Test Equipment Anonymous

I came back from a vacation late Wednesday night and found this notice tucked in the front door handle:



I've never received advance notice of a power shutoff before and none of the line powered clocks in the house had lost time or reset so I figured the work had been deferred to the 31st. This turned out to be the case since the electricity went out right at 9:00 AM sharp yesterday morning. I decided to go to a restaurant and have breakfast and when I went outside, I got to see the hydro company doing their work a couple of houses down:



They were installing two new poles and a new distribution transformer.



This is the old Ferranti-Packard transformer being lowered to the ground. This transformer might be original to when the street was built in the early 1940s. I got to talk with one of the guys on the work crew and the new transformer has a larger kVA rating than the one they removed but the distribution voltage is still 4160. If it is the original transformer, the size has more to do with the core being designed to pass 25 Hz than any large kVA rating and the guy I was speaking with mentioned that transformer capacity was becoming an issue. Here, houses built in that era typically all had 60 amp services and the electricity distribution system would've been designed around that when it was built for the neighbourhood. Since then, with most houses being rewired with new 100 or 200 amp services, everything designed around all of houses having 60 amp services has become oversubscribed. Now that air conditioning is standard and things like electric car chargers etc. are becoming more common, I can see how current draws could be large enough at times to cause problems for the old infrastructure.

The hydro company did file plans with the Ontario Energy Board a few years ago that proposed replacing the existing distribution infrastructure so that the secondary voltage from the Hydro One interconnects was carried all the way to local pole mounted transformers to avoid having large neighbourhood substations and an extra step of conversion to an intermediate distribution voltage like the 4160 V in my neighbourhood. I don't know if that plan got cancelled though. Hopefully they aren't doing major infrastructure work only to have to replace it soon with another round of major infrastructure work.

Interestingly, the whole time I've lived here, the line voltage has always been a touch high, usually between 126-128 volts outside of peak air conditioning time. The new transformer's been set up to deliver a few volts less and the plug-in voltmeters now show around 124 volts instead.

25 CPS wrote: ↑Fri Nov 01, 2024 5:13 pm Given how safety critical they are, I really think headlights and turn signals should be designed so that the bulbs are easily field-replaceable, ideally without any tools, but that's just my opinion and clearly not one shared by all of the automakers.

The 2007 Volvo V70 I have has horrible access to headlights -- the front is indeed intended to come off -- but they took notice of all the flak they received, and from 2008 and onwards, you pop the bonnet, pull 2 long pins out, disconnect the umbilical, and you have the entire headlight assembly in your hand, and can do bulb replacements on the bench. Things do get better. In some areas. The 2001 model I had before had the same horror fitting of the headlight assembly, but its engine bay was much less crowded, it being naturally aspirated petrol instead of turbo charged diesel as the newer one is. Thus it was pretty easy to swap bulbs in a pinch. I remember doing it in a back yard in Celle, Germany, one fine summer morning. The most cumbersome part of that was getting to the spares -- they were under the floor of the boot, which of course was choc full with our luggage, seeing as we were on a long vacation trip...

I mentioned Johns Radio a few days ago. Purely by coincidence I was looking at an archive disk today and came across the catalog for the "closing down" sale in 2002. John was not happy with the result and claimed that the buyers had conspired to keep prices low. No such thing happened. The auction was poorly promoted, the catalog came out far too late, had no photos and lots of errors. On the day of sale lot numbers had changed and items moved. A Saturday was odd for a trade sale too. About 2300 lots and a 10AM start meant less than 15 seconds per lot with no breaks. Bids were very low. I'm not a dealer and was avoiding "boat anchors" but had to stop bidding when I reckoned my small van was full. I still had cash left.
Also of note thet it was all stuff from Smithies Mill not the "good" kit in the Whitehall Road works.

Robert wrote: ↑Sun Nov 03, 2024 7:58 pm I mentioned Johns Radio a few days ago. Purely by coincidence I was looking at an archive disk today and came across the catalog for the "closing down" sale in 2002. John was not happy with the result and claimed that the buyers had conspired to keep prices low. No such thing happened. The auction was poorly promoted, the catalog came out far too late, had no photos and lots of errors. On the day of sale lot numbers had changed and items moved. A Saturday was odd for a trade sale too. About 2300 lots and a 10AM start meant less than 15 seconds per lot with no breaks. Bids were very low. I'm not a dealer and was avoiding "boat anchors" but had to stop bidding when I reckoned my small van was full. I still had cash left.
Also of note thet it was all stuff from Smithies Mill not the "good" kit in the Whitehall Road works.

I picked up an Eico 950 capacitor tester during the pandemic from an elderly gentleman who owned a machine shop. He told me about how he had the business contents auctioned off when he retired and he was similarly unhappy at what the auction yielded. He laid the blame at the feet of the auctioneer for similar reasons. Everything was poorly managed leading up to the auction itself and the selling prices were low. I guess general business liquidators really aren't cut out to properly prepare and sell items specialty technical shops effectively. That was the big complaint the guy had about the auctioneer, that he didn't know what he was dealing with. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it by the time the auction was underway and expensive, valuable items were being sold for a pittance.

I got a marketing email from Rhode & Schwartz the other day. They had the fill out a form to receive an RF spectrum allocation poster promotion going on and that made me realize something:

I filled out that promotion several years ago and I never received the poster.

Then I realized I filled out a Keysight promotion form even longer ago for one of those RF PCB rulers they were giving away and I never received that either.

This leaves me wondering if these large companies are hyping up promotional giveaways to get people to fill out their information so marketing databases can be populated without actually sending out any of the items in question except to high profile social media personalities who contribute to the marketing hype while regular people see nothing.

Robert wrote: ↑Sun Nov 03, 2024 7:58 pm I mentioned Johns Radio a few days ago. Purely by coincidence I was looking at an archive disk today and came across the catalog for the "closing down" sale in 2002. John was not happy with the result and claimed that the buyers had conspired to keep prices low. No such thing happened. The auction was poorly promoted, the catalog came out far too late, had no photos and lots of errors. On the day of sale lot numbers had changed and items moved. A Saturday was odd for a trade sale too. About 2300 lots and a 10AM start meant less than 15 seconds per lot with no breaks. Bids were very low. I'm not a dealer and was avoiding "boat anchors" but had to stop bidding when I reckoned my small van was full. I still had cash left.
Also of note thet it was all stuff from Smithies Mill not the "good" kit in the Whitehall Road works.

Johns Radio is a rave from the grave. As I recall I phoned them around 2003 to ask if they had a Marconi TF1014 ultra low distortion oscillator. They'd just closed down and I was told that they might well have had one but if so, it would be in the skips into which they had dumped a lot of their stock. He seemed very pissed off about the amount of good stuff which he had chucked out. Since it was a very long trip, and I suspected the skips would have been picked clean by canny locals, I didn't bother.

Another one in roughly that neck of the woods was M&B Radio. I think I bought an RA17 from them.

There were a few companies selling used TE which advertised in WW at the time. A few are still going but offering a much reduced range.

Did anyone visit Centre Electronics in Birmingham? Not exactly a TE dealer but he did have a few items of interest. The shop was an electronic junk shop. Howard Turner used to have a stall at the bigger rallies and was a regular at Newbury. A part of his business was selling Sovtek valves and he advertised in some of the music magazines. I bought an AR88LF from there.

I visited the big surplus store in Albuquerque NM yesterday It's "Surplus City". Part old style industrial / military surplus part modern foreign made new stuff. Lots of boat anchor TE in a big warehouse including several 6' high 19" racks full of varible power supplies. HP, LAmbda etc. Shelves and racks of electron tubes (valves) and resistor but very haphazard. Can't take boatanchors on the flight home and most stuff is not priced. Picked up one interesting unit, a black cube about 6" per side wit a two line dot mattrix LED display behind a filter on the front, a mains connector and D type on the back. Clearly a custom unit. Took it to the counter for a price and they called up an older guy who looked at it and said $50. I said that seems a bit much, how about $20? His respone was literally "I don't know what it is so I won't sell it for less". It's still there... Clearly aparts unit. IF the displays were socketed and you needed them it might be worth $50 but not knowing even the colour nevermind the type I wasn't going to gamble.
I did pick up a couple of NOSd (New Old Stock dusty) 100R Spectrol 10 turn pots for $3 each and some hardware to do a couple of repairs for our hosts. I needed a low value 10t pot for a project so that made it worthwhile. I didn't spend time going into the yard.
He does have an HP Signature Analyser for $100, A Tek 46 series 'scope on a trolley for $450 and a couple Tek 7250 6GHz transient digitisers. The llatter are stuck at the end of a rack face up with other stuff on top of them and no obvious price.
It would be a useful place to have locally but certainly not worth a trip of any distance. There was no indicaton of recent TE or component acqusitions.
A couple of lots down the road was another Warehouse with a "Jone's Surplus" sign but it was opviously closed and fenced off.

Robert wrote: ↑Sat Nov 09, 2024 7:45 pm Took it to the counter for a price and they called up an older guy who looked at it and said $50. I said that seems a bit much, how about $20? His respone was literally "I don't know what it is so I won't sell it for less". It's still there... Clearly aparts unit. IF the displays were socketed and you needed them it might be worth $50 but not knowing even the colour nevermind the type I wasn't going to gamble.

That totally reminds me of a standing joke I have with a couple of friends for years now that started up after I went to a hamfest. "I don't know what it is. I don't know what it does. I don't know if it works. But I do know I want top dollar for it!" That's what the people selling stuff were like and it didn't take much to boil it down and condense it to that, either.

Not seen that here perhaps surprisingly.

I've rarely seen it. Once was at a car boot sale where a woman was selling a piece of electronic kit. She had a sign saying "£15 - no offers", but she didn't know what it was. I explained it was a chromatone, a piece of early disco equipment. It splits music into three frequency bands and flashes lights depending on the levels.

At the swapmeets people almost always know what they are selling. They may ask too much for it in my opinion, but that's not quite the same thing. The interweb and ebay make it easy to find out what things are and have an idea of the price. Some people at swapmeets think they are going to get ebay prices.

I am usually pleasantly surprised at them. I walk away with what I'd consider bargains almost every time. Well I did when I went to them! (no time or transport now). The overpriced items were usually things that the seller knew/understood/wanted and purchased at a reasonable price back when they were reasonably priced and failed to recognise the decline in value over time or that their statements about the thing still working being would be treated with suspicion. So for example no I am not parting £200 for a Marconi 2022E on a promise it'll work because you probably don't know if it works properly or you know the front end is an ash tray and you're lying. Hams are not to be trusted.

Drawing attention to another calculator purchase as I'm in jammy git territory here and feeling smug about it





Thread in calculator forum

bd139 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2024 7:18 pm Drawing attention to another calculator purchase as I'm in jammy git territory here and feeling smug about it





Thread in calculator forum

Very nice! That takes me back to February, 2008, a couple of months before the world financial crash, and a three hour long pre-job-interview employer technical exam. That was the calculator that the company provided for the exam, an HP 41CX.

Luckily, luckily, luckily, one of my friends in high school had been lent a an HP-15C and I learned RPN on that and then bought a 32 S II at Business Depot, so I'd been changed over to HP RPN calculators since the middle of high school, well before that technical exam and I didn't get sunk by the calculator they provided. I don't know how many candidates going through that technical exam got a nasty surprise from the Hewlett-Packard calculator they had in the exam room until they scrapped the exams altogether. I still haven't been able to get one for my own collection so that exam is still the one and only time I've used one of the HP 41 series calculators.

25 CPS wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2024 7:46 pm Very nice! That takes me back to February, 2008, a couple of months before the world financial crash, and a three hour long pre-job-interview employer technical exam. That was the calculator that the company provided for the exam, an HP 41CX.

Luckily, luckily, luckily, one of my friends in high school had been lent a an HP-15C and I learned RPN on that and then bought a 32 S II at Business Depot, so I'd been changed over to HP RPN calculators since the middle of high school, well before that technical exam and I didn't get sunk by the calculator they provided. I don't know how many candidates going through that technical exam got a nasty surprise from the Hewlett-Packard calculator they had in the exam room until they scrapped the exams altogether. I still haven't been able to get one for my own collection so that exam is still the one and only time I've used one of the HP 41 series calculators.

Very cool story. I wish someone threw that at me in an exam. I am mostly told now I can't use one!!!

Did you, err mention, err 32S II and 15C . Think I might have a problem here.

bd139 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2024 7:06 pm I am usually pleasantly surprised at them. I walk away with what I'd consider bargains almost every time. Well I did when I went to them! (no time or transport now). The overpriced items were usually things that the seller knew/understood/wanted and purchased at a reasonable price back when they were reasonably priced and failed to recognise the decline in value over time or that their statements about the thing still working being would be treated with suspicion. So for example no I am not parting £200 for a Marconi 2022E on a promise it'll work because you probably don't know if it works properly or you know the front end is an ash tray and you're lying. Hams are not to be trusted.

I assume just about everything bought at a swapmeet is incomplete, doesn't work or, at least doesn't work properly. I've rarely been unpleasantly surprised. I prefer to buy junk sold as with faults. Most of the faults are fairly easy, a few are not.

bd139 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2024 7:06 pm £200 for a Marconi 2022E on a promise it'll work because you probably don't know if it works properly or you know the front end is an ash tray and you're lying. Hams are not to be trusted.

£200 for a Marconi 2022E at a swapmeet. Most definitely no - at almost all of them. I suppose it could be an indoor event and they could have it set up with a credible scope and frequency meter etc, but these rarely happen.

Zenith wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2024 12:35 pm I've rarely seen it. Once was at a car boot sale where a woman was selling a piece of electronic kit. She had a sign saying "£15 - no offers", but she didn't know what it was. I explained it was a chromatone, a piece of early disco equipment. It splits music into three frequency bands and flashes lights depending on the levels.

Ah, that brings back memories. I was creating one of those in my mid teens.

During that I managed to get live on one hand and neutral on the other. Luckily touch was very light, so when my biceps contracted it broke contact.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2024 2:46 pm

Zenith wrote: ↑Sun Nov 10, 2024 12:35 pm I've rarely seen it. Once was at a car boot sale where a woman was selling a piece of electronic kit. She had a sign saying "£15 - no offers", but she didn't know what it was. I explained it was a chromatone, a piece of early disco equipment. It splits music into three frequency bands and flashes lights depending on the levels.

Ah, that brings back memories. I was creating one of those in my mid teens.

During that I managed to get live on one hand and neutral on the other. Luckily touch was very light, so when my biceps contracted it broke contact.

Ouch. Nasty. I'm glad you're ok.

Those disco flashing light boxes remind me of these awful groutesque Electrophonic consoles that show up from time to time in one of my Kijiji searches for vintage stereo equipment. Hideous doesn't begin to describe their garbage:

https://youtube.com/shorts/O6fEkZc8Lq4? ... WubWJYpIs5

And a suitably scathing review:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWgQ8dIiPD8

If I ever get my hands on one of these epitomes of 1970s malaise, I'm sending it up in grand style in my back yard.

Now I wanna come back to the GWN and build a 20x scale version of that in a lot across the road from you.

mnem
yes, you may touch it.

As a hotel.

mnem

mnementh wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:32 pm Now I wanna come back to the GWN and build a 20x scale version of that in a lot across the road from you.

mnem
yes, you may touch it.

mnementh wrote: ↑Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:37 pm As a hotel.

mnem

I'd enjoy that just for the fact it would send that awful neighbour into an epic snit.

I was tossing an idea around for that Strobotac I got recently and since music triggered disco lights have been brought up, I definitely have to do it now.

Since the clocks have changed and it's getting dark really early, one of my friends and I are going to take the Strobotac into the back yard on one of the dry, warmer evenings and play with it to stop and sample motion. But the Strobotac can also be triggered externally so I was thinking of cranking up some music outside and try triggering it off of a sound signal. I'm sure she's going to enjoy all of this.

An old mate of mine back in the day had a single cylinder "Southern Cross" stationary engine in his back yard.

He delighted in firing it up at night, then as if the loud "PUTT!! FNN, FNN, FNN" sound wasn't enough, he would fiddle with the carby to make it backfire.
With the 2 inch galvanised water pipe used as an exhaust, it sounded like a rifle shot.(In the daytime it blew smoke rings, but at night the flames coming out of the pipe were equally rewarding.)

To add insult to injury, he liked firing up his Triumph "Bonneville" without mufflers as an "encore".
I don't think Sid was fond of the neighbours, or they of him.

Are there any local laws about excessive noise? I doubt there are any about excessive strobe lights

As for put-put devices, not much can beat hydraulic rams - and they are useful.

That reminds me of a neighbour we had once. "Humberman" he was known as. Had a large collection of Humbers parked literally everywhere he could squeeze them. They were all broken, noisy and turned into smoke screens instantly.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:11 am Are there any local laws about excessive noise? I doubt there are any about excessive strobe lights

As for put-put devices, not much can beat hydraulic rams - and they are useful.

I think my city has bylaws about noise that run from 11:00 PM until 7:00 AM. I don't think there's anything about flashing lights though.

tggzzz wrote: ↑Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:11 am Are there any local laws about excessive noise? I doubt there are any about excessive strobe lights

As for put-put devices, not much can beat hydraulic rams - and they are useful.

In the UK there's this

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/20 ... c-nuisance

There was a common law offence of public nuisance, which it replaces. There's also a tort of private nuisance under which a civil action could be pursued. Of course it would be best to go to the person creating the nuisance and request them to stop, before involving the law.

A big strobe light in the garden would be grounds for some sort of action. Now there's a difference between having a remedy in law and making effective use of it.