Test Equipment Anonymous

The underspend thing, which I first came across when the professor of microbiology explained it to us in the 70s, always intrigued me. No way could you fold the underspend into next year's budget. Underspend was a crime. A year back I bumped into an accountant I worked with 40 years back and asked h...

It was under the part about the Triax cap on the Farnell link you gave. Associated Poducts. I'm sure it gave two which were £19 grand and over £20 grand. I've just looked and they offer two at £16 grand and £19 grand. I didn't have my computer specs so maybe they were USD prices or they may have bee...

I suppose so, but if you are in the world of £20,000 femtoammeters, everything is going to be expensive, including things like carrying cases. Most buyers will not be spending their own money anyway. I thought Aliexpress might be worth a look for something like that. There are not many triax items o...

Triax is something most of us don't come across, and to produce it is going to be taking a risk. There were one or two odd BNC types. What's the difference between a 10dB attenuator you've put together faithfully following the equations in the book, and a for real 10dB 20W attenuator good from DC to...

I had to think about why I ended up looking at my terminations, then I remembered. A while ago, I bought a Leo Bodnar GPS disciplined oscillator. It produces 10MHz and 96kHz. When I plugged the 10MHz as external reference to my 'scope, it didn't like it. It turns out that the Ref. In on a Tek MSO54...

The 50 ohm terminations on my 'scopes are better than my feedthrough terminators, but (oddly) I get better results with a T-piece and term than the feedthrough. My feedthrough terms must not be very good. Checking quickly with a 1MHz sine 500mV ptp from the internal AWG in my scope, I find the scop...

Police release a sketch of the suspect

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vfqtpLLhNLY

It amused me.

IME, this meet is usually much more casual than the typical "HAMfest at the fairgrounds"... I'm usually there 30-60 minutes in advance of scheduled opening and people are already doing business. I try to stay late to catch the "I donn' wanna" s , but lately my back has been tell...

I plan to bring as much cash and as little common sense as I can muster. :mrgreen: mnem https://www.vrcmct.org/ It's remotely possible I'll get my nocturnal ass there early enough to cross paths with you this time... -Pat There are two strategies to these things: Get there early, preferably as a st...

I do like pickled herring either plain or with sour cream. So I'd like to try kippers but I don't even know if they are available here. They are. https://scottishgourmetusa.com/products/whole-scottish-smoked-kippers-for-breakfast The price isn't that bad, until you add in shipping. There are almost...

I've never bought standard[1] groceries online, even during covid; I just went to upmarket supermarkets when few people would be there. I enjoy bumbling around, finding things I had never find by searching. Serendipity is my favourite word and concept. [1] I occasionally buy Loch Fyne Kippers onlin...

The widespread ownership of cars made a difference. In the village where I grew up there were five shops in the late 50s. There was a post office, a butcher, a general sweetshop/birthday card shop, a grocer and a newspaper shop/cafe. There were three pubs. By the 70s there was the grocer, the sweets...

This is largely true. Supermarkets cream off a lot of trade in basic items, smaller sellers would have had as bread and butter. Garden stuff, tools, kitchenware, making it harder for independent shops to exist. There are very few butchers and fishmongers these days. Some types of shops pass in and o...

Kitchen stuff is often expensive, now that it's fashionable for people to try to emulate Nigella Lawson or Gordon Ramsay. I can do the swearing bit when things go wrong, but not the glamour. You could do it, especially if the money was right, but it would be going through the motions. You know, hol...

Kitchen stuff is often expensive, now that it's fashionable for people to try to emulate Nigella Lawson or Gordon Ramsay. I can do the swearing bit when things go wrong, but not the glamour. I found Nigella flirting with me to be off-putting. The food should be more pornographic than the chef! The ...

Consequently I actually enjoyed spending the money - miracle three. It is the yellow shop on the left https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4549406,-2.6201361,3a,75y,298.92h,80.96t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1slw09LJy95U5QGQR1e7kKNw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client...

Cubdriver wrote: ↑Tue Nov 04, 2025 7:41 pm Sweet!

That cat has an air of brooding malevolence and barely contained rage.

Three phase residential supplies are rare in the UK. Blocks of flats may have 3 phase. Industrial sites will have it. I've come across a couple of more or less normal houses with 3 phase. One I looked at with a view to buying, was built against a hill. In the bottom storey was a room in which a big ...

Blacksmith's forges and chainsaws, there must be chainsaws, nothing less than a 36" bar though. It's the only way.

somehow I always expect you guys to show off your hybrid wafer and die wire bonding setups. instead we see engine lathes and welders. stone knives and bearskins. You need the space for a tool, to be able to afford it (not so bad these days with a lot of good used equipment around), and an amount of...

And in the bottom photo a Lincoln MIG set. I've got a modern inverter MIG set, which also does MMA. I haven't used it for a time, but it paid for itself welding patches on the bottom of my Ford Mondeo, before it got beyond and had to be scrapped. The MMA function is OK, but I have a couple of MMA in...

I hope you are having a nice time. Is it a fairly relaxed day of eating and drinking too much, or is it a family thing where you are obliged to invite relatives you don't see very often? Then they kick off on politics, or their great interest in some sport nobody is interested in, or some family row...

No, I don't know what it was I saw at Newbury, but it wasn't a Pultra; it was nice, but not super, and I'd have snapped up anything of that quality for £70. And as for an Emco for £50... A Unimat? I've always been interested in machine tools and have seen what they can do. Modern life depends on th...

but if you really want to set her off .....call camilla the new "queen" and stand back because she starts winding up like a gas turbine about to take off. Have you tried her with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, and his delightful semi-ex Fergie? You could spice the mix by pointing out that he...

Changing the subject, I thought I'd indulge in some pre-Christmas quality control this evening. We bought some 15yr Glenmorangie last week. First off, the bottle was fitted with a huge child-proof knob the size of a coffee cup over its neck. I had to resort to a hacksaw to cut the thing away. Sadly...