Test Equipment Anonymous

Yeah, I'd like one of those. But I don't want to have to clean a ham's frequency counter

I suppose might be interested in one of the analogue voltmeters as used as digital displays. Presumably they were used with glug-counting decade counters.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Mon Feb 02, 2026 8:04 pm Yeah, I'd like one of those. But I don't want to have to clean a ham's frequency counter

I suppose might be interested in one of the analogue voltmeters as used as digital displays. Presumably they were used with glug-counting decade counters.

I can't recall seeing one.

Franlab is into weird and wonderful displays of all sorts. One of them is a frequency meter which consists of a number of strips which resonate at particular frequencies, a bit like the reeds in a mouth organ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2Nen0jieAY&t=23s

At one time there were mechanical digital watches. They had discs with numbers on which were exposed by a window.

I've seen those mains frequency meters at hamfests
I didn't even pick them up

Many watches were like that for one timescale: the day of month

Cor! Mains must have been seriously unstable once!. I'd have one of those tuning fork meters if I saw one. No real use, but charming.

I have a twin stereo PPM for when I feel nostalgic about broadcast. Each meter is actually two meters back-to-back, red and green (port and starboard) for A and B, and white and yellow on the other meter for sum (mono) and difference signals. Designed to be active 24/7, the moving coil meters are torsion wire suspension and driven by dedicated electronics to flick quickly to a peak and decay slowly so that the eye can actually register it. 4dB per division, with 0dBu at PPM4, peaks allowed to PPM6. You could discriminate between R3 (spent most of its time around PPM3) and R1 (fixed between PPM5 and PPM6). Wkipedia has some pictures halfway down https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_programme_meter

I'm also fond of 270 degree moving coil meters. I always felt that Farnell should have stocked James Bond villain meters with a scale graduated 0-10 but with red "Danger" and "Evacuate" legends. I'd use them to monitor output valve current or similar.

HP used analog meters in the LSDs of the 524B (still in the repair queue):

And the 5210A Frequency Meter was totally analog. (This one doesn't work; I'm watching a pair of possible OSMs on eBuy):

tggzzz wrote: ↑Mon Feb 02, 2026 9:59 pm I've seen those mains frequency meters at hamfests
I didn't even pick them up

Boxes of meters at rallies are worth a quick look over when the first pass has been done. There might be a gem, such as an HP meter of some sort, or a special for an Eddystone, Racal RA17, or Collins. There almost certainly won't be and I've learned to filter out the tat, so they may have been there and I've not noticed them.

Cubdriver wrote: ↑Mon Feb 02, 2026 6:28 pm Ahh, but do you have any stacked lucite plate displays?

No, but I've thought (vaguely!) of making one.

That's one of the appeals of old display types: a blacksmith could make them - and probably did.

Cubdriver wrote: ↑Mon Feb 02, 2026 7:48 pm And how about the vertical decimal displays (I've heard them referred to as 'pinball' displays)?
The LSD's decoder has some issues - you can see a few of the neons lighting simultaneously as it counts up...

Yeah, I'm keeping an eye out for such things.

The zig-zag effect reminds me of this style of staircase. Nice looking design, so hip the designer's bum fell off - and your's probably will if you try to descend.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Mon Feb 02, 2026 11:38 pm Yeah, I'm keeping an eye out for such things.

The zig-zag effect reminds me of this style of staircase. Nice looking design, so hip the designer's bum fell off - and your's probably will if you try to descend.

Obviously not the abode of a vintage test equipment collector - trying to schlep an old counter up those stairs would be absolutely begging for a trip to the ER to get some bones set! Very cool looking, but as you point out, methinks they'd be extremely treacherous to come down.

-Pat

Stairs are there to be used by all and the footing should be intuitive, not like rock climbing.

It's a deathtrap.

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 12:40 am Stairs are there to be used by all and the footing should be intuitive, not like rock climbing.

It's a deathtrap.

Yup.

Too steep even if it was a traditional build.
The calcs for safe and good staircases are: 2x Rise + Going (tread) = 600mm (2ft) + 50mm (2")

Fortunately, it's not in the UK (those aren't UK wall sockets). I certainly wouldn't care to use it in either direction. And the photograph includes my other bugbear (ceiling spotlights). However, it looks like an excellent feline activity centre, complete with places for sleeping.

tautech wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 3:05 am

Zenith wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 12:40 am Stairs are there to be used by all and the footing should be intuitive, not like rock climbing.

It's a deathtrap.

Yup.

Too steep even if it was a traditional build.
The calcs for safe and good staircases are: 2x Rise + Going (tread) = 600mm (2ft) + 50mm (2")

I've seen exceptionally steep staircases in houses, but they don't count since they were Victorian houses for the poor people, and hence small.

You can buy such abominations, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01DZJNKV8

There are worse "designs", e.g. most at https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/510877151483997977/ A couple of those look quite neat, e.g. the loft stairs that fold sideways against the wall. But not the one that goes to a living space where there is a child gate across the top!

I won't re-post the picture of the ladder from my kitchen to the workroom containing my washing machine.

This picture shows why the odd design is beneficial in some locations. Double fun when the wood starts rotting.

Something I noticed in the North of England was panelled-in staircases plus a door at the bottom to completely conceal the staircase. Odd.

EC8010 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 11:46 am Something I noticed in the North of England was panelled-in staircases plus a door at the bottom to completely conceal the staircase. Odd.

Maybe to keep the heat in the living room?

Similar concept https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box-bed

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 12:18 pm

EC8010 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 11:46 am Something I noticed in the North of England was panelled-in staircases plus a door at the bottom to completely conceal the staircase. Odd.

Maybe to keep the heat in the living room?

That's quite possible. The house was an ex-railway terrace in Derby. But the rooms weren't rectangular. The front of the house was at an angle, and so was the back. Must have cost more when carpeting. Yes, I know, wall to wall carpets weren't expected when it was built. But it must have made it more difficult to build.

When I was around 6 I remember moving into a new house and doing two things...

Laying this new-fangled concept of loft insulation to a depth of 1".

Spending many happy hours putting papier mache in the gaps between floorboards on the ground floor.

Even after we had central heating installed, thick jack frost on the inside of the window panes was normal during the winter.

I believe the recommendation now is 8".

As a student, I lived in an end-of-terrace house with zero loft insulation and no central heating. I had a paraffin heater in my room. In the winter, I would wake in the morning to find ice on the inside of my window and frost would crackle on my duvet. We got fog on the landing, too. There were no dividing walls between the houses in the roof space. The bathroom was outside, with a door to the back garden. Leaves would blow in under the door and the floor was freezing. When I was teaching and the students complained that their landlord hadn't fixed the microwave or washing machine, I would try to tell them of my experiences but I'm not sure they believed me.

EC8010 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 3:28 pm

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 12:18 pm

EC8010 wrote: ↑Tue Feb 03, 2026 11:46 am Something I noticed in the North of England was panelled-in staircases plus a door at the bottom to completely conceal the staircase. Odd.

Maybe to keep the heat in the living room?

That's quite possible. The house was an ex-railway terrace in Derby. But the rooms weren't rectangular. The front of the house was at an angle, and so was the back. Must have cost more when carpeting. Yes, I know, wall to wall carpets weren't expected when it was built. But it must have made it more difficult to build.

Like these three houses near me, which are unlikely to have carpets with large patterns!

Number 110 is on the flat, and the latest maps show that the bit to the east of the dividing line has been separated out as 110a.

I think 45 and 47 have been merged, whereas 56 and 58 are still separate. All are on a steep hill, and are pre-1885.

58 must be tiny!

4 floors including loft conversion. Possibly also has a basement. There will be more room in the upper floors; I expect the upper walls are 9" thick, the ground floor walls 27"-36" thick.

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4526356 ... MUgBUAM%3D

The other is more standard

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4369379 ... MUgBUAM%3D

tggzzz wrote: ↑Wed Feb 04, 2026 10:03 am 4 floors including loft conversion. Possibly also has a basement. There will be more room in the upper floors; I expect the upper walls are 9" thick, the ground floor walls 27"-36" thick.

Blimus! What are they made of? Leftovers from a local pyramid or henge? You wouldn't want to fit an outside tap.

There are 1 metre and 1.5 metre SDS bits. They are not particularly expensive. Aldi sell sets of three 1 metre SDS bits for £10 sometimes. They'll go through 30" of limestone wall in three or four minutes.

EC8010 wrote: ↑Wed Feb 04, 2026 2:23 pm

tggzzz wrote: ↑Wed Feb 04, 2026 10:03 am 4 floors including loft conversion. Possibly also has a basement. There will be more room in the upper floors; I expect the upper walls are 9" thick, the ground floor walls 27"-36" thick.

Blimus! What are they made of? Leftovers from a local pyramid or henge? You wouldn't want to fit an outside tap.

Local rock, lime mortar, (typically ashlar+lime render), rubble infill.

Worse: fitting a gas boiler inlet/outlet in the basement; the workman managed, but presumed the walls were square! Oops.

VirginMedia refused to quote for broadband without having a survey done first. (The existing BT connections were enamelled wire twisted pairs, wax paper insulation, lead sheathing. BT technicians gave me a section when they were removing some )

Ah, an interesting fact for your next pub quiz. That old paper insulated cable didn't have the modern Post Office colour code to discriminate between pairs, just (up to) five black bands. To ensure that the cables were predictable, pairs with five bands had them on fifth as frequently as pairs with one band, so there was the same amount of carbon per mile and the same shunt resistance. The lead sheath was pressurised with nitrogen in an effort to keep water out if there was a breakage (JCBs etc), and the pressure drop was used to determine where the break was. TDS wasn't available then. At the Beeb, we measured cable capacitance using a relay switched by 17 cycles ringing tone and measured the current with +/-80V applied. The associated meters (moving coil, naturellement) were calibrated in capacitance and also marked with Post Office Tower, Television Centre, Bush House.

Presuming walls are square (or flat) is always a mistake.