Test Equipment Anonymous

In my last pre-retirement job, in the workshop, we had an IFR spectrum analyser which, although it had a second handbook about how you could send commands to it remotely, had no information on how to make screenshots, other than to the inbuilt floppy. Ok, sez I, "easy peasy", ---- just fil...

Maybe the Holy Roller robot builder has a following because everything else on the forum has become dead boring! They seem to be determined to remove any vestige of the old EEVBlog, with a lot of political posts of the favoured kind these days, but disagree & you are firmly told "no politic...

That reminds me of a neighbour we had once. "Humberman" he was known as. Had a large collection of Humbers parked literally everywhere he could squeeze them. They were all broken, noisy and turned into smoke screens instantly. Reminds me in turn of another mate who had a backyard chock fu...

I was just over on "the other place"----No, not the Australian Senate Chamber, but EEVBlog. In their "Projects" section, there is a seriously weird guy called "artbyrobot" , who purports to be building a humanoid robot. His methods are very unlikely to be successful, he...

An old mate of mine back in the day had a single cylinder "Southern Cross" stationary engine in his back yard. He delighted in firing it up at night, then as if the loud "PUTT!! FNN, FNN, FNN" sound wasn't enough, he would fiddle with the carby to make it backfire. With the 2 inc...

[quote=Zenith post_id=9321 time=1728342008 user_id=66] By that token, my HP 427A has already been converted to mains operation by the two banana sockets. My TF2700 has a normal modern low voltage socket fitted. I'm sure I powered it from a bench PSU. PP9s are about £7.50. They appear to have just be...

Fascinating. The Polyskop was clearly a remarkable piece of equipment back in the day. However, on balance, it's far too big and heavy and I'm glad I didn't buy it. To be honest I wasn't even slightly tempted. Yes, it is the sort of thing that was a good investment for a corporate body back in the ...

bd139 wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2024 5:23 pm The bacon rolls are always cold or damp at those as well.

Not like the delicious & messy beef rolls at Perth Hamfest.
To think that people believe that I go there to look at & possibly buy TE & ham crap, & can't discern my true motive!

I did see a Polyskop shown doing something not very impressive, at the back of one of the stalls for £50. It looked very big and heavy. I'd guess it was some description of spectrum analyser. I'd heard of the name as one of the bits of kit used for setting up the filters in RA17s although that one ...

Roos and Emus are small beer. Cassowaries, numerous deadly snakes, Funnel Web spiders, gympie-gympie trees and that's just on land. In the water there are Salt Water crocodiles, Great White sharks, Box Jellyfish, Blue Ringed octopuses, sea snakes even more venomous than their land dwelling cousins,...

I really can't see the point of that PSU circuit. It seems to be referenced to a 1N4148 diode. However, the DMM's been in production for years, so I assume it's been satisfactory. There's a battery low indicator symbol on my UT58C but I can't see it on that schematic, which I believe is for the sli...

It appears that his previous jobs for the company were in fairly "wild & wooly" places where such weaponry was a prudent addition to the apparel of a well dressed Engineer, & he had been given to believe by his workmates that Australia was a similarly scary place. LOL And it is, g...

Reminds me of a gal I worked with years ago who told me she was going to East Africa for a holiday. I asked if she'd arranged insurance. She said that had been done through Endsleigh which used to be the Students Union insurance company. I said I was thinking more in terms of a 600 nitro express an...

From what I know of the Soviet defence sector, the persistence of the things is because they had regulatory requirement to be able to be self-sufficient as a nation and they had a lot of stock left lying around. On top of that the cost was much lower than newer technology. Suitable meme cJpvQY1.jpe...

I always regard rebranding as a negative. Either there is something to forget, or the managers know something isn't right but don't know what to do. That leads to "something must be done, this is something, this must be done". I apologise if I've told y'all this anecdote before. I used to...

Do you want to lose your lunch? The Toronto Star publishes a good number of eyerollers but I almost spat my coffee when I saw this headline. Rod McQueen: ‘Call me Carly’: The moment I knew Hewlett-Packard’s CEO was special https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/call-me-carly-the-moment-i-knew-hew...

Another somewhat shady lot were Z&I Aero Services who sold valves. A lot were made in the USSR, or were remarked in some way. I have a Z&I box marked KTW61 with a valve inside marked KTW61, except it's obviously a 6K7G, which is a rough equivalent. I bought my Russian multimeter from them i...

They are getting on a bit though. I've had one since 2009. It's failed twice. The first time was a reservoir cap, I think the same one as failed in this. The second time was a transistor in the trigger circuit which is under no particular stress but decided to depart this life. I had a couple of sp...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW2mAa21PSs Australia's PM in the 1950s/early '60s was Sir Robert Menzies. Bob once tried to get people to pronounce his name in the traditional way, as "Mingas". This was regarded as pretentious by most Aussies, & he was promptly nicknamed "Ming t...

mnementh wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2024 9:25 pm

mnem
this is where I usually put something pithy.

You are always "taking the pith"!

Neither do tents; that's what sleeping bags are for. The van ought to be capable of keeping a howling gale out better than a tent. I remember camping with my daughter in a howling gale at a cliff top camping site in Morthoe. We chose a windy weekend, since it makes waves for body boarding :) At dus...

That's Johnny-come-lately fibreglass. Fibreglass is cheap and nasty temporary stuff - except when exquisitely shaped top ensure laminar flow, of course. I'd vote for the seminal example from 1978 : concrete cows. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Concrete_Cows%2C_Milton_Keynes.jpg...

A 1938 Aussie bodied straight 8 Buick "sloper" for me ---not high performance, but the "cool factor" is supremely high!

All kids should have a cat.
They teach that actions have consequences---piss off the kitty & you will get clawed!

I remember the answer given to the question "what do I need to beat a Mustang?" asked in the late 90s on the Miata mailing list. The reply? "A corner!" Even though the Mustang was a POS at handling the best car chase ever filmed was this. Count how many hub caps the Dodge Charge...