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

[tautech]

I know a lot of us follow vintage aircraft and airshows. This happen over the weekend in Dallas, Texas. A B-17 and P-63 collided in mid-air.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOqXIjHjX3w

Actually made the BBC news over here.

Wee peep about it here too over the roar of beating your English girls in the womens rugby world cup.
Bit of a hollow victory IMO as it was 14 vs 15.

[dl6lr]

And a complete Z80 learners kit from the 80ies by SEL. Photos coming soon.

Here is my new computer. A Z80 trainer from SEL with documentation and quite some extension cards (ECB-Bus).

The trainer in a suitcase:

20221114_221247.jpg

EPROM Programmer card:

20221114_221552.jpg

ROM/RAM-Extension:

20221114_221613.jpg

Timer/Counter:

20221114_221630.jpg

8 bit I/O (2x):

20221114_221644.jpg

20221114_221701.jpg

CYC-80 single step cycle display:

20221114_221719.jpg

[mnementh]

mnem
Sorry... I think I'm channeling bd139 again...

[MED6753]

This is on my local CL and like the Sirens and Ulysses it keeps calling me. Dunno if I can resist. Doesn't matter if it doesn't work or was built by a drunken monkey. I'm sure I can get it running without too much drama. If I give in I'll post the restoration.

[Specmaster]

What do you mean if you give, more like when you give in, Oh WTF, what are you still doing thinking about, go and get it, you know you want to

[mnementh]

I know a lot of us follow vintage aircraft and airshows. This happen over the weekend in Dallas, Texas. A B-17 and P-63 collided in mid-air.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOqXIjHjX3w

Actually made the BBC news over here.

Wee peep about it here too over the roar of beating your English girls in the womens rugby world cup.
Bit of a hollow victory IMO as it was 14 vs 15.

Yeah, watched them beat the drum over here with it all the while I was getting my tooth drilled/filled; captive audience, so had pretty much no choice other than close my eyes, which I eventually did. Must've played that phone-vid a dozen times between commercial breaks and various "news capsule" type propaganda...

My first reaction was "yeah... morons with too much money flying skittish thoroughbred aircraft with dubious service/repair history that they never should've been allowed into at all, much less performing in front of the public..."

But looking into it later, I saw that all pilots, crew and aircraft involved had decades of well-documented impeccable service history, and it was really just a genuine accident. I guess the only real negligence was in the very nature of the flight; bringing these aircraft together in close quarters but not flying in formation where every member has the backup of countless drills to know when and where every member would be in the airspace.

A real loss, both historically and to aviation as a whole.

mnem
"There's a bird on the wing; flying high, flying high...
To a place, from a place; changing skies, changing skies..."

[nixiefreqq]

hey med!

50 bucks for an IG18?

i would only take it if he gave me 50 bucks.

[mnementh]

Now, now... don't be that way. You never know what is gonna come along and trigger a bout of nostalgia...

mnem
"no, daddy... you cannot afford a horse. you have kids to feed."

[MED6753]

hey med!

50 bucks for an IG18?

i would only take it if he gave me 50 bucks.

No fair, you peeked.

Yea, 50 bucks is a little pricey for it. That's what is currently holding me back. I might throw a low ball and see what happens.

[Zenith]

I've never been keen on Heathkit. Their stuff I have is an audio wattmeter, a distortion meter and a FET voltmeter. They were bought for £5 to £10 at rallies which had drawn blanks and I felt bad about coming away with nothing. They all work and the standard of construction was quite good. I believe there are collectors of it. I hear someone bought the copyrights to the manuals, which makes things harder, or at least dearer.

It could be regreened - regutted to produce an ultra-low distortion oscillator.

I don't know how prices compare between the USA, but I'd say $50 was four times what I'd be happy to part with for one.

Make sure you have the manual first, or factor the cost of one into any bid.

[MED6753]

I hear someone bought the copyrights to the manuals, which makes things harder, or at least dearer.

Not sure where you got that info because I just downloaded the full assembly manual for free.

I threw the seller a low ball. We'll see what happens.

[Zenith]

It was the word on the WWW a time back. Possibly, they bought the copyrights with a view to $$$$$s, and ordered sites to take down free copies, but they were fighting a losing battle and there weren't $$$$$s in it, just $s. If you've got a manual, great. As I say, Heath-Robinson Kit isn't really on my radar.

A low ball offer, -$20. You'll take it away if he pays you that.

$50 is an order of magnitude too much for that. New, in its box, and unassembled would be a little different, but not much.

[MED6753]

I agree $50 USD is too much. But go check out Ebay for total insanity.

[Zenith]

Apart from a few rare gems, evil bay is where you get rid of stuff, not where you buy it. It's especially good if one turns up 'collection only' near you. There are commodity "Buy it now" items which are great and you can't find locally. It can get you out of a hole on components, if you are careful. Often it's much dearer than attaching whatever it is to an order to a recognised supplier; Mouser, etc, if that happens to fit in with what you are doing. For TE, very often there are recognised dealers who sell gear for less, properly packed and with a 30day guarantee.

I realise you have a weakness for TE, but I doubt he's going to accept a realistic ($5) offer, but making such an offer is all part of life's rich tapestry.

[mansaxel]

Got my Tek 155-0109-01 sweep wonder IC from Greece. No motion on it today, but maybe tomorrow.

[Zenith]

I always wondered about the Tek graveyard in Greece, as well as the surprising amount of TE sold from Israel, both of which have appeared on Ebay for years.

I hope you get on well with it.

[MED6753]

My low ball offer for the Heath IG-18 has been accepted. Currently making arrangements to pick it up.

[Specmaster]

Thats good news, I knew that you would give in, whats not to like eh? Looking forward to seeing the money shots in due course.

[mnementh]

Why did I hear "Smurfette body shots"...?

mnem
I am not a pervert; I am a provert. I get paid to be this way.

[mnementh]

There's 2 inches of wet, fat snow on the car, and it's still coming down in buckets. Time to gear up...

mnem

Frosty.jpg

[dl6lr]

That's the first time I've seen a Siemens scope, although looking on the web, they were making scopes from the 1940s.

The D1004 shown is a relabeled Grundig MO 53 scope. Nothing Siemens could be proud of, but it seems to be a capable service scope of that era.
Stay tuned for the first smoke test...

[Zenith]

It looks like a respectable 50MHz scope with delay sweep.

I don't recall seeing either Siemens or Grundig TE in the UK. I've seen the odd item of Schlumberger test gear, but Philips had a significant presence in the market.

Grundig did pretty well with domestic electronics, particularly tape recorders and later on, better quality transistor radios.

When a 20MHz dual trace analogue scope was the most common entry level/amateur scope, (mid 80s to early 2000's), Hameg did pretty well with their scopes here. They were more expensive than the competition, but better made. They also sold other stuff designed to fit into a two unit mainframe. There was a DMM and a function generator, and a spectrum analyser and tracking generator. Later they made stand alone spectrum analysers. It seemed to be aimed at the well-heeled in the amateur market, rather than the professional market.

All this often turns tums up on the junk market here now, particularly the 20MHz scopes. I have two of those.

[dl6lr]

In case anyone missed the Tek 577 saga on EEVBlog, here a short overview:

This ad showed up on Oct 30th. with a Tek 577, collection only, for €550 asking price:
https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anz ... 3-168-6326

I messaged the seller on Oct. 31st that I will buy it and ask a colleague to collect it with cash payment. On Nov. 1st I confirmed collection by my colleague. Later the day the seller answered that he had higher offers if shipped and raised the price to €750 collection only. That was the only answer I ever got from him.
One week later the ad was still active and I offered to collect it with a lower price tag. No answer.
DC1MC contacted me and said, he will do a low ball offer and see what reaction he gets.
Nearly a week later the seller lowered asking price to €650. So I messaged again, raising my offer. No answer.
DC1MC indicated he got a response and was trying to negotiate a lower price.
One day later (yesterday) I asked the seller if there is still anyone around to answer me. No answer.
DC1MC contacted me and said he was successful in fixing a lower price tag by mentioning ham radio, the seller asked for some evidence that there is a ham radio club involved. He sent him the web URL of DL0JZ, a former club station where I was involved.
Seller found my name on the web site and said to DC1MC, he will not sell it for the negotiated price any more and that he has blocked me as I would be obtrusive (3 offers in two weeks with no response from him).

I don't know what game the seller is playing, but I am not a part of it anymore. So be warned.

[Zenith]

Ebay attracts more than its fair share of chancers and fools, buyers and sellers, but I particularly notice the sellers.

Did you offer to buy it on ebay for the Buy it now price, (a contract), or did you message him, which could be considered the response to an invitation to treat?

Is he worth suing? Almost certainly not. You could complain to ebay, but don't expect much to come of it.

An incident best forgotten, in my view.

[Specmaster]

Sadly, I have to say that sellers these days can really drive us sane people mad at times. While I have not heard of the same thing as you have experienced before, I have come across many sellers on platforms such as FaceBook Marketplace, Gumtree etc who are listing small items that will easily slip into a jiffy envelope and pop into the mailbox, but seem totally unwilling to do that even.

It can often be hard enough struggle even to get them to respond to your first message, asking if the item is still for sale, then when they answer in the affirmative, I ask if they would post it to me at my cost and that if they give me their PayPal address, I'd pay promptly, including the P&P and the sellers fee on top so PayPal will pass on the right amount of money, the agreed price and P&P with no further deductions and the seller stops responding to all further messages. So I asked my wife to ask if the item was still for sale, she got a response by return saying it had been sold, WTF, why couldn't they have told me that??

I have another seller now, confirmed their item was still for sale, I replied instantly, saying I wanted it, but they would have to post it to me, in a jiffy envelope, and I'd pay the extra, no further response from the seller, today is the 2nd day of no response