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

[Specmaster]

Just come across a couple of ads on Facebook marketplace for 4 x 60MHz dual channel scopes (V-5060) which maybe of interest to someone, 1 lot of 4 for £1, may be a catch to the price though? https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... =undefined

From the same seller another ad for 11 off the same 60MHz scopes, claims most are in good working, never used, been in storage (although 1 in the photo does have a smashed graticule screen £200 reduced from £350.

These are located in Willenhall, England, anyone interested?

I also found another variant for sale on Amazon UK (V-5060D) with delayed timebase for a rather salty price of £1,547. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zhaolan-Meter- ... 8ZCJQ?th=1

[mnementh]

I'll pay for that lot! Just send me the bezel off the one you use for a parts mule!!!

mnem
moo.

[Zenith]

The same seller has another lot of 12 for £500.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... _type=post

I've never dealt on Facebook Market. It looks like a lot of classified ads and it could be just an invitation to treat.

I smell a rat with this lot. I can't see why they'd be offering 4 for a quid, 11 for £200 and 12 for £500.

[Specmaster]

The same seller has another lot of 12 for £500.

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/it ... _type=post

I've never dealt on Facebook Market. It looks like a lot of classified ads and it could be just an invitation to treat.

I smell a rat with this lot. I can't see why they'd be offering 4 for a quid, 11 for £200 and 12 for £500.

Strange that the listing for the 12 does not show up when looking at the seller's other items for sale, and it is even stranger when you notice that one with the damage in both lots is the odd one out with the darker fascia while all the others are light?

[Zenith]

The one with the damage in both lots looks exactly the same, down to the exact pattern of the damage and covers missing from knobs.

I've got that feeling that there's something not quite what it seems about this. You'd turn up having discussed a price, and when you got there, it would be a different story. Harry had placed the ad, and got it wrong, and we had to sack him, and yada yada. Anyway, the real price is much higher. Or this is a clearout of what was the Hitachi main agents junk room, so we know perfectly well they are unrepairable because of burned out mains transformers - or something.

If it were five miles down the road I might give it a go, but it seems too far for what's probably a wild goose chase.

[tggzzz]

Had my eye on some Tek and Rigol scopes up for auction today.

(all prices +38% uplift)
The ones I really wanted went for £18000
The ones I wanted went for £4000
The ones I might have got went for £1200
Even a bloody Rigol went for £2000 (OK, a DS4054, but still)

Oh well

[tggzzz]

If it were five miles down the road I might give it a go, but it seems too far for what's probably a wild goose chase.

I wouldn't go.

Anything under 100MHz without some special feature/benefit is of zero interest to me.

[Zenith]

A 10 mile round trip would be worth it to see if my cynicism about these ads was justified.

Then there's a slight prospect of 4 identical Hitachi scopes for £1, which sans faire rien are flippable, and if they can be honestly described as working, and showing the obligatory triangular and square wave display, are super flippable.

[Specmaster]

A 10 mile round trip would be worth it to see if my cynicism about these ads was justified.

Then there's a slight prospect of 4 identical Hitachi scopes for £1, which sans faire rien are flippable, and if they can be honestly described as working, and showing the obligatory triangular and square wave display, are super flippable.

So, are you going to see them?

[Zenith]

No. It's more like 60 miles each way.

[Cerebus]

Our base camp is 2600m with 24 hours to acclimatise. Average trip is around 3000m with one hard day of 3610m (optional - will see how I feel). Our ML has medication, O2 and exit plan on hand and we're all pretty fit people. Also we have horses which are better at that anyway

Beware, you've made a classic error there, one that has been made by people with much more mountain experience than you I might add, that physical fitness might make you less likely to experience AMS/AS. There's no correlation, either positive or negative between AMS and physical fitness. You pretty much can't predict in advance who will get it, and who won't.

There is little that correlates with sensitivity to altitude sickness, except that men seem to be more vulnerable to cerebral oedema at altitude which is only one of the possible symptoms of AS. Other symptoms of AS are equally spread between the sexes. About 40% of people who go to 3000m experience some kind of altitude sickness (20% above 2500m, some people can even experience it as low as 1500m), so you're quite likely for some of the party to have some symptoms. Spirometry can give some hints as to who may be more and who less vulnerable, but even that is a bit hit and miss.

[bd139]

Our base camp is 2600m with 24 hours to acclimatise. Average trip is around 3000m with one hard day of 3610m (optional - will see how I feel). Our ML has medication, O2 and exit plan on hand and we're all pretty fit people. Also we have horses which are better at that anyway

Beware, you've made a classic error there, one that has been made by people with much more mountain experience than you I might add, that physical fitness might make you less likely to experience AMS/AS. There's no correlation, either positive or negative between AMS and physical fitness. You pretty much can't predict in advance who will get it, and who won't.

There is little that correlates with sensitivity to altitude sickness, except that men seem to be more vulnerable to cerebral oedema at altitude which is only one of the possible symptoms of AS. Other symptoms of AS are equally spread between the sexes. About 40% of people who go to 3000m experience some kind of altitude sickness (20% above 2500m, some people can even experience it as low as 1500m), so you're quite likely for some of the party to have some symptoms. Spirometry can give some hints as to who may be more and who less vulnerable, but even that is a bit hit and miss.

Well aware of that. The point is more that if you are very physically fit and healthy, your exit is going to be less painful for the ML and the guys who are getting you down a few hundred meters

[Cerebus]

Well aware of that. The point is more that if you are very physically fit and healthy, your exit is going to be less painful for the ML and the guys who are getting you down a few hundred meters

Naaaa, doesn't make any difference. Just rope 'em up, push 'em off the ledge and gravity does the rest.

[bd139]

At least she looks like she's enjoying being rescued. Either that or it's the N2O.

[mansaxel]

Our base camp is 2600m with 24 hours to acclimatise. Average trip is around 3000m with one hard day of 3610m (optional - will see how I feel). Our ML has medication, O2 and exit plan on hand and we're all pretty fit people. Also we have horses which are better at that anyway

Beware, you've made a classic error there, one that has been made by people with much more mountain experience than you I might add, that physical fitness might make you less likely to experience AMS/AS. There's no correlation, either positive or negative between AMS and physical fitness. You pretty much can't predict in advance who will get it, and who won't.

There is little that correlates with sensitivity to altitude sickness, except that men seem to be more vulnerable to cerebral oedema at altitude which is only one of the possible symptoms of AS. Other symptoms of AS are equally spread between the sexes. About 40% of people who go to 3000m experience some kind of altitude sickness (20% above 2500m, some people can even experience it as low as 1500m), so you're quite likely for some of the party to have some symptoms. Spirometry can give some hints as to who may be more and who less vulnerable, but even that is a bit hit and miss.

I've done -- when I was 15 years younger and considerably more fit -- a couple 4000 meter peaks in Valais and northern Italy. We'd been adjusting to altitude at 1500m for a couple days, and as always, slept in the cabane before the peak walk. My knee broke (ligaments and stuff) during the last, so altitude sickness was not on the list of main worries. We had a MD with us, so I was given something for the pain (not OTC) and was taped up -- while on the peak -- for the walk down. As soon as we were in the downpath cabane I was given a more thorough exam using a dining table as stretcher. (The most hilarious part of that was the guide -- he was extremely nervous during the probing/poking/stretching examinations. ) Re-taped and with a pair of walking sticks as assistance, I made a nice if not pain free descent to the car park. The rest of the vacation was spent with wine and cheese.

[Specmaster]

Don't know if the scanner works. It was my father's one he bought years ago and gave to this guy when he was bored with it. Probably got crusty batteries in it by now. I will check later.

I see that the scanner battery compartment was OK then, just like a Yupiteru to be working after all this time, those things are bulletproof. I'll have to dig mine out again, its gone into retirement since I get another with alpha tagging, so I don't have to remember what each frequency is, so handy for military aviation so you can see at a glance if its, Tower, Radar, Ground, or even Air to Air etc.

[Cerebus]

At least she looks like she's enjoying being rescued. Either that or it's the N2O.

I just grabbed the first photo I could find of someone being stretcher rescued. Probably just mountain rescue training, as the chances of the weather being that nice on an actual shout are vanishingly small. She's just enjoying it because she's not the one trying to lump someone else around on a mountainside.

[tggzzz]

I've done -- when I was 15 years younger and considerably more fit -- a couple 4000 meter peaks in Valais and northern Italy. We'd been adjusting to altitude at 1500m for a couple days, and as always, slept in the cabane before the peak walk. My knee broke (ligaments and stuff) during the last, so altitude sickness was not on the list of main worries. We had a MD with us, so I was given something for the pain (not OTC) and was taped up -- while on the peak -- for the walk down. As soon as we were in the downpath cabane I was given a more thorough exam using a dining table as stretcher. (The most hilarious part of that was the guide -- he was extremely nervous during the probing/poking/stretching examinations. ) Re-taped and with a pair of walking sticks as assistance, I made a nice if not pain free descent to the car park. The rest of the vacation was spent with wine and cheese.

I've had holidays end that way

I stretched my ACL skiing, but got away without an operation by the skin of my teeth. Knee remained very slightly loose.

A couple of years later I went on a walking holiday in the Dolomites, coming down from the mountain cabins at the very end of the season. Some days I didn't see anyone else walking[1]. The precautions I took were a neoprene knees support and an inflatable full length leg cast. Fortunately I didn't have to find out whether they would have been sufficient.

[1] the only English people saw, I knew. Something similar happened backpacking around India. Ridiculous; small world. Usually I like to point out the world is getting larger, i.e. not limited to 5 miles radius plus rare overseas trips.

[mnementh]

At least she looks like she's enjoying being rescued. Either that or it's the N2O.

I just grabbed the first photo I could find of someone being stretcher rescued. Probably just mountain rescue training, as the chances of the weather being that nice on an actual shout are vanishingly small. She's just enjoying it because she's not the one trying to lump someone else around on a mountainside.

No, she's just the one who gets to enjoy gravitic acceleration if some trainee(s) screws the pooch.

mnem
"You, you and you on deck with my new 'inator. And you... you get to be ballast."

[Zenith]

Had my eye on some Tek and Rigol scopes up for auction today.

(all prices +38% uplift)
The ones I really wanted went for £18000
The ones I wanted went for £4000
The ones I might have got went for £1200
Even a bloody Rigol went for £2000 (OK, a DS4054, but still)

Oh well

Dreadful. Oh well indeed.

You may find consolation in music, which heals the troubled soul.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yq-Fw7 ... nnel=Einyo

[25 CPS]

Looking back, it's interesting to see how my posting frequency spiked up and then fell off again over March. You can tell I had several weeks of vacation and I was enjoying myself. I had a short trip near the end of it that was really too short, in hindsight I should have made it a few days longer to have more time catching up with friends I haven't seen in years, and then ended up back at work a couple of days later.

Remember the second Tektronix 547 that came on the lab cart with a box of plugins I got in spring 2021 after I saw it listed in a Kijiji ad saying it was free to anyone that wanted it and that the tubes would be good for audio? It was lucky I called when I did because apparently less than an hour later someone looking to raid the tubes replied to the ad in between when the gentleman offering it and I spoke on the phone and I arrived at his place. He's a retired electrical engineer and he was starting to downsize and he was happy someone interested in it as an oscilloscope had contacted him before the tube hunter got in touch, and we spent a nice chunk of the afternoon talking and looking at pictures of equipment and projects etc.

He called me up back in the fall, I think it was late October, and offered me the rest of his test equipment since he decided he wasn't going to do anymore electronics work after 50 years of it because of deteriorating eyesight, but neither of our schedules worked out well at the time. He messaged me this morning, I called back, and this afternoon after I finished work, I stopped by and we had another enjoyable time talking and catching up, and it turns out he's gotten into programming Raspberry Pi systems and he's relearning computer programming after not having done much since university many years ago. I showed pictures of the 10 MHz project and the HP-35 which was a real trip down memory lane for him, and he sent me home with most of the rest of his test equipment except for a few things he kept for use with the Raspberry Pi systems and we've promised to keep in touch which is great - I've met so many interesting people over the years as I've put together my workshop and gotten the equipment for it but it's been purely transactional and nobody's expressed an interest in keeping in touch, and I'm glad to have made a test equipment friend.



Several boxes of cables, test leads, adapters and that sort of thing along with the binder for a spectrum analyzer system on top of an HP 200ABR oscillator.



This is the spectrum analyzer system. Unfortunately it developed a no-trace fault after sitting for about two years between uses so I need to hook it up and dig into that.



Tektronix 191 Signal Generator, HP 3300A function generator, and a General Radio 1911-B counter. We had the Hewlett-Packard 200ABR, the 3300A and GR 1911-B powered up and played with them for a bit enjoying the nixie display on the counter. Inside the beautiful rectangular wooden box is a Hewlett-Packard 11945A close field probe set; it's complete according to the HP parts list inside the lid, and looks like it's been lightly used. This is going to be a very interesting piece of kit to use.

All I need now is some more quality time off work to enjoy doing electronics projects again so I can get into some of this equipment. I do have a few days off coming up later next week and I'll be making a point of getting at least a few of these pieces onto the bench and tested out.

[MED6753]

Nice haul!

[Cubdriver]

I suspect that the GenRad counter is an 1191-B (though I'm a fan of the 1911, I don't believe GR ever made them), and is certainly in much better condition than my basket case one! I look forward to pics to see what one is supposed to look like!

And I'll second Mike's sentiments - nice haul!

-Pat

[nixiefreqq]

very nice haul!

loved my 141t spectrum analyzers. when they were working.

but those damn power supplies just did not age well. yours will be full of the standard toasty brown resistors. good luck even reading the color codes. got tired of replacing fuses and trouble shooting about every other power up. was gonna just attempt a total replacement of the inboard PS with modern parts.........but instead gave the lot away to a guy with a half dozen of the damn things when a reasonable 8569b came my way. the 8569b has never given any trouble.

but like i said......when a 141t is working it is a thing of beauty.

edit. forgot to say......the tracking preselector is worth its weight in gold.......AND you got the cable too! those cables are almost unobtainable. my buddy with the 141t collection made his own, but there was much cursing and gnashing of teeth. he lent me a cable and a preselector up until my 141t meltdown. finally, when i unloaded all my 141t junk back in his truck ......... he seemed happiest to see his cable again.

[mnementh]

Jeez, what is it with all this moldy old wigglescope crunk... you'd think this was test equipment forum or somesuch shit.

Good deal, making a new TE friend; and nice that some classic iron came along with.

mnem