Test Equipment Anonymous

The one I usually use is a Nikon L25, which I rescued from being thrown away. It's small and light and I wouldn't cry too many tears if it was broken or lost. I often use it when dismantling things. Having said that, I've just looked on ebay and they are dearer than I thought.

I have others.

These days the low end digital compact camera market is much reduced. As I said, most people are happy using phones. Around 2000 they were still quite crude; low megapixels, limited features, limited storage and very often bulky. By 2010 there were point and shoot digital cameras which were far bett...

I found this: https://goprocamerasreview.com/blog/digital-cameras/when-did-digital-cameras-come-on-the-market/ The first commercially available digital camera was sold by Sony in 1981 or maybe was the Dycam Model 1, released in 1990. The article seems confused about this. I wasn't really aware of th...

And it works :-) So I'm a jammy git with a immaculate, one previous owner, with manuals, RAM card and tracking generator 9kHz to 2.9 GHz spectrum analyser for under £100 and a bit of work. Robert. Well you did have to go to some trouble to get it together and had to take some risks. I don't begrudg...

MK rally site says NO outdoor i.e. "car boot" spaces left and not to turn up expecting one. I won't be going. I would not be surprised if there is a lack of parking despite the restricted outdoor area. I recall parking was a bit tight last year when they were allowed to use the Badminton ...

BYP59-300 seems to be a fast recovery diode. The only thing I've got like that is a big Westinghouse stud rectifier with a braided lead marked R5000ZT4, or R5000214. It's not clear. I can't find any trace of it on the WWW. It probably isn't a substitute for BYP59-300. It's about 6" long. I may ...

It's on the RSGB rallies list. Also from the horse's mouth https://www.mkars.org.uk/mkrally/ They can't use the Badminton Centre car park and have had to reserve part of the field for parking. All outdoor pitches have gone and there are currently nine indoor pitches left. I have a few of those blood...

This sounds like rather a pain to me, especially with it being a Frankenstein number. What's the big diode you are looking for? I have a few in my collection. I can't help with the inductor. I shan't go to MK. It was rather a trek, was hard to find and wasn't great last year. This year they say they...

It reminds me of a story of how the fire brigade was called to rescue a cat which was stuck in a tall tree. They came and rescued it. The grateful cat owner gave them cups of tea. The local press came and took their picture with the cat and its owner. On the way back to the station a cat ran across ...

It really sucks that Dave would allow him to moderate again. Makes me wonder about Dave's integrity. I've no idea what the forum means to DJ or how he's set up. It possibly creates some income. He's obviously proud of it. He was concerned when several contributors to the TEA thread departed. It's a...

gnif is some sort of IT professional, like a DBA or something. Definitely not a professional Moderator, in fact more like an Unprofessional Moderator. "Professional" is an elastic and much abused term. e.g. a "professional quality angle grinder", costing about £20 and unlikely t...

What's worse, as I understood it, it was done on the prompting of someone with about 40 posts - basically a passer-by. Anyway, that's been four years ago. Yes, 4 years ago but I'm still pissed about it. I was called a "bad actor" by one of the mods who never apologized and shortly after r...

I now realise it uses a Venturi to generate the suction to remove solder. It's an industrial piece of kit and no doubt Metcal assume it will be set up at a workstation and plugged into a 100psi 6bar compressed air outlet that is part of the compressed air system which runs around the factory/univers...

I can't see any mention of air pumps on their website. It looks to me as if the MX-DS1 connects to the MX-500P which contains the pump. However, this is expensive equipment and you want to be completely certain before buying. I suggest you scroll down the Metcal home page to the section titled "...

Cubdriver wrote: ↑Tue Aug 18, 2026 12:43 am Shame they went and used a pile driver on a fly.
-Pat

What's worse, as I understood it, it was done on the prompting of someone with about 40 posts - basically a passer-by.

Anyway, that's been four years ago.

I read the first two of 20 pages then skipped to the last. A particular contributor appeared. You may guess who I mean. I've believe he's been banned a couple of times in the past and reappeared under other avatars. Without question he's a genuine Wayne Kerr product. I've come to filter out any thre...

I don't know if you participated in the blog TEA thread or not. If you pull up that thread starting around 19 August 2022 you'll see very heavy handled moderation which IMHO was completely unjustified. As I recall the TEA thread was rambling and more or less a world on its own. DJ was pleased it ha...

I haven't followed it or even looked into it.

I find a lot of the people round there quite highly strung and combative. They see every discussion as a debate to the death. They get very annoyed if they have pronounced and an alternate view is put.

Didcot power station, at best 30% efficient, managed. The cooling towers were a landmark. Maybe they'll add towers next to data centres, e,g Brick Lane in east London (yes, really!). Or use them for district heating systems. That seems like a good comparison. A 1.4GW plate capacity with 30% efficie...

Some AI data centres are rated at 1GW. Almost all of it will end up as heat. That's some serious cooling required. I haven't done the sums but I'll wager 1GW applied to the river Severn between Worcester and Gloucester, would raise the temperature to an alarming extent. A mini-computer system in the...

seems like it was an overdose situation. no idea why the guy did not just call 911. (except that they were both Mexican nationals) road was open by the time I got up there. It's on the web. Search on "Adams County Pennsylvania body". People can panic, especially when a tragedy happens whe...

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Was what I saw.

Who their right mind would cart a stiff up a mountain to get rid of it?

And did you notice the anti-backlash gears? Some of those gears were actually two gears side by side with a spring to set rotational tension between them to eliminate backlash. Lovely. It must have been fearsomely expensive when new. I hope that chap is going to restore it to full operation. Undoub...

The standards of mechanical construction in top end valve gear and some of the solid state equipment were very impressive. Aluminium castings and precision machining as well as ingenious mechanical engineering. I've always been impressed by the Racal RA17 receiver. That R&S unit takes it to anot...

I'm not completely sure the way it works because I haven't watched TV in many years. There was a 405 line analogue VHF service with it's own antennas which was switched off in 1985. There was a 625 line analogue service which was switched off in 2012. There's an HD TV terrestrial service, which is s...