Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[bsdphk]

And the fourth question should be:

Has it ever display legally correct time ?

[Wolfgang]

When I worked at STEIM in Amsterdam, there was a guy who looked into it and he made a cracked version of the software, but don't know how he did it. Might be that I still have it on a hard disk somewhere

Wow so it can be done ! Yeah do keep in touch, crossing fingers you can find that cracked version somewhere ! 

You guys remind me of some of my "sins" - I've cracked at least two "copy protected" softwares for Apple //e computers back in the days. Compared to todays "copy protection measures" and me being young and dedicated, it was just a piece of cake to crack these disks (5.25" floppies with some "modified" sectors). Could be easily defeated by finding the checks and special sector reading routines using the built-in disassembler, patching a few bytes and then copying the required date to "normal" sectors, iirc). Life was easy and successful back in the days 

Edit: I also remember I had put some effort in de-dongling some MSDOS and/or early Windows SW using some creative methods to discover the accesses to the dongle while using some "debug.exe" alike. Anyway, since I neither remember what software that was, nor if I was successful in the end, one can easily conclude that it hasn't been that important to me. At least not as important as impressing the others in school when I did the Apple //e cracks

BTW: DC1MC, nice to see you here again, and don't fear the moderation, I think they have got the message. If not, we should disappear from here.

I remember cracking software at a company some 30 years ago - by using an ICE (Intel blue box in-circuit emulator for the X86 series). We ripped out the processor, put in the ICE, let the software work its way, and traced everything out including core dumps. That was fun, and resistance was futile

[duckduck]

@Vince - man are you really serious, wtf is happening here, I mean compared with the usual medical reports, "those stinky hobo hams" and the other stuff, your stuff was nice and refreshing in a beginners way, including the fridge timer and components sorting.

Please reconsider, don't let idiots win  !!!

The $64,000 question is..., who might the idiots be then 

Idiot here, checking in!

Also, I'm a new RF hobbyist. For RF power meters (let's say 1 MHz - 500 MHz) it looks like my options are:

• Cheap used HP meter and a fairly expensive sensor head. Calibration is possible.
• Various ham power meters: MFJ, Bird, etc.
• Cheap ebay/AliExpress Golden Dragon PCB / OLED / SMA meters

Am I missing anything?

[AVGresponding]

Edit: Some feel this is off topic here, so I created a thread in the vintage computing section. We can continue it there if wanted or needed: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/vintage-computing/orcad-for-msdos/new/#new

Are you kidding ? You got complaints via MP ?

Wow if THIS is OT.... then boy, to the jury out there in the sky, I sincerely apologize for the 3000 posts I made here in the past 18 months !

I now realize it was all OT BS spam that had no business being posted here.

I apologize to all the silent members who have had to endure my posts for all that time. I truly am sorry.

I was about to post about my Rochar Nixie DVM restoration but I won't because hell I wouldn't want to offend anyone. Maybe someone will complain because it's old junk, or because it's French so unknown to them and being French it's junk factorial !3 to begin with, it's no USA made HP or Tektronix.. Or maybe if I write more than two lines about it someone will complain that I write too much, because their twitter / facebook brain can't process more than a handful of signs.

I would hate to offend anyone so I guess the only sure way to avoid that from happening, is simply to refrain from posting about anything altogether.

Again I am sorry for my passage on TEA and all the suffering that caused to god knows how many people, I am scared now when I try to picture the extent of the damage I did to the TEA "brand".

I hope my disappearance will allow those people to heal eventually, and post extremely interesting and perfectly on topic stuff of their own. I can't wait to see it all and click on the report button if it doesn't pass my own criteria.

Good riddance they say... yes, I agree.

Was fun while it lasted, but everything comes to an end eventually I guess....

Thanks however to the few people who were nice to me and even sent me stuff, I love you all my dear TEA buddies ! 
I just wish I could have stayed long enough to some day send YOU stuff as well, giving back not just taking ! 
Well you can still stay in touch via MP or e-mail...

 

Congratulations Vince on winning the Gold Medal in the Jumping To Conclusions event. Congratulations to pcprogammer on winning the Gold Medal in the Grasping The Wrong End Of The Stick, Deliberately Or Otherwise event.

My point was that if discussing what to wear to survive the weather at a Ham-Fest where you go to purchase TE is off-topic (and it was deleted by Moderators for this reason), then discussing CAD is also off-topic, regardless of the context.

From what I can see, the ratio of off-topic to on-topic hasn't improved; all that has happened is that some of the more active members have been driven away.

 

[McBryce]

And the fourth question should be:

Has it ever display legally correct time ?

Ok, I'll bite... What would make the time, or displaying the time illegal?

McBryce.

[Zoli]

Congratulations Vince on winning the Gold Medal in the Jumping To Conclusions event. Congratulations to pcprogammer on winning the Gold Medal in the Grasping The Wrong End Of The Stick, Deliberately Or Otherwise event.

My point was that if discussing what to wear to survive the weather at a Ham-Fest where you go to purchase TE is off-topic (and it was deleted by Moderators for this reason), then discussing CAD is also off-topic, regardless of the context.

From what I can see, the ratio of off-topic to on-topic hasn't improved; all that has happened is that some of the more active members have been driven away.

 

Welcome to my ignore list; enjoy your lifelong stay with your off-topic post.

[factory]

I recently passed by a older very precise digital clock with double warm cathode tubes  .

Now the questions:

1. Where is it? (i only know this point, as i passed by, and no, it is not in Germanys) 
2. Since when is it running? 

Extra points:
3. How was it controlled in the beginning and how is it controlled today? 

Part of 3. I would guess either uniselectors/stepper switches, with contactors for switching the supply to the HV transformers. Or a large cam-switch (aka drum-switch), with appropriate reduction gearing. And in both cases synced to the mains frequency.

I'm not sure I want to know what it is controlled with today, probably some very boring MPU & software (IMO). I hope not & it's been restored as original.

David

[capt bullshot]

I recently passed by a older very precise digital clock with double warm cathode tubes  .

This thing looks cool. Reminded my of that huge coloured water display clock in a large city in Germany, though it's a totally different technology. I've no idea what the answers could be, most interesting still "where is located". My google- and bing-fu didn't help either - so please present us with the answers.

The nearest match in my own associative memory is a random looking fluorescent tube sculpture seen at the Luminale in Frankfurt, many years ago.

Anyone who can figure what "water clock" I've mentioned above, is invited to post guesses here ...

[Zoli]

I recently passed by a older very precise digital clock with double warm cathode tubes  .

Now the questions:

1. Where is it? (i only know this point, as i passed by, and no, it is not in Germanys) 
2. Since when is it running? 

Extra points:
3. How was it controlled in the beginning and how is it controlled today? 

1. Based on the architecture, my guess is a Switzerland railway station.

[RolandK]

1. Based on the architecture, my guess is a Switzerland railway station.

Railway station is correct. But the country is on the other side of germany and very flat. The Station is in the capital and the capital is at the sea side.

[pcprogrammer]

You mean Amsterdam?

Can't remember seeing it when I worked there, but that is over 30 years ago, and never been there since.

And I traveled by train for most of the 5 years I worked there.

Edit: But Amsterdam is not really seaside. It is the capital though.

[factory]

Congratulations Vince on winning the Gold Medal in the Jumping To Conclusions event. Congratulations to pcprogammer on winning the Gold Medal in the Grasping The Wrong End Of The Stick, Deliberately Or Otherwise event.

My point was that if discussing what to wear to survive the weather at a Ham-Fest where you go to purchase TE is off-topic (and it was deleted by Moderators for this reason), then discussing CAD is also off-topic, regardless of the context.

From what I can see, the ratio of off-topic to on-topic hasn't improved; all that has happened is that some of the more active members have been driven away.

 

There are plenty of posts and a video relating to the "what to wear at ham-fest" discussion on page 5200, sadly no TE starting with 5200, e.g.  Fluke 5200A or Krohn-Hite 5200 etc......

David

[capt bullshot]

Amsterdam is wrong.
Thanks to the tip, I found the clock and its place and some nice pictures, but not the answers to the other questions yet, so won't tell.

[RolandK]

I recently passed by a older very precise digital clock with double warm cathode tubes  .

Now the questions:

1. Where is it? (i only know this point, as i passed by, and no, it is not in Germanys) 
2. Since when is it running? 

Extra points:
3. How was it controlled in the beginning and how is it controlled today? 

Part of 3. I would guess either uniselectors/stepper switches, with contactors for switching the supply to the HV transformers. Or a large cam-switch (aka drum-switch), with appropriate reduction gearing. And in both cases synced to the mains frequency.

I'm not sure I want to know what it is controlled with today, probably some very boring MPU & software (IMO). I hope not & it's been restored as original.

David

The clock is at the copenhagen central station, which is from 1911. To cite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Central_Station:

Wenck's building is a gesamtkunstwerk, where the architect has drawn all the details; right from the Bornholm tiles, benches, the large chandeliers, of which 12 pieces originally hung (2 are set up in the hall, 2 others are found at Østerport Station), the kiosks, wrought iron signs with neat writing, door handles and brass signs with DSB logo and stained glass windows with city coats of arms from Danish cities.

Jens Lund was responsible for the 10 figures of sandstone on the main facade representing folk types in national costumes (1910).

For the clock itself i found only a thread, but the links are dead or give no further details:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16549144

According to it, the clock seems from 1950 and the tubes were controlled by relais until some of them failed. It was restored in 2008.
Relais would do the trick even today, as there are no seconds to switch.

And here a nice picture at night on flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/56380734@N05/5407914523/


if somebody knows more, let us know.

[capt bullshot]

There are plenty of posts and a video relating to the "what to wear at ham-fest" discussion on page 5200, sadly no TE starting with 5200, e.g.  Fluke 5200A or Krohn-Hite 5200 etc......

Don't have a 5200, so I'm not to blame, but IIRC I've missed some other pages, waiting for the next occasion after the 4005 and totally forgot about the 5100 and 5101. Hope nobody proves me wrong now, couldn't be bothered to look up old posts to check if I really missed it or just can't remember having posted there ...



I was a bit disappointed of myself missing the 4005, since this is a rather unknown one. I'd expect Fluke 5100 and 5101 are known by way more people.

[RolandK]

Bofore i can check the transistors of the power supply i have to clean the switches on the transistor checker. At least the battery holder and the batteries are ok. 

And before i can post a picture i have to transfer it to the pc and reduce it's size...

There is allways something in the way which must be handled first.

[capt bullshot]

There is allways something in the way which must be handled first.

Or removed from the shelves to access more TEA ...

What's hiding behind that scope?


More scopes, an AWG and a power meter ...

[factory]

Don't have a 5200, so I'm not to blame, but IIRC I've missed some other pages, waiting for the next occasion after the 4005 and totally forgot about the 5100 and 5101. Hope nobody proves me wrong now, couldn't be bothered to look up old posts to check if I really missed it or just can't remember having posted there ...



I was a bit disappointed of myself missing the 4005, since this is a rather unknown one. I'd expect Fluke 5100 and 5101 are known by way more people.

Very nice, I checked no Fluke calibrators on those pages.

Unrelated but still calibration TE, have noticed the Rotek website appears to have vanished from the web  , still some pages on web archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20180828063740/http://rotek.com/

David

[bsdphk]

And the fourth question should be:

Has it ever display legally correct time ?

Ok, I'll bite... What would make the time, or displaying the time illegal?

The shortest Danish law, is "Law about the determination of time" from 1893 (https://www.retsinformation.dk/eli/lta/1893/83) which defines legal solar time for mainland Denmark as "The mean solar time at the 15 degrees east of Greenwich median", and it is still on the books.

(It is worth noting that this law is enacted 9 years after the longitude conference, which Denmark failed to attend.)

That means that legal time in Denmark should have seconds of variable length, rather than use leap-seconds to compensate for Earths rotational instabilities.

In practice we are of course using UTC based time, and if the upcoming parliamentary election does not derail it, the next assembly of Folketinget is likely to vote through a proposed new law to finally make our time based on UTC.

So the answer is: The only clock I know of, which has ever run on legally correct danish time, is the one I built, just for the heck of it.

[Specmaster]

Congratulations Vince on winning the Gold Medal in the Jumping To Conclusions event. Congratulations to pcprogammer on winning the Gold Medal in the Grasping The Wrong End Of The Stick, Deliberately Or Otherwise event.

My point was that if discussing what to wear to survive the weather at a Ham-Fest where you go to purchase TE is off-topic (and it was deleted by Moderators for this reason), then discussing CAD is also off-topic, regardless of the context.

From what I can see, the ratio of off-topic to on-topic hasn't improved; all that has happened is that some of the more active members have been driven away.

 

There are plenty of posts and a video relating to the "what to wear at ham-fest" discussion on page 5200, sadly no TE starting with 5200, e.g.  Fluke 5200A or Krohn-Hite 5200 etc......

David

Maybe not, but the opportunity was there for anybody who wanted to do it.

[VK5RC]

@Vince - man are you really serious, wtf is happening here, I mean compared with the usual medical reports, "those stinky hobo hams" and the other stuff, your stuff was nice and refreshing in a beginners way, including the fridge timer and components sorting.

Please reconsider, don't let idiots win  !!!

The $64,000 question is..., who might the idiots be then 

Idiot here, checking in!

Also, I'm a new RF hobbyist. For RF power meters (let's say 1 MHz - 500 MHz) it looks like my options are:

• Cheap used HP meter and a fairly expensive sensor head. Calibration is possible.
• Various ham power meters: MFJ, Bird, etc.
• Cheap ebay/AliExpress Golden Dragon PCB / OLED / SMA meters

Am I missing anything?

My go-to if I really need to know what is going on is the old HP (436 and old 8480 series- mainly 8484a) way, but it does mean a lot of other gear, good attenuators  and sampler/splitters/directional couplers
The next best is the LP-100A - a lot easier to use but not as flexible in purpose.
Edit -thinking a bit - both of these options are not cheap. Some good rf attenuator are really useful - then some cheap and cheerful rf power meter may be a good 1st step. Some SWR meters aren't too far off either.

[vk6zgo]

@Vince - man are you really serious, wtf is happening here, I mean compared with the usual medical reports, "those stinky hobo hams" and the other stuff, your stuff was nice and refreshing in a beginners way, including the fridge timer and components sorting.

Please reconsider, don't let idiots win  !!!

The $64,000 question is..., who might the idiots be then 

Idiot here, checking in!

Also, I'm a new RF hobbyist. For RF power meters (let's say 1 MHz - 500 MHz) it looks like my options are:

• Cheap used HP meter and a fairly expensive sensor head. Calibration is possible.
• Various ham power meters: MFJ, Bird, etc.
• Cheap ebay/AliExpress Golden Dragon PCB / OLED / SMA meters

Am I missing anything?

Over on "RF, Microwave & Ham Radio", Joeqsmith & xrunner have been working on power meters using the AD8310 & AD8307 devices.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/rf-microwave/cb-and-ham-radio-techs-love-their-bird-wattmeters/

There is a lot of "humorous" stuff about hams, but if you can plough through that, there is "gold" to be found!

[Specmaster]

<snip>

Over on "RF, Microwave & Ham Radio", Joeqsmith & xrunner have been working on power meters using the AD8310 & AD8307 devices.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/rf-microwave/cb-and-ham-radio-techs-love-their-bird-wattmeters/

There is a lot of "humorous" stuff about hams, but if you can plough through that, there is "gold" to be found!

Indeed, there is pure gold to be found in almost every thread here, all it takes to uncover it is an open mind and tolerance of each other.

[TERRA Operative]

I've been playing around with the Tek J16 Digital Photometer tonight.

One of the standard accessories that was originally supplied with the unit was a 1m extension cable to allow the sensor head to be used somewhat remotely from the main unit.
Taking a look at the internal wiring to the 15-pin connector on top of the unit, I noticed that three of the wires were shielded coax. Hmmm, to preserve signal integrity and minimise crosstalk and induced voltages, I should continue the shielded coax down the extension cable all the way to the other end where the sensor head will connect.

But how to do it? A standard multicore cable won't cut it, as the conductors aren't shielded from each other even if the entire bundle has an outer shield.... 

Then it hit me. A 15-conductor cable, of which 3 are individually shielded coax conductors, isolated from the outer shield...

There IS a cable I can use, a common and cheap cable that can be bought almost anywhere!


It's called a VGA cable! 
15 conductors, 3 of which are individually shielded and isolated coax (For the RGB signal). We are only dealing with DC here too, so cable impedance is meaningless. Perfect!



So, I bought one from Akihabara, along with some 15-pin D-connectors and shells.
I cut off the VGA connectors and wired it all together in straight-through configuration. Perfect!


I also wanted to make a calibration fixture. The connections are described in the manual and consist of a D-size battery, a jumper link to short two pins together, and a connection to a multimeter to allow for the adjustment of the internal DVM.
The appropriate parts were also purchased from Akihabara and assembled into the little fixture you can see plugged into the top of the unit in the pic below.


So after all of that, I officially declare tonights test equipment activities a complete success.

[xrunner]

Do you have a candle to check the calibration?