Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

[MED6753]

Nope, I'm the asshole. You broke it, you replace it. And don't give me this "volunteer" crap.

Been thru that garbage where tools are "borrowed" and never returned or broken. Made me the asshole I am today.

[25 CPS]

As for the larger issue surrounding the whole shitty mess... yeah, it's a shitty mess. As has been mentioned; "volunteer" shitty mess.

It sucks, but I think this is a "pick your battles" scenario.

You're probably best off treating it as a life lesson about working with dumbasses and moving on... no matter how tactful you may be aboot it, trying to extract fair recompense will make you "the asshole" in somebody's eyes, and with something you do purely for R&R, I expect that will spoil the whole thing for you in the long run.

That's pretty much where I'm settling on this. It's an expensive writeoff and I'm never lending my tools out again. Unfortunately, the guy who wrecked it is actually one of the place's best guys. Unfortunately that also means it only goes downhill from there.

It's also consistent with my experience with non-profits though. Angering volunteers until they quit is no problem because it doesn't cost them money. Breaking things is no problem because it doesn't cost them money. Stuff sitting broken and not getting repaired doesn't matter because it doesn't cost them money. The indifference on part of every non-profit organization I've ever seen because there's no direct out of pocket hit is unreal, and I'm thinking of the local humane society through to every railway museum I've seen.

If it hasn't already been so spoiled.

That's the big question. One friend there passed away last fall and several others have passed away in recent years. There's one very close long-time friend who I try to help keep one of the railcars in particular running for but he's 83 now. I really don't know if I'm going to stay active there once the inevitable day comes and he's gone too.

[nixiefreqq]

was using my 10Ghz franken-sweeper to try to characterize the directivity of this coupler at higher than its rated range.

smelled smoke! then the damn sweeper output disappeared. shit!

turned out to be an easy fix after only 20 minutes of trouble shooting. damn cap on the sweep generator board went short.

is that a tant?

after replacement we are back in business. the top trace is the directional coupler with output shorted. bottom is terminated with a 60dB 50 ohm attnuator (a 50 ohm load from the junk box looks very very close).

hmmmmmm. maybe 15 dB of directivity? not great, but good enough maybe to see if a feedhorn project has decent return loss.

[Cubdriver]

Nope - Sprague 30D is an al-yoo-minyum cap.

-Pat

[nixiefreqq]

thanks!

do not have a manual for the 8620b and could not look it up.

it was indeed dead short, so it made me wonder.

[mnementh]

That unit is old enough to collect a pension. Those caps are all living on borrowed time.

mnem
https://www.hpmemoryproject.org/an/pdf/sf_8620.pdf

[Robert]

RG-58, a crimp BNC and a BNC to N adaptor at 10GHz?
Your test set-up is not optimal

[nixiefreqq]

there are a couple of reasons for using that 6ft length of rg-58 coming off the signal generator.

1 the 8620 is off to the side of the bench at the bottom of a stack of hp heavy metal. and my ass is lazy and old.

2. the 10 ghz sweep plug-in is home brew. its output comes right off the yig at 20 dBm. when working close to that unit with .141 hardline I always put a 20 dB atten in line to ease my mind about injuring the 8569b. it turns out that crap piece of rg-58 has just about 20 dB of loss at 10 Ghz. (yikes!)

but yes, you are certainly right......it is not ideal.

and now you may have motivated me to dig that 8620 out of the stack and move it closer. since you share some responsibility for the consequences, maybe you could look up a good chiropractor near Gettysburg?

ps a couple of years ago I threw together that sweep plug-in just as a learning exercise. never played with a yig before and found one cheap on eBay. it worked so well that it became my only, but rarely used 10 Ghz generator. but now an old boss of mine mailed me a couple of suspect 10 Ghz kuhne transverters, so it is getting used.

[bd139]

Minor cultural diversion. Used the student status to leverage some (relatively) cheap tickets for Mahler's 5th by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

IMG_5176.jpeg

Previous showing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX7DkSbzJ8c

I despise classical music usually but this was good.

Booked a box (just the seat) for Mahler's 8th next month...

[tggzzz]

Booked a box (just the seat) for Mahler's 8th next month...

Mahler's 4th is odd. I have one recording that is light and an absolute joy. I've heard others, and they are dreary durges.

I don't know whether his other symphonies are similar.

Have fun.

[bd139]

Mahler's 4th is odd. I have one recording that is light and an absolute joy. I've heard others, and they are dreary durges.

I don't know whether his other symphonies are similar.

Have fun.

As said I despise classical music generally. There are some notable pieces however. The 4th I do not know.

I do like the 8th symphony though so after a bottle of cheap booze I just booked more tickets....

[Zenith]

I was never into Mahler. I found it depressing.

Bach, yes. Vivaldi can play the strings of your heart, especially the 'cello concertos.

Anyway, I'd supposed that by now you'd be too occupied with mathematics to have any time for such friparies.

[tggzzz]

Sturgeons law applies to classical music as much as pop music.

There's a surprising amount of maths to be found in music.

Elgar's Enigma Variations can evoke emotions, as can Bach. When I was a kid there was still a question "who is the best composer?", and the correct answer was Beethoven. Even then I thought both the answer and the question were wrong. Bach is better.

Tastes change. It used to be that Charlie Chaplin was thought of as the best silent star. Nowadays people have come around to my opinion, Buster Keaton.

If I want to change my state of mind, I'll often use plainsong, Gregorian Chant or earlier music, or some of the modern equivalents.

[vk6zgo]

As for the larger issue surrounding the whole shitty mess... yeah, it's a shitty mess. As has been mentioned; "volunteer" shitty mess.

It sucks, but I think this is a "pick your battles" scenario.

You're probably best off treating it as a life lesson about working with dumbasses and moving on... no matter how tactful you may be aboot it, trying to extract fair recompense will make you "the asshole" in somebody's eyes, and with something you do purely for R&R, I expect that will spoil the whole thing for you in the long run.

If it hasn't already been so spoiled.

Cheers,

mnem

. . . . Peace be with you, brother.

Yes, as I always say:- "Some things are worth 'going to the the barricades' for ----is this one of them?"
Unfortunately, these days, a certain section of the community considers that the slightest thing they disagree with is worth it!

[25 CPS]

When it rains, it pours.

It was Wednesday evening. I had a duck cooking on the rotisserie on the barbecue and two trays of vegetables roasting in the oven in the kitchen until I smelled this awful acrid metallic smell. I opened the oven door and took a look inside and saw the bake element was in the process of failing spectacularly. This one hot spot it's had for ages turned into an almost lightbulb filament bright spot and was starting to smoke. I guess I caught it in time before it could go flash bang and I finished roasting the the vegetables under the broiler (also known as the grill for those in the UK). Broiled vegetables are mediocre but at least they weren't a waste.

I found a picture I got of the failing element before it went completely bad:



The rightmost hotspot is where it burned up on Wednesday.

Anyways, I'm going to attempt a repair with a generic replacement element, but I was thinking with the way the one failed and grossly overheated in the one spot, it's going to be interesting to put it on the insulation tester and see how it compares to the replacement because there's no way the insulating material could've survived that without deteriorating.

[Zenith]

Sturgeons law applies to classical music as much as pop music.

There's a surprising amount of maths to be found in music.

Also surprising how people good at maths are often good musicians.

Elgar's Enigma Variations can evoke emotions, as can Bach. When I was a kid there was still a question "who is the best composer?", and the correct answer was Beethoven. Even then I thought both the answer and the question were wrong. Bach is better.

De gustibus non disputandum est. There's no accounting for tastes.

Vivaldi visited Bach and they got on very well. Bach transcribed some of Vivaldi's music for other instruments.

Tastes change. It used to be that Charlie Chaplin was thought of as the best silent star. Nowadays people have come around to my opinion, Buster Keaton.

Of that lot I thought Harold Lloyd was the funniest. Laurel and Hardy were also good. Buster Keaton had his moments. Later he put in an appearance in Sunset Boulevard, one of my favourite films. Charlie Chaplin I never saw as remotely funny or entertaining. Too saft to loff at, as my grandmother used to say.

If I want to change my state of mind, I'll often use plainsong, Gregorian Chant or earlier music, or some of the modern equivalents.

Try Kwela. South African penny whistle and guitar jazz which emerged around 1960. You can't be sad while listening to it.

Kippie Moeketsi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iQs93K ... el=alkis09

Spokes Mashiyane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHPh-Jx ... yane-Topic

The Soweto String Quartet. Classically trained musicians, but you know they are just busting to break into Kwela and they do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBABMxn ... abineSlagt

The darker side, sort of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7StGJtI ... zoloAfrica

I also discovered this - nothing to do with any of that, but cheerful. I remember them from the early 60's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDfhK7H ... htPictures

And there's The Post Modern Jukebox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLnZ1NQ ... ernJukebox

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCTOpdl ... ernJukebox

All joyful.

[tggzzz]

Tastes change. It used to be that Charlie Chaplin was thought of as the best silent star. Nowadays people have come around to my opinion, Buster Keaton.

Of that lot I thought Harold Lloyd was the funniest. Laurel and Hardy were also good. Buster Keaton had his moments. Later he put in an appearance in Sunset Boulevard, one of my favourite films. Charlie Chaplin I never saw as remotely funny or entertaining. Too saft to loff at, as my grandmother used to say.

Harold Lloyd was good. Laurel and Hardy were also good, but they were of the talkie generation. My father saw them at The Palladium (a prestigious Loon theatre) in the late 40s; good but past their best.

If I want to change my state of mind, I'll often use plainsong, Gregorian Chant or earlier music, or some of the modern equivalents.

Try Kwela. South African penny whistle and guitar jazz which emerged around 1960. You can't be sad while listening to it.

Never come across that, but I see what you mean. The nearest in my collection is King Sunny Ade and his African Beats, or in a different way, Salif Keita

The fundamental problem I have is that I can only listen to music that I already know, since my deafaid distorts it so much. I literally cannot hear a sine wave: the deafaid interprets it as howlback and suppresses it with a time constant of ~500ms.

I also discovered this - nothing to do with any of that, but cheerful. I remember them from the early 60's.

From the early 60s it has to be Petula Clark belting out Downtown, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx06XNfDvk0 while looking at this picture. Instant nostalgia.

Piccadilly by Night London 1960 by Elmar Ludwig

[25 CPS]

Piccadilly by Night London 1960 by Elmar Ludwig

Piccadilly by Night? According to Guinness Time there, the picture was taken at 5:18 PM! Night? Just how early was bedtime back then?

[25 CPS]

Putting the dead oven element on the insulation tester did not give the results I was expecting. I figured it would be shorted or resistive to the outer casing but that checked out fine from both ends. What I did see was:





No end to end continuity and it's about 20 gigaohms open so the area that was burning up when I opened the oven to see what that horrible smell was must have opened as it cooled down.

One return of the first universal bake element to Canadian Tire to exchange for another one whose connectors weren't so long they were bottoming out before the element was seated and some ugly modification to the crimp connectors on the leads in the back of the oven to make them fit the spade lugs on the replacement element we have heat:





And a test run. Dinner should be ready soon.

Important Safety Note: I'm going to put this here in case this post turns up in an internet search for anyone who might not realize that North American stoves can have a nasty safety hazard. Shut the power off at the breaker panel or fuse box before doing any work like this. Quite often only one side of the 240 volts is switched which leaves the heating element energized at 120 volts even when off so it's still possible to get a nasty shock from one of the spade lug connectors to the whole rest of the stove.

240 volt power in North America does have some safety considerations that are different from other locations in the world where 220-240 volts is used for everything.

[mansaxel]

And a test run. Dinner should be ready soon.

Important Safety Note: I'm going to put this here in case this post turns up in an internet search for anyone who might not realize that North American stoves can have a nasty safety hazard. Shut the power off at the breaker panel or fuse box before doing any work like this. Quite often only one side of the 240 volts is switched which leaves the heating element energized at 120 volts even when off so it's still possible to get a nasty shock from one of the spade lug connectors to the whole rest of the stove.

240 volt power in North America does have some safety considerations that are different from other locations in the world where 220-240 volts is used for everything.

Well done!

Here, most appliances introduced the last 25 or so years have been made efficient enough to work from single phase 230V mains, which means they can be and are fed from a single Schuko (CEE 7/3 outlet, for a 7/4 or 7/7 plug) outlet. Hard-wiring appliances was common up to the 1970s, whereas it now is very rare in homes. At home, the geothermal pump which doubles as water heater, and the swimming pool plant, are the only appliances hard-wired at the moment. Both require three-phase mains which basically is the reason behind it all. All my workshop machines which also are three-phase are plug and socket connected using the IEC 60309 standard which is common to whole of Europe and many other places.



Before we had IEC 60309 we commonly used Perilex plugs and sockets for kitchen and other white goods appliances. It was still common to see them in smaller older commercial kitchens in the 90s, which is why every mobile sound system had a Perilex - 60309 adapter, to be able to snarf some extra power for lights or similar.

[vk6zgo]

Piccadilly by Night London 1960 by Elmar Ludwig

Piccadilly by Night? According to Guinness Time there, the picture was taken at 5:18 PM! Night? Just how early was bedtime back then?

It is already getting dark by about 3:30 pm in the winter!

I would guess it was a Sunday, too!'
I remember in 1971 driving up from Southampton one Sunday, because I wanted to buy some KFC.
The city CBD was so empty, you could have fired a cannon down The Strand & not hit anybody----all the "Suits" gone home to the "dormitory suburbs", I guess.

[tggzzz]

Piccadilly by Night? According to Guinness Time there, the picture was taken at 5:18 PM! Night? Just how early was bedtime back then?

Bedtime is one thing, especially in the heart of the West End entertainment and red light districts.

Sunset is 3:52 PM in December. "Hours of Darkness" start at 4:22 PM. Lerwick is an hour earlier.

I remember in 1971 driving up from Southampton one Sunday, because I wanted to buy some KFC.

That's just weird, nobody in their right mind wants Kentucky Fries Mouse.

The city CBD was so empty, you could have fired a cannon down The Strand & not hit anybody----all the "Suits" gone home to the "dormitory suburbs", I guess.

The City would indeed have been deserted, including on a Saturday.

The Strand is in the West End; that would have been deserted since most things would have been shut by law on a Sunday, except newspaper shops and corner shops. In some ways I miss Sunday being special, but not in others.

[MED6753]

The Strand is in the West End; that would have been deserted since most things would have been shut by law on a Sunday, except newspaper shops and corner shops. In some ways I miss Sunday being special, but not in others.

There are some counties in New Jersey that still have Sunday "Blue Laws" where most businesses are closed. Exceptions are food shops and gas stations. It is also illegal in all of New Jersey to "self serve" or pump your own gas. Only the attendant can pump it.

[25 CPS]

Here, most appliances introduced the last 25 or so years have been made efficient enough to work from single phase 230V mains, which means they can be and are fed from a single Schuko (CEE 7/3 outlet, for a 7/4 or 7/7 plug) outlet. Hard-wiring appliances was common up to the 1970s, whereas it now is very rare in homes.

Ah, I can see how I left the impression the stove was hardwired when I talked about switching the power off at the breaker. 240 appliances like stoves and clothes dryers are usually connected with a plug and socket here too. Hardwired appliances are very uncommon. The reason why I kept mentioning shutting the power feed off at the breaker is because getting at the stove plug is really inconvenient in my kitchen. The stove is in between the counter and a corner between the side and back wall so the whole thing has to be pulled out more than all the way to be able to get in behind and pull the plug. Far more difficult than walking down the stairs and throwing a switch and no risk of gouging the floor.

That reminds me of this silent film from 1923 that the Government of Ontario made during the rural electrification program here. It's a very interesting look at domestic electrification of the period and it's from before Ontario Hydro bought out all the private companies that were generating power at Niagara Falls. But at 7:05, there's a look at an electric stove that's hard wired into an outdoor style weather head at the top of a piece of conduit coming out of the kitchen floor with the three individual insulated wires dangling through air after emerging from that before entering the back of the stove!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3EydAVtNH8

The kerosene lantern begin given the heave ho near the end of the film is pretty funny getting across how obsolete they felt that was once electric light's available.

Domestic three phase power is regrettably rare here. The workaround is 120/240 split single phase feeds with ever increasing amperages. 60 amps used to be common but now insurance companies won't provide coverage unless you have a minimum 100 amp service. 100 and 200 amps are common service sizes for houses but for larger houses or situations where a house has a heavy electrical load, 400 amps is not unheard of. One of my friends who is an electrician has wired up a couple of houses with 400 amp feeds.

[25 CPS]

The Strand is in the West End; that would have been deserted since most things would have been shut by law on a Sunday, except newspaper shops and corner shops. In some ways I miss Sunday being special, but not in others.

There are some counties in New Jersey that still have Sunday "Blue Laws" where most businesses are closed. Exceptions are food shops and gas stations. It is also illegal in all of New Jersey to "self serve" or pump your own gas. Only the attendant can pump it.

I was originally teasing because of the huge amount of early to bed, early to rise garbage I have to put up with. Honestly, it's like 7:00 PM is the unofficial bedtime of so many adults I have to deal with and they're pretty intolerant of anyone staying up later than that. I work rotating shifts so it's not like I have a very well defined morning, afternoon, and night - with the adverse health affects associated with that.

Wow, I knew about the pumping gas and thought NJ was one of two states that still banned that but Sunday shopping laws still, in 2025? I remember the debate about repealing the Lord's Day Act here and legalizing Sunday shopping, and it was surprisingly controversial at the time. I'm trying to remember if that's when Eaton's stopped closing the curtains on their display windows when they were closed on Sundays or if the practice of drawing the curtains at closing time on Saturday night was dropped before Sunday shopping was legalized but I don't remember. There were still Sunday only bus and streetcar stops near churches until about 10 years ago.

There are still a few vestiges of that. There's an extremely religious independent grocery store just out of town southeast of here that's strictly closed on Sunday and has a table near the exit doors with books and pamphlets about the church the owners are associated with. But yeah, I don't miss the days of Sunday = NO FUN!