Test Equipment Anonymous

New arrival, Panasonic VP-8191A. Works, looks to be in good physical shape and will do a signal to spec. Thought it would do stereo modulation, but no. That was just me in delirious acquisitions mode. Now researching stereo MPX modulation generators. NJM 2035 plus quite few extra components will do...

I've opened an HP OCXO to replace a thermal fuse. You can get to it without unfurling the bits that shouldn't be disturbed but the outer metal skin needs to be removed. It's in a socket but that might just be to simplify assembly as a soldering iron would definitely open it. It's a very small wire-e...

I volunteered to do some work for a community radio station that site shares at a fairly well populated Arqiva site in Surrey and one of the things I'd need to do was take some measurements that would require a spectrum analyser with a tracking generator. I have two Anritsu MS2601A analysers, they'r...

Well that's rather sad.

KO4BB was working recently and I've downloaded the firmware and operating manual now.

Jackson's of Jackson's Corner in Reading had the tube system until it closed in 2013. There's a picture of the tube office here https://whatsonreading.com/venues/readi ... omas-macey

I'm surprised they didn't use a toroidal mains transformer. It's difficult to fit an effective E/S screen to a toroid but fairly easy on an EI transformer. Worse, toroids have high C PS compared to an EI transformer of the same VA rating because the area between primary and secondary is (unavoidabl...

There's also the militarisation of space to consider. Russia has used a presumed kinetic weapon to shatter a satellite and more recently has been making threats to the ICEYE RADAR imaging satellite by moving four COSMOS satellites around close to it. USA with Boeing X-37B and likely other systems th...

At the Dunstable Downs boot sale I picked up this delightful signal generator for £20 (ignore the sticker, I waited until it had been ignored for a few hours and the price dropped) https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55309471518_ae425cc2c0_c.jpg It's a nicely made signal generator with incredible in...

1s/div of course, I get that wrong a lot because some of my instruments show the per division setting in that central position. I also tuned my MDA's OCXO to Droitwich and have wondered if I really needed the GPSDO afterwards. I decided that I did but I'm not sure that GNSS availability is guarantee...

Decided I ought to dig out the relevant equipment, and do the measurement one last time. What is the equipment, what is the measurement, and why one last time? :) IMG_0295a.JPG You've left the name of the instrument in the picture and I had no idea it was produced with the Agilent name on it, that ...

That HP is very tidy and elegant. One of the rare opportunities to feel annoyed with British mains sockets, as you'd be lucky to fit just one on that front panel and even then you'd have to move the knob off-centre and use all sorts of bevel gears to get the driveshaft back to the middle of the vari...

I've a memory of most of the Jackson Bros stock being destroyed in the fire at Electrovalue after the move from a shop in Englefield Green to larger premises in Egham. After that Mainline bought what was left of Jackson Bros, tooling and some stock that had escaped destruction or something. I've for...

I was digging through the components in tubes to find these and then I realised I was mixing up two different repairs that I did at the same time. The level shifter CMOS is actually in my RACAL 1792, the CMOS that failed in the 2019 is a CD4056BE which isn't an endangered species just yet.

The "Curcuit" for this RF signal generator is suspect, the JFET Q1 doesn't appear to have anything but a capacitor connected to its drain.

Just done a three-way test-off with the modern T7-H tester, a Wayne Kerr B424 component tester and the Marconi TF2700. First I tried a NOS 68µF 63V Philips. This showed up as 75µF on the T7-H, but with 1Ω ESR. The Marconi indicated 34.3µF and 34µF on the 1,000µF range as a confidence test. It seemed...

Here's a link to a permatemporary web page with a link to my extracted firmware. https://mossyvale.co.uk/te/

They're a decent meter. The SRAM battery is very problematic though; I'm contemplating binning off rechargeables on mine (I did do a 2x AAA mod but prolonged lack of use results in cal loss) in favour of hot-swappable lithiums of some sort. EDIT: Oh, btw, if yours has the GPIB, TheHWcave is looking...

Excellent; another aged meter brought back to life. And it looks like its display goes to 3.9999, making it quite reasonable accuracy. Useful. Yes, it's a 40,999 count design which makes it fine as a basic bench meter. Apparently there's an earlier 4503 that is 20,999, which must be a bit confusing...

Did Keithley buy any of RACAL-DANA? I know that case style, it's from Keithley's 179, 177 etc, except they were not brown (except the 175, which was, maybe others too). RACAL-DANA sold rebadged 179s as the 4002, so there were clearly some business relationship in the past. I had assumed Thales got a...

DC Current calibration is now complete, it really, really needed the screening metal to be in place.

Here's another DMM that I'd been curious about for quite some time. It has plenty of features but fairly basic performance. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/55222264129_406f5584a6_c.jpg This had two major faults, the NiCd battery had failed and leaked and the power switch is very reluctant to swi...

Mine doesn't have the "mi" logo, so perhaps that makes it earlier. Marconi struck me as a company that wouldn't have taken to the idea of "branding" and "logotype" easily or quickly.

I imagine if I re-read the whole sub-thread carefully, I might be able to catch up on exactly what is/isn't being referred to. "For more information please reread" (The reference awaits spotting) That has to be Scarfolk although as with most Scarfolk stuff I always get the feeling that I'...

I've been threatening to pick one of these bridges for a while and the first rally of the year for me was the opportunity. I had to rebuild the outer range multiplier selector knob as the plastic had crumbled around the centre. I had most of the pieces, as they'd been held captive by the design of t...