Test Equipment Anonymous

Quiet on here. Some months ago I bought a somewhat tatty HP 8591E 1.8 GHz spectrum analyser. Looked like a bad display but it was just dirty. So easy fix. No options. Last month I put out a request to buy a HPIB interface for it. I had an offer of one from a 8594E free of charge. BIt far away but n...

<SNIP> I hadn't read about the parking situation, that may not be a problem as I should be selling more stuff, assuming they still have a car boot area. Is there space to bodge something like this in? https://www.rapidonline.com/dc-components-kbpc5006-bridge-rectifier-50a-600v-47-1012 [/quote] MK r...

As Zenith says they are for terrestrial digital Free to Air services. I would not call them HD. Some are distinctly low quality. Last time I checked there were 6 RF channels multiplexed to 85 TV channels, 26 radio channels and 10 HD channels. This is in the same frequency band as the old analogue sy...

AI goes rogue and launches cyber attack
It had to happen and OpenAI is the first
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3ek3gvdnj3o

At least it didn't find Cyberdyne Systems

Quiet on here. Some months ago I bought a somewhat tatty HP 8591E 1.8 GHz spectrum analyser. Looked like a bad display but it was just dirty. So easy fix. No options. Last month I put out a request to buy a HPIB interface for it. I had an offer of one from a 8594E free of charge. BIt far away but ne...

Yep, that's the noise I'm worried about.

Not spent any time in Pitttsburg. Spent far too long (weeks) in a EMC lab in Conshohocken PA. Also spent a couple of weeks in Pittsfield MA on a Lightning course. That town is toxic. It was the location of a big General Electric plant and they released lots of PCBs and chlorinated solvents into the ...

Already found that website. seems a bit weird. He asks for other peoples info etc but doesn’t seem to share much like scans of brochures.
They were pretty high up on the accuracy scale before quartz took over. Pendulum rod is invar for example.

Robert.

Looks like I've opened up another TimeNut rabbit hole (wormhole?). I've always fancied a master clock set up. Someone on a IO group was offering one and a couple of slaves. Only trouble is they are more than 3 hours drive away. But, my brother lives a couple of miles away and is visiting us next wee...

My two Anritsu 15NNF-50-3.0C Phase stable cables arrived today. Initial checks say they are all good No change with moving cable.
Can't complain at less than £10 each

Timenuts use regular coaxial cable. The cable cannot make small shifts in an applied frequency. It will provide phase shifts, time delays and if not properly terminated have resonances. These might affect a poorly isolated source or some forms of measurement. The better GPS time references allow for...

Having repaired the Wheelbarrow tester I ran some tests on it. I'm very surprised at how low an energy will cause it to indicate a "pass". I won't go into details on a public but it's orders of magnitude lower than what I would expect. As a number of these have appeared on the surplus mark...

Pretty close. It's for testing the firing circuits. Interestingly it didn't like the output of the Shrike (a standard 4 channel exploder). It shorted some 1N5822 (40V) Schottky diodes on the inputs. I guess as the wheelbarrow doesn't need to drive long cables it uses lower voltage than a unit that h...

But what does it test on a Wheelbarrow? And yes it is the EOD robot. Don't say "the release" ;) Good spot on the lid screws but It's not that old. There is thick waterproofing gasket added under the lid so the needed longer screws.(M3.5 not trilobular). As I said I've already used it to te...

TEA today
A package arrived today with a bit of handheld TE. A Wheelbarrow Mk8 Release Tester. Anyone know what it's for? I tried it out on my Shrike...
Robert.

People selling things they don't have a clue about but are trying to big up for the best price. The AI patter must be a godsend and it's not entirely their fault if it's total nonsense, it's just what the computer said. "Professional" is a give away word. I'm sure most people spending ser...

There is a new valuation - ebay's AI :( As metal detectors are "test equipment" according to ebay UK I noticed an ad for a National Geographic Metal Detector at £319. This is a kid's toy (I repaired one earlier in the year. The description was " National Geographic Metal Detector 2.5m...

Ebay prices are unrealistic. People think they can get more out of it than the think. It's called gold fever. I hate to think what chemical contamination and pollution is being caused by DIY refiners. The mercury method is particularly hazardous. Some years ago a guy in the USA killed people in his...

Ebay prices are unrealistic. People think they can get more out of it than the think. It's called gold fever. I hate to think what chemical contamination and pollution is being caused by DIY refiners. The mercury method is particularly hazardous. Some years ago a guy in the USA killed people in his ...

Some people at swapmeets pick up this stuff for the gold content. They are Philistines. I'm not so sure. Also I'm not certain of the way the economics of gold recovery works. 70s/80s HP kit used gold lavishly. These days if it works it may well still be in calibration or close. If it doesn't work, ...

There's also the militarisation of space to consider. Russia has used a presumed kinetic weapon to shatter a satellite and more recently has been making threats to the ICEYE RADAR imaging satellite by moving four COSMOS satellites around close to it. USA with Boeing X-37B and likely other systems t...

<SNIP> I'm not sure what you mean when you say "GNSS availability". GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) is a general term for several satellite systems used for positioning and navigation. These systems are GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and others. GPSDOs use at least two. Because of its im...

I'm having trouble with private messages. I was conversing with EC8010 and now my messages are just sitting in the "outbox". Anyone got any ideas?
And EC8010, I'm not ignoring you and my faith was justified
Robert.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Mon May 25, 2026 3:29 pm <SNIP>

[2] Most local supermarkets sell one item costing £3k-8k per kg, depending on the origin. Guess what

Saffron?

One point I was trying to make was that most people adding a VFD to a lathe only consider using it to reduce the motor speed rather than increasing it. Even without a "special" motor or even full data on an existing motor, those of us in the UK and other countries with 50Hz mains can get a...