Test Equipment Anonymous

That R&S unit takes it to another level and is awesome. I believe you have to be under thirty to use the word "awesome". But I will readily concede that the R&S shown is a beautiful piece of mechanical engineering. It's not a piece of test gear; it's a clock. And did you notice th...

Yes, just because there's an aerial there, doesn't mean it's connected to anything. I took our aerials down last year when we had scaffolding up for a new chimney liner. We rely on a loft aerial for UHF Freeview television. I used to be a regular BBC R3 listener, but it's been destroyed. The whole t...

Unfortunately, for a number of reasons, the rally scene is slowly declining. The same is true for mechanical engineering events, and for the same reason; the attendees are dying off. I would guess that the average age at such events is > 70. I don't see many people younger than me at either event a...

I managed to get to the Wiltshire radio rally and back again on one tank of fuel, but I think that one is out of range. A shame. I have just had my Claude Lyons TS2 mains stabiliser out on the bench for investigation. A couple of days ago it was oscillating. It's essentially a 10A buck/boost transfo...

I have to say that I think the Siglent approach is very sensible and practical. Only the better engineers are likely to hack their home 'scopes (indeed, only the better engineers are likely to have a 'scope at home), so if you can get them used to using Siglent at home, they're likely to buy them fo...

Agreed on all points, but you've stirred curiosity.

Zenith wrote: ↑Wed Jul 22, 2026 7:37 pm It's always been clear to me that specsmanship and status was a large part of scope sales.

Sadly, I fear you are correct there. When I was working, a colleague had a 'scope the next range up from mine, but I don't think he ever exercised its true capabilities.

Was it only me, or was it impossible to get into the forum over the last couple of days?

I assume that professionals buy a piece of gear, use it and it goes off for calibration as a matter of routine. Then after a few years, it's sold off. They are not going to mess about with unauthorised modifications... I don't agree with your argument about pricing, but I accept that it's a valid a...

Tektronix and HPAK have been doing it for decades. I bought my Tektronix TDS3032 oscilloscope in about 2000 and on one of the firmware updates I discovered it was sampling at 5GS/s rather than maximum of 2.5GS/s that I'd paid for. The next firmware update "corrected" that. If you buy a bot...

There's only one thing that can be said when you see kittens playing... Awwww!

Glad to hear Motley has turned up. One of our previous cats got locked in a neighbour's garage for several days. He was very keen to be back and be reunited with his food bowl. Twenty years ago, I broke my back by stepping on a cat I don't have going down the stairs. It wriggled and I went flying. I...

That doesn't sound good. Although we have a road going past our back garden, it's pretty quiet, so our previous cats died of old age. I worry a bit about Heidi because there's not a lot between her ears, but she's 7 now, so she probably knows what she's about. I hope.

Zenith wrote: ↑Fri Jul 03, 2026 10:29 pm In the same vein, David Suchet is Poirot, but before and after there have been a string of pathetic imposters.

Agreed. And there was a ridiculous mini-series on a few Christmases ago purporting to be a Poirot prequel. Complete nonsense and virtually incomprehensible.

Dually says, "Stop wriggling and look straight at the camera."

I've just been alerted by a shriek that one of our treasures had brought a rat in. Quite sizeable; about 6" long body and quite weighty. Thankfully, very dead.

Sorry to hear about Dually. Our two cats go outside, but Binx doesn't venture out of the back garden. Her mother, Heidi, ranges far and wide, particularly into the stables across the (quiet) road. You haven't lived until you've woken in the middle of the night to a strong smell of horse shit and dis...

Interesting and well argued points (which I accept). What I was intending to draw attention to was the way DAB was promoted in the UK. Terms such as "crystal clear" and "perfect sound" were touted for a system relying on lossy compression, and politicians in particular wittered a...

Thank you for that. A knowledgeable government would have worked out that broadcasting is cheaper overall. And might even have argued for a quality criterion. As for lobbying, everybody has been persuaded that digital is superior, so that they just parrot that, yet all data starts analogue, whether ...

They look so innocent when they're little; no hint of clawed carpets, disembowelled rodents, distributed feathers, or casual puddles of cat sick.

I'm sorry to hear your CBC has the same problems ( and shoots itself in the foot). I believe DAB+ is successful in mainland Europe, but it has been foisted upon us here. The main issue is that it is contrary to the fundamental broadcasting ethos; it pushes costs to the consumer. A DAB radio is a com...

DAB used to stand for Dead And Buried, then various people wanted to shut down VHF. The government wanted to shut VHF down because they remembered the UHF mobile phone bonanza. (Yes, I know 88MHz to 108MHz isn't quite the same, but government types aren't technical.) Broadcasters didn't like the ele...

It's all about money. Follow the money. Operating even a single transmitter is expensive. Once upon a time, it was BBC credo that if there was a choice between a cost being borne by the broadcaster or the listener/viewer, then it should be borne by the broadcaster because that reduced total cost. Th...

Yup, that box is way too small, so it's too tempting to avoid. Ours know they're not allowed on kitchen counters, and that usually stops them. Only usually. I did once have a cat who would drink from a mildly running tap.

(I will carefully avoid mentioning what is inside the record player itself as input connectors to the RIAA stage :twisted: ) Welcome to SDI at 1080p50: I thought I might hear from you. My turntable is a Garrard 301, so it needs a very solid plinth, achieved by the plinth being... ...solid. So there...

The worrying thing is that there are lots of snake oil audio cables. Fancy mains cables, fancy loudspeaker cables, fancy interconnect cables with phono plugs (not XLRs) at each end. But guess what? The world still uses unbalanced cables from turntables to RIAA stage. The cartridge is a balanced tran...