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

[mnementh]

That has been happening in Essex since the dark ages of the 90s. I figured the best option is stay away from Essex.

Yeah, I had thought that it had died a death since you moved away , but it is a wee bit more sinister than your banana prank

At no point did I chuck a brick off a bridge at anyone. As horrible I got was water bombing a police car then hiding in a cemetery.

Happened to me on a overpass in Cleveland when I'd first moved away from home; was driving my Ford Rabbit and half a cinderblock clunked off the back liftgate, barely missing the glass. I saw it bounce off out the rearview, and by the time I realized what'd happened, I was 100 feet past it; but I was pissed, so I whipped around and drove right up the side of the overpass and chased the little bastards off-road into a woodlot, blasting airhorns at them all the while.

Pretty sure two of them literally shit themselves; they certainly weren't expecting someone to go cross-country after their little fuckwit asses.

mnem
I do hope they actually learned something from the experience.

[mnementh]

At no point did I chuck a brick off a bridge at anyone. As horrible I got was water bombing a police car then hiding in a cemetery.

You need to wash your ears out. I told you to mortar bomb it, not water bomb it.

Sneak under their prowlcars while they're in Dunkin' Dognuts, smear limburger cheese all over the exhaust pipes.

mnem
The gift that keeps on giving.

[bd139]

At no point did I chuck a brick off a bridge at anyone. As horrible I got was water bombing a police car then hiding in a cemetery.

You need to wash your ears out. I told you to mortar bomb it, not water bomb it.

Sticks on thick Irish accent ... Sorry boss!

[tggzzz]

At no point did I chuck a brick off a bridge at anyone. As horrible I got was water bombing a police car then hiding in a cemetery.

You need to wash your ears out. I told you to mortar bomb it, not water bomb it.

Sneak under their prowlcars while they're in Dunkin' Dognuts, smear limburger cheese all over the exhaust pipes.

I's choose something that is banned on aircraft, e.g. durian, hákarl, or surströmming. Durian is readily available here.

[mnementh]

You've obviously never smelled limburger cheese burning... Imagine a zoo on fire. All of it.

mnem
"spew and a half...!"

[bd139]

Probably smells less bad than my ex wife after knocking down a whole baked Camembert

[Cubdriver]

After years of looking (got it in 2017), earlier in the week I finally found a manual for my old Non Linear Systems DVM on the bay. It arrived today, so it can now rejoin the repair queue.




-Pat

[synx508]

Working my way through some component drawers bought at Milton Keynes when I got to the relays and one of the "relays" wasn't like the others. It was broken, so I've just done "The Modification" with a new trimmer and insulation and it seems fine now.

[Zenith]

That looks a bit like the OCXOs Marconi put in various bits of kit including the 2018 and 2019 sig gens and the 2955 receiver test set. There's a circuit diagram for them on the WWW, which someone worked out.

The one in my 2019 is rather tired. Every time it starts it settles after a few hours to within a few ppm of the stated frequency, but always different frequencies. OK for most things I want an RF sig gen for, but not what you expect from an OCXO. I mean to replace it with one of the Aliexpress OCXOs, which are much more stable and accurate, and settle in about five minutes. I've already put one into a Racal 9906A and it's a vast improvement over the 40 odd year old one that was in there. It settles to within 1 part in 10^8 of where it's supposed to be.

[synx508]

That looks a bit like the OCXOs Marconi put in various bits of kit including the 2018 and 2019 sig gens and the 2955 receiver test set. There's a circuit diagram for them on the WWW, which someone worked out.

That's exactly what it is, I have a 2019 and a 2019A, the latter has a OCXO with a defective oven and uses a cheap random 10MHz crystal, I use them both from an external oscillator so it's not very important to have it working properly but now I could replace it if I needed to. The 2019A's OCXO was so badly contaminated that both leads of the lovely glass encapsulated crystal had been eaten. The crystal seems clean in this oscillator, so it's a big improvement.

I already have the schematic somewhere but I searched for it and found BD139's post about it on the other place.

Further down in the parts cabinet I found several ITT, Decca OCXO and a CQE DOC1478 that appears to be unused, so I might build myself a GPSDO with that so I'm prepared for when Droitwich closes down.

[AVGresponding]

The Dwagon sends his regrets, he might not be able to post here for a few days:

"Jeezus H. Christ a-hoppin' on a pogo stick. Dad's been home 3 days, and already fucking back to the hospital. He was trying to pick up a dropped remote and fell; dislocated his hip again.

Somebody please update in the TEA thread; I'm gonna be busy for a while."

[Robert]

Got some new TE, or is it a weapon?

RS-HE200-sml.jpg

Sort of the EM version of a Thomson/Center Arms Contender. Four "barrels" covering 10kHz to 3 GHz.
I now have full set of accessories for my R&S FSH3. It even has the antenna factors for the HE200 pre-programmed in the firmware. I't wasn't cheap but I'm very happy with it.

Robert.

[Zenith]

That looks a bit like the OCXOs Marconi put in various bits of kit including the 2018 and 2019 sig gens and the 2955 receiver test set. There's a circuit diagram for them on the WWW, which someone worked out.

That's exactly what it is, I have a 2019 and a 2019A, the latter has a OCXO with a defective oven and uses a cheap random 10MHz crystal, I use them both from an external oscillator so it's not very important to have it working properly but now I could replace it if I needed to. The 2019A's OCXO was so badly contaminated that both leads of the lovely glass encapsulated crystal had been eaten. The crystal seems clean in this oscillator, so it's a big improvement.

I already have the schematic somewhere but I searched for it and found BD139's post about it on the other place.

Further down in the parts cabinet I found several ITT, Decca OCXO and a CQE DOC1478 that appears to be unused, so I might build myself a GPSDO with that so I'm prepared for when Droitwich closes down.

My 2019 wouldn't calibrate when I got it. As high as it could be tweaked, it was still way under by many ppm. I opened it up and tweaked the preset cap by about 1/6th turn. When I tried again, it easily came on frequency, with problems as described above.

At least those Marconi OCXOs can be opened easily. Some of the Racal ones are soldered shut. They can be opened, but it's a bit of a mission.

OCXOs seem to be a bit variable as they age. I've got one in a Racal 9915 which seems as good as new and it's the basic 04A option. I've also got a 1992 with the better OCXO option, and that's pretty much up to spec as described in the manual. Others are well out of kilter with the spec and take overnight to stop drifting.

This is the circuit diagram I found for the Marconi OCXO.

PM3 OCXO.jpg

R5 is a 2R4 not a 2K4 as in the diagram.

BD139 put me onto the surplus Aliexpress OCXOs. They're cheap at two or three quid each, and I've found they are remarkably good, and that's taking the reference voltage from a fairly noisy 5V supply line, without using a voltage reference chip or taking much trouble over the multiturn preset.

[tggzzz]

This is the circuit diagram I found for the Marconi OCXO.

First time I've come across a boustredephonic schematic. What was he smoking?

[bd139]

Seeing as everyone is talking Marconi I'll drop my last proper EEVblog thread in here, the broken Marconi 2022E. Someone had stolen the frequency standard out of it. Covers construction of a new one based on the service manual and an OCXO alternative:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/ ... nd-refurb/

Still really happy about how the boards came out

aMzu4y6.jpg

On separate note, bd140 has been evicted over some incompatibility with my children, along with some gaslighting and some general narcissism. So I'm in the market for a broken scope now

[tggzzz]

On separate note, bd140 has been evicted over some incompatibility with my children, along with some gaslighting and some general narcissism. So I'm in the market for a broken scope now

Oh dear; sorry to hear that. There's a lot of folklore about step-mothers.

<ferengi hat on>

How about a Tek465B where XY works fine but there's no sweep. I haven't looked internally, so it might be just it needs tweaking according to the manual.
Or a working LeCroy 400MHz scope
Or a working 3 channel dual-beam analogue storage scope with manuals and extender cards (Telequipment DM63). Uniquely and remarkably, I find the analogue storage usable

Off to Telford tomorrow with Zenith. I expect my prices will be too high for them.

Let's hope I find another fast interesting scope for £0.015/MHz

Pictures show my fastest step (nominally ~50ps, on a 200ps/1.7GHz scope), the timebase board (most transistors are BC107 and similar), and the timebase controls on a backplane with turret tags for interconnecting wires

IMG_7415a.JPG

IMG_7455a.JPG

IMG_7445a.JPG

[bd139]

On separate note, bd140 has been evicted over some incompatibility with my children, along with some gaslighting and some general narcissism. So I'm in the market for a broken scope now

Oh dear; sorry to hear that. There's a lot of folklore about step-mothers.

It's not so much the step-mother bit which could have worked but I'm not sure she was a human being. There's something about academics

<ferengi hat on>

How about a Tek465B where XY works fine but there's no sweep. I haven't looked internally, so it might be just it needs tweaking according to the manual.

Or a working LeCroy 400MHz scope
Or a working 3 channel dual-beam analogue storage scope with manuals and extender cards (Telequipment DM63). Uniquely and remarkably, I find the analogue storage usable

Off to Telford tomorrow with Zenith. I expect my prices will be too high for them.

Is that the broken 465B you keep humming and hawing about palming off on me for about 2 years now?

Enjoy Telford and fingers crossed for some acquisitions as well as unfair trades

[tggzzz]

On separate note, bd140 has been evicted over some incompatibility with my children, along with some gaslighting and some general narcissism. So I'm in the market for a broken scope now

Oh dear; sorry to hear that. There's a lot of folklore about step-mothers.

It's not so much the step-mother bit which could have worked but I'm not sure she was a human being. There's something about academics

Face it, all the good ones are taken

Is that the broken 465B you keep humming and hawing about palming off on me for about 2 years now?

Almost certainly.

Added pictures of my fastest scope, for your amusement.

[Zenith]

Is that the broken 465B you keep humming and hawing about palming off on me for about 2 years now?

Enjoy Telford and fingers crossed for some acquisitions as well as unfair trades

He palmed me off with a broken 465 last year. I paid £20 of good money for it, and it wouldn't produce a little squiggly line. When I told him about it, he laughed. I certainly don't shake hands with him. I'm fond of all my fingers.

I knew exactly what I was buying, which was a parts mule.

I thought I did OK at Telford last year. It isn't in the Newbury/DD or FRARS league. I don't have high hopes, but it's big enough to stand a chance of finding something interesting.

Also, it's the last sizeable rally of the year - at least within reasonable distance. The National Rally at Newark is cancelled for this year, because of some problem over the site. They say it will be back next year.

[bd139]

Is that the broken 465B you keep humming and hawing about palming off on me for about 2 years now?

Enjoy Telford and fingers crossed for some acquisitions as well as unfair trades

He palmed me off with a broken 465 last year. I paid £20 of good money for it, and it wouldn't produce a little squiggly line. When I told him about it, he laughed. I certainly don't shake hands with him. I'm fond of all my fingers.

I knew exactly what I was buying, which was a parts mule.

I thought I did OK at Telford last year. It isn't in the Newbury/DD or FRARS league. I don't have high hopes, but it's big enough to stand a chance of finding something interesting.

I paid that for my last working one! Bloody shyster

Fingers crossed for you. I may join in next year. See how it goes

[Zenith]

Is that the broken 465B you keep humming and hawing about palming off on me for about 2 years now?

Enjoy Telford and fingers crossed for some acquisitions as well as unfair trades

He palmed me off with a broken 465 last year. I paid £20 of good money for it, and it wouldn't produce a little squiggly line. When I told him about it, he laughed. I certainly don't shake hands with him. I'm fond of all my fingers.

I knew exactly what I was buying, which was a parts mule.

I thought I did OK at Telford last year. It isn't in the Newbury/DD or FRARS league. I don't have high hopes, but it's big enough to stand a chance of finding something interesting.

I paid that for my last working one! Bloody shyster

Fingers crossed for you. I may join in next year. See how it goes

Well that was just jammy. I recall the account of how you cleaned it up.

My best was a working Hameg 100MHz scope for £5. You can't expect that to happen every trip.

I'm sad to hear things didn't work out with BD140.

[bd139]

He palmed me off with a broken 465 last year. I paid £20 of good money for it, and it wouldn't produce a little squiggly line. When I told him about it, he laughed. I certainly don't shake hands with him. I'm fond of all my fingers.

I knew exactly what I was buying, which was a parts mule.

I thought I did OK at Telford last year. It isn't in the Newbury/DD or FRARS league. I don't have high hopes, but it's big enough to stand a chance of finding something interesting.

I paid that for my last working one! Bloody shyster

Fingers crossed for you. I may join in next year. See how it goes

Well that was just jammy. I recall the account of how you cleaned it up.

My best was a working Hameg 100MHz scope for £5. You can't expect that to happen every trip.

I'm sad to hear things didn't work out with BD140.

Yeah it did look like it was a write off when I bought it. Was surprised it was actually entirely working!

Indeed have to wait and pounce (and let Mercedes dude's tyres down)

[Specmaster]

@bd139 yeah, I'm also sorry to hear that things didn't go the way you had hoped for but no doubt you'll be back on the hunt before long but in the meantime we get to enjoy your input and company here.

[mnementh]

Dad update:

yereryeee.jpg

Currently sitting with dad at a spot in a hallway marked by letters 83A printed on a A4 paper, where his bed has been since he was admitted, as it is Labor Day weekend and ER is already full of morons like this guy.

He has been to X-Ray, then to a triage room where they performed the relocation procedure, and now back to this hole in the hall. Doctor has informed me they plan to give him more narcotics, then see if he can walk without falling on his face.

mnem
"Bloody brilliant; this is sure to end well..." ~Giles, BTVS

[BU508A]

Thanks for the update on your dad.
Best wishes from me for him that he'll recover soon.