossed more than that as a independent contractor decades ago.

As for the polo shirt... just make sure you get decent, medium-to-heavyweight 100% cotton and you'll never miss your T-shirts. See below for a much younger IT Dwagon back when he was a ASP for HP (and several other enterprise-class tech brands):



mnem
 

Well as you might guess, employers don't exactly give the choice of where to get the polo shirt from, you get whatever their purchasing dept have decided to buy of course ! 
That said, usually it's good quality 100% cotton, be it the polo shirt or T-shirt, for it's in their best interest that the stuff last a long time, since THEY will be the one having to pay for replacements whenever required !   

[mnementh]

Recently in Australia:

I'm sorry; I had Chalupas while visiting Cousin Imogene...

mnem
On the positive side, there are no longer any Tarantulas in that little corner of Oz...

[AVGresponding]

A rare occasion when a photo has relevance in both AutoShite and EEVBlog:



And yes, the 2SC743 is NPN...

[mnementh]

Marconi 2022 out for delivery. Wonder what turd I'm going to be snarfing this evening 

You're a glass half full type.

I'm cautiously optimistic that after a little TLC, which you will enjoy giving it, it will be a magnificent instrument that graces your workbench. It will greatly exceed your expectations.

There and again, I haven't bought it!

mnem
*building the perfect beast*

[bd139]

Ok 2022E fun time. Lots of pictures coming up. This will probably require a thread if I'm honest.

Ok so it arrived. Reasonable level of packaging provided by scottrade12. Hooked it up and yep, dead.



Quick inspection noted a sticker on the top with NO STD on it which leave a lot of clues. Which are incidentally easy to solve.

Cracked open the whole thing to inspect it carefully and look for any damage, repairs or missing bits. Date codes indicate around 1994/1995 build date.

Danger! I didn't take any decent photos of the RF box because I wasn't paying attention



Power supply and digital junk in the middle of the RF box sandwich



Brain box. On the left we have the 8085A based computer, some SRAM, the software ROM and NVRAM for settings. On the other side, the frequency standard and synthesizer digital section.



What's this? Someone stole my frequency standard. Bastards! Well that explains the NO STD anyway.



Some reverse engineering later and buzzing out the board and the connections for the 10MHz source are ID'ed and mapped out.



Hooked up the AWG and set it to kick out a 10MHz TTLish pulse



It's ALIVE



Does signal generatorey sort of stuff. Keypad works fine. Can set freq, level, modulation fine.



Whether or not it works completely is yet to find out but it's clean, it works and needs an OCXO module so off to ebay it is

[mnementh]

...As for the polo shirt... just make sure you get decent, medium-to-heavyweight 100% cotton and you'll never miss your T-shirts. See below for a much younger IT Dwagon back when he was a ASP for HP (and several other enterprise-class tech brands):

Well as you might guess, employers don't exactly give the choice of where to get the polo shirt from, you get whatever their purchasing dept have decided to buy of course ! 
That said, usually it's good quality 100% cotton, be it the polo shirt or T-shirt, for it's in their best interest that the stuff last a long time, since THEY will be the one having to pay for replacements whenever required !   

Oh, I've worked lots of gigs where minimum dress code was "collared shirt and slacks", and yes, you were expected to provide said clothing yourself. The maximum comfort and minimum assache variant of this is... you guessed it... Polo shirt and khakis or cargo pants.

They were my personal uniform for decades; for the same reason as MiB wear black.

mnem
"...Your entire image is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter. You’re a rumor, recognizable only as déjà vu and dismissed just as quickly. You don’t exist; you were never even born. Anonymity is your name. Silence your native tongue. You’re no longer part of the System. You’re above the System. Over it. Beyond it. We’re 'them.' We’re 'they'. We are the Men in Brown."

[mnementh]

Ok 2022E fun time. Lots of pictures coming up. This will probably require a thread if I'm honest.
(SNIP)   Hooked up the AWG and set it to kick out a 10MHz TTLish pulse... It's ALIVE

So wait... does it just blank the screen when it's not putting out a signal, or does it use that 10MHz reference (or some multiplier thereof) as the CPU clock and it's totally non-responsive without it?

mnem

[TERRA Operative]

I'll have to see what version of Linux I can run on a Dual-CPU Pentium 3 Dell Precision 410 workstation.

Anything that still ships a 32-bit compile. I assume. The kernel has only gotten faster. It's the graphical shit that is getting slower. No problem running the latest code on really old machines, unless you insist on GUI's for people with more CPU than taste.

If I run a Linux desktop today, I'm only going to use the stock GUI setup as a stopgap measure until I've migrated into my prefered window manager, which is Fluxbox. On the BSDs I usually don't bother, but stick with twm. It's there, and it manages windows. And, it ran snappy on SparcStation 4's in the 90s, so it of course is going to scream on PIII.

It's running an AGP Nvidia Quadro FX3000 GPU, so should be ok with semi-later Linux builds I guess?
(If anyone has an AGP Quadro FX4000 GPU laying around, let me know... )

[TERRA Operative]

@Terra Operative AFAIK there is no more floppy disk driver in W10 x64.

I'm able to use floppy disks ok in Win10 with the USB Floppy Drive until now, it works perfectly except for this one disk.

[bd139]

Ok 2022E fun time. Lots of pictures coming up. This will probably require a thread if I'm honest.
(SNIP)   Hooked up the AWG and set it to kick out a 10MHz TTLish pulse... It's ALIVE

So wait... does it just blank the screen when it's not putting out a signal, or does it use that 10MHz reference (or some multiplier thereof) as the CPU clock and it's totally non-responsive without it?

mnem

10Mhz ref is divided down for the system clock yes.

Some extremely quick research on forums and service manual before I bought it outlined that it was dead because the standard was broken or missing. Winner winner 

[Saskia]

Normal pliers reviews can now resume, sorry for the disturbance.

I had an interview with a company in Italy (seems not too far away from France standards....). They really liked me and I smashing them down with technical questions and discussion. It was fun.
Then the HR lady asked me how much I was making in my current position in Germany, and I told them.

20sec of silence and temperature went quickly.

The next 5 minutes were small talk, and goodbye.

 

this sounds somewhat familiar to an interview I had with a swiss company.
I won't state in public what I told them about my salary ... I did however tell them that they needed to beat my German salary because health insurance, housing, cost of living is so outrageously high in Switzerland.
After I told them the salary region I was aiming for I never heard from them again.

[AVGresponding]

Speaking of sig gens, an HP 5.4-12GHz one went for £55 shipped earlier. I had a small tilt at it, someone else wanted it just a little bit more...   

[mnementh]

10Mhz ref is divided down for the system clock yes. Some extremely quick research on forums and service manual before I bought it outlined that it was dead because the standard was broken or missing. Winner winner 

Did you get in on those 10Mhz OXCOs from AliEx we all played with a year or so ago...? Or did that all go to the tip along with your components, test leads, etc...?

mnem
 

[AVGresponding]

Danger! I didn't take any decent photos of the RF box because I wasn't paying attention

These days they'd have to add a label saying "Warning, do not eat TR20", because California...

[bd139]

10Mhz ref is divided down for the system clock yes. Some extremely quick research on forums and service manual before I bought it outlined that it was dead because the standard was broken or missing. Winner winner 

Did you get in on those 10Mhz OXCOs from AliEx we all played with a year or so ago...? Or did that all go to the tip along with your components, test leads, etc...?

mnem
 

I actually used them all 

Will order some more and design an adapter PCB for them. Gives me something to do this weekend

[Saskia]

@Terra Operative AFAIK there is no more floppy disk driver in W10 x64.

I'm able to use floppy disks ok in Win10 with the USB Floppy Drive until now, it works perfectly except for this one disk.

ah ok. maybe they added it back in, for anything I need a floppy drive for I still have W Xp.

[Specmaster]

Might be easily fixable, and it's not a Tek, @bd139    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255635976433

These are very nice scopes, I used to have this very model, only issue is the channels 3 and 4 are of limited use, if memory serves me right, 1V max on 1:1 probes, even has a form of megazoom built in as well.

If I had the space like I did before, I'd be bidding for this myself, well worth a shot IMV.

[Cerebus]

Marconi 2022 out for delivery. Wonder what turd I'm going to be snarfing this evening 

You're a glass half full type.

I'm cautiously optimistic that after a little TLC, which you will enjoy giving it, it will be a magnificent instrument that graces your workbench. It will greatly exceed your expectations.

There and again, I haven't bought it!

mnem
*building the perfect beast*

Software engineer: This glass is under utilised, it needs filling to capacity. Virtualise it and share it with a friend.

[bd139]

Ordered 5x OCXO modules from China. This 2022E will be a slow burning project 

With new user coupon I got 5 of them for £10.56 delivered which is quite frankly insanely cheap. 1-2 may not work from experience so have to be careful

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003277492150.html


NOTE: I will continue this topic here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/marconi-2022e-repair-and-refurb/msg4315309/

[McBryce]

A rare occasion when a photo has relevance in both AutoShite and EEVBlog:



And yes, the 2SC743 is NPN...

I think the owner may be biased, but at least positively.

McBryce.