Test Equipment Anonymous

Apparently the Crowdhill stuff has gone "All items have now been disposed of..." Probably just as well and my work trip is delayed. Ahh surplus stores. I started interest in electronics when I was in Northern Ireland. No surplus or component dealers anywhere near and the local TV repair sh...

The HP PSU is OK for parts at $24 the knobs and terminals are worth that if you fix HP kit. Or even build things. Parts, particularly hardware are getting very expensive. Wafer switches for example. I recently priced some up for a possible paying job and was shocked. They are now £20-£30 per wafer a...

It almost all has property labels from his workplace. They cover decades and various ownership. At least one of the older items I got even had a property label stuck inside. Having visited the place I'm 100% certain it was all obtained properly. You would not sneak much out. I agree it seems to be j...

Nope, I was later. It was in a bin of grey plastic boxes that were described as APC7 articulated arms for VNAs. Always a risk buying active probes as they are so easily damaged.

I just tested the two HP FET 'scope probes that I picked up in Southampton. Somewhat surprisingly they both work OK. The 1145A is particularly nice. It's a fairly modern, about turn of the century, unit. It's two channel 750MHz and designed for logic level (+-6V) inputs with micrograbber interface s...

People are not buying boatanchors at rallies these days. Some of the kit has useful parts for example some of the 8410 VNA units. No one is going to use a 8410 setup for making practical measurements. Too many boxes and complicated setup, calibration and reading. Unfortunately all of the units I've ...

No. The three items I really wanted had already gone. I could reduce their pile of scrap though. And the travel cost is covered.

There was still a fair bit left after I'd filled the back of the car. With price of fuel it would not have been worth my driving there but I had to go within 10 miles for work for a couple of days so not so bad. Might have to go back to the work location next week. That's the main stack. There were...

[<BIG SNIP> The recent estate sale EC8010 and tggzzz visited had over 200 items of TE, with many big old HP units from the 70s and 80s. Was that near Southampton? may have been the same one... Yes, Crowdhill. Ah you missed the good stuff... ;) There was still a fair bit left after I'd filled the ba...

Zenith wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2026 9:47 am [<BIG SNIP>

The recent estate sale EC8010 and tggzzz visited had over 200 items of TE, with many big old HP units from the 70s and 80s.

Was that near Southampton? may have been the same one...

Are HP YIG oscillators valuable as spare parts? The 8620s I (and Zenith, remotely) picked up on Tuesday probably contain one or more. Depends on the frequency range and exact type. The oscillators are of course in the plug-ins not the mainframe. Some plug-ins contain more than one. Note the some of...

I picked up some silent key TE last week. Mostly old boat anchor HP kit like 8410 series network analyser boxes. These are basically only good for parts but do have usable coaxial relays and directional couplers. Also a 8620C sweeper and some plug-ins. They will need testing. And some useful small b...

Can't agree on Titan. Have you read the NTSB investigation report? The owner, Stockton Rush, was either deluded, a fraudster or possibly both. He ignored professional advice and appears to have deliberately concealed shortcomings in the vessel and actively avoided the legislation relevant to passeng...

And the power jitter is illegal and unsafe. It's too small and does not have shutters. You can plug one pin into the right (live) hole leaving the other pin on the plug exposed and live via the primary circuit of the device plugged in.

More over-priced tat on ebay: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/267777291733? It's a old mechanical coaxial switch with badly tarnished N type connectors and corrosion at all the joints in the aluminium body. A bargain at £299 :shock: I would not take it from a 50p box at a rally. And that is a business seller. Th...

A lot of equipment used by the military runs on 115V, presumably USA influence. I doubt anybody at Ramco has powered it up, so I wouldn't be concerned. <SNIP> While so equipment, specifically ex US military facilities May have been set because of US mains, but in my experience a lot of 115V kit was...

EC8010 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 04, 2026 10:56 pm Is the HP 5335A as big as I think it is; full rack width and 3U high?

Yes, but not very deep and silent.

TEA! and hopefully a bit of TED (Test Equipment Disposal). Been quietly looking for a smaller and hopefully higher performance universal counter to replace my HP 5335A for a while. A couple of Agilent 53132A's came up on ebay last week. Low start price and they looked quite tidy. So I stuck a bid in...

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 ...