Test Equipment Anonymous

There are a few Youtube videos on the planned obsolescence of modern white goods. A medium priced Bosch washing machine used to be a good choice. If the main bearings failed the tub which housed the drum could be unbolted and the bearings and seals replaced at a cost of about £30. These days the who...

Telecoms hacking for fun and profit, 1836 style. https://nowiknow.beehiiv.com/p/hackers-pre-internet-edition I wasn't aware anyone had actually hacked the semaphore telegraph system, but there are a couple of fictional accounts of interfering with it. "Hornblower and The Hotspur" and &quo...

I've discovered a version of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" in early Middle English.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHspDQZ ... rt_radio=1

I find it fascinating and hypnotically lyrical. Not better than the original but it stands in its own right.

Do you have a book shelf next to your toilet? One of my ex-lodgers (long ago) did :) No, but I've seen it a couple of times. I've always thought it strange and impractical rather than charmingly eccentric. It reminds me of a quote I heard a long time ago from Max Reger, a musician. "I am sitti...

Man you software guys are weird. :P :lol: Have you read the classic "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" ?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%2C_Escher%2C_Bach Oddly enough I have a copy, which I found abandoned years ago. I've dipped into it sometimes, but never made a ser...

MED6753 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 05, 2025 7:33 pm Man you software guys are weird.

Almost all are perfectly well-balanced people I always thought. Most are definitely on the autistic spectrum, some more than others.

Harley likes to sometimes give me a "love bite" on my hand and his fangs break the skin. He doesn't comprehend that it's painful. Making a noise like a distressed kitten has always worked for me. Works with rambunctious dogs as well, though I wouldn't try it with an aggressive one Would y...

This guy also found out the hard way. Supposedly the tiger was just giving him a "love bite" :roll: Wild animals, such as bears and big cats, are unbelievably fast and strong. I don't believe they can ever be reliably tamed, even if brought up by one human from when they were small, at le...

Ah yes, the wonders of bog roll formers, empty washing up liquid bottles and sticky backed plastic. Then there was the episode where the baby elephant got out of control and crapped on the set. They were hanging onto its tail. A famous send up of Blue Peter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNfGyIW7aHM

There's always a need for better catalysts and a better understanding of catalytic processes.

An interesting history of electronics downunder, 27 mins Australia's Forgotten Electronics Giant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbzgfBLrscg Australia had a very strong shortwave radio market because for lot of communities SW was the normal means of communication. "Flying Doctor to Walambula b...

Oh yes. Tommy Flowers was the Dollis Hill Post Office engineer who made Colossus. So he made Turing's ideas practical. And Welchman worked out where to apply Turing's ideas. Don't tell me; you're keeping an eye out for a Colossus... They're quite big and probably rather power-hungry judging by the ...

I always liked PERL. A mixture of C, shell scripts and a few bits of its own. I thought it was maintainable as long as it was properly commented.

Standard Tektronix. The Perl of oscilloscopes. Write/Build only. Modify/repair is hell. A lot of scopes are the same. Hameg, which is poles apart from Tek, are also a pain to dismantle, so repairs which should be simple, such as replacing capacitors, require either keyhole soldering, or an amount o...

"Here's one we prepared earlier" is a common dodge, when demonstrating things where something takes too long to do in the time allotted for the programme, or where something can go wrong. It might be a fiddly set up procedure or having to wait for glue to set. Fifty years ago I was talking...

It was 2016 when we solved the problems of dismantling it, moving it and re-assembling it. It took most of a day. I only scratched the surface of how it worked. It's a fascinating thing and I can see why people value them, but I'm glad I don't. I'm happy to admire them from a distance.

Thinking back, I was told this one cost $4,000 around 2012. I can't recall whether that included shipping and import duties or not. There is something of the robot from "The Forbidden Planet" about it. I took a lot of pictures because we had to dismantle it to get it upstairs. Digital pict...

I actually considered several times aboot asking how much on the jukebox... then I decided I'd better not; "I might just have enough..." :? Probably at least $3,000. Also they are quite big. The big Wurlitzer ones with bubbles go for a lot more. Pinball machines are another thing like that.

It looks like an excellent swapmeet. Possibly a bit heavy on domestic electronics and light on TE and military gear. I have a friend who has a jukebox like that. It was downstairs in the kitchen and he wanted it moved upstairs into the living room. We had to remove the autochanger mechanism to save ...

Basically yes, but try capacitors; the accuracy on mine is much worse than 1% (?5% from memory). Maybe a faulty neuron, but is there a trimpot/cap inside? Checking electrolytics is my main use, but I occasionally use it for diodes and transistors. Not much use for HV diodes, though :) I've been fid...

I checked using 0.1% resistors and a PEAK LCR45. The PEAK shows the value of the resistors as their stated values. The BSIDE depends on the resistor value. At 1K it's pretty much spot on. The error peaks at about 50K and diminishes as the value increases. With capacitors I tried a few modern decent ...

As for accuracy, I regard it as sufficient for a quick pass/fail test or sanity check - a bit like an old 2% analogue multimeter. A bit better than that. I've just checked it with a couple of 1.2k 0.01% resistors and it says both are 1198R. I make that < 0.2%. My Brymen 867s says both of those resi...

This was bought at a swapmeet last weekend for £10. tggzzz helpfully pointed out. It was new (at least unused) in its box. It came with a PP3 battery, but no test leads. I believe test tweezers are included with the deluxe version. I have leads with grabbers at one end and banana sockets at the othe...

No, I haven't looked at the PSU, but the vendor thought it would be OK in a way that I trusted him and the limitations of what he was saying. VNAs aren't really my thing. I was struck by the way he appeared knowledgeable and passionate about the subject, and was shocked by the good enough approach ...

It seems a common whinge here is that there are unwashed/unkempt and poorly dressed individuals at radio rallies, but radio hams are Beau Brummel compared to the types you get at model engineering events. Many years ago, there was a chap at Thornbury MEX (Model Engineering eXhibition) where you had...