Test Equipment Anonymous

We all make mistakes. I've made more than my share. But this mistake by Paul really surprised me. And led him to do additional troubleshooting. "Thou shall check supply voltages first". He didn't. I think he was led astray by the fact that the scope powered up and appeared to function normally until he discovered it had no trigger. And after trying to troubleshoot the trigger at that point decided to check the PSU voltages. Problem found. And what was the cause? I'll give you one guess. After that was repaired the scope functioned normally.

He only replaced that one defective capacitor. While Tek did use the highest quality parts I still say all the filter capacitors should be replaced. I have an identical Type 503 as his and that's what I did. It's the only way you can be confident of long term reliability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDZS1yEVqko

Oh, come on, surely, all he was doing is testing the scope to see what the issues with it were, so he had to fire it up to discover what was happening. The first thing you do is to have a real good look around to see if you spot anything that is obviously wrong, then check the power supply voltages.

I was taught that before tearing it down and probing etc, that you first confirm the customer complaint is correct, they might have been using the equipment wrong or something, meaning that the gear was fine.

Mind you, I did think he laboured the bit about audio guys getting their hands on Tek scopes for the valves, wish he didn't mention it personally.

AVGresponding wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 4:59 pm I was thinking "this would definitely trigger Mike" as I was watching that vid the other day...

Pun intended?

AVGresponding wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 4:59 pm I was thinking "this would definitely trigger Mike" as I was watching that vid the other day...

Specmaster wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 5:22 pm Oh, come on, surely, all he was doing is testing the scope to see what the issues with it were, so he had to fire it up to discover what was happening. The first thing you do is to have a real good look around to see if you spot anything that is obviously wrong, then check the power supply voltages.

I was taught that before tearing it down and probing etc, that you first confirm the customer complaint is correct, they might have been using the equipment wrong or something, meaning that the gear was fine.

Mind you, I did think he laboured the bit about audio guys getting their hands on Tek scopes for the valves, wish he didn't mention it personally.

He did everything right up to point of power up and check for proper operation. When he discovered there was no trigger that's where I disagree. He could have saved himself all the troubleshooting time by checking the power supply first.

I just wanna use his capacitor removal technique on his nipples. See if it makes him segfault like his videos do to us.

mnem

C'mon man. He puts on a show and exposes himself. We've all made blunders like that. With a lot of the TE I've spent days over, I could kick myself for not spotting the problem straight off. I've produced sanitised versions of a few of them on here. 20-20 hindsight is great. I've enjoyed his shows and found them somewhat inspiring. His shows on how to deal with an Hammerlund comms receiver were particularly good. It's inspired me to put my much neglected HQ129X back on the fixit list. Actually the problems of swept alignment were what got me off on this TE thing in the first place.

At least he pronounces solder properly.

I wanna strangle him when he sez "sōll-derr". Ghahhh... more aggravating than a unclosed paren when coding.

mnem
just say "No, thank you." to Mr Carlson.

mnementh wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 9:29 pm I wanna strangle him when he sez "sōll-derr". Ghahhh... more aggravating than a unclosed paren when coding.

mnem
just say "No, thank you." to Mr Carlson.

Better than sodder/sodher, e.g. the decent soldering tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... F1F93C1837

The correct pronunciation is of course soda which is the way it's said in the West Midlands of the UK. They also pronounce soldier properly as soja. They really don't dig the ld sound.

Zenith wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 10:38 pm The correct pronunciation is of course soda which is the way it's said in the West Midlands of the UK. They also pronounce soldier properly as soja. They really don't dig the ld sound.

How do they say cold, hold, bold and weld?

I'll jess sōll-jerr on with muh manky ol' MetCal soddah-in ah-ron.

mnem
Oh, I'm goin' to that special Hell...

mnementh wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 9:29 pm I wanna strangle him when he sez "sōll-derr". Ghahhh... more aggravating than a unclosed paren when coding.

mnem
just say "No, thank you." to Mr Carlson.

It is the speed, repetitiveness and "marketing my tools" part that is annoying. Most of the time he seems to know his stuff, TBH. But the language and dialect aren't an issue, and I think, as Zenith, that he deserves some slack for violating a bunch of rules. As long as no valves are unappropriately plucked to bolster a musician or 'phool ego, I'm forgiving.

mansaxel wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2023 4:32 am It is the speed, repetitiveness and "marketing my tools" part that is annoying.

And for exact those reasons I cannot stand Mr. Carlson and avoid him like the plague.
And yes, I do agree with med:
Whenever you got an older device, check the power supply and the voltages. Always. No exceptions.
This saved me more than one time a lot of troubleshooting time.

I will occasionally watch his videos, but have to run them at 1.75 or 2X speed to not go nuts at his slow speaking cadence. He does seem to know his stuff.

-Pat

Specmaster wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2023 1:03 am

Zenith wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 10:38 pm The correct pronunciation is of course soda which is the way it's said in the West Midlands of the UK. They also pronounce soldier properly as soja. They really don't dig the ld sound.

How do they say cold, hold, bold and weld?

Code, Ode, bold and weld. It's not completely consistent.

A cat's a cat, but a rat's a rot.

Zenith wrote: ↑Wed Aug 09, 2023 10:38 pm The correct pronunciation is of course soda which is the way it's said in the West Midlands of the UK.

Down here^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h Dahn ear that would be pronounced sodal, as in (as my father eventually realised) "that's a good ideal" or "I have an ideal to solve that".

Cubdriver wrote: ↑Thu Aug 10, 2023 5:48 am I will occasionally watch his videos, but have to run them at 1.75 or 2X speed to not go nuts at his slow speaking cadence. He does seem to know his stuff.

-Pat

HEY!!! That almost works... I looked in on a couple vids (Yaesu FT1000 and Sony CR-320) that actually interested me for subject matter but I've passed over repeatedly because of A) it's him and that voice and 2) the fact that on top of the slow speech pattern, he reiterates every gawddamned point he makes 2-3 times... and I only found myself FF-ing aboot half the time.

mnem
I still say there's some form of psychopath hiding under that flat affect... *shudder*

Here's someone else who put himself to a lot of work because he made an elementary blunder. In this case RTFM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyeSbE9 ... l=IMSAIGuy

He wasn't happy with the very slow, slow sweep speed on an HP8601A, which was intended for plotters back in the day, and so he changed a capacitor to speed it up. He overlooked the fact that there's a knob on the front panel for adjusting sweep speed over a wide range.

. . . . . BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

mnem
actually, that sounds like just the sort of daft thing a tinkerdwagon might do... . .

I commend Paul for his style. You have to understand that he directs his videos to the least experienced newbies so he goes into great detail on his techniques as well as the dangers of troubleshooting. To us experienced old farts it can sound repetitious and maddening. That's why there's a fast forward. Is he always right? No. But compared to some of the other so called "experts" out there I have great respect for him.

Actually, his speech pattern is consistent with a form of stuttering I've had to fight all my life; an almost OCD need to reiterate what I feel to be the key point of some statement a 2nd or 3rd time before I consider the point "made" and can close the statement in my head.

IRL, in speech, not just on the written page as I've been known to do from time to time in the TEA.

I never exhibited the flat affect/slow enunciation aspect, but the two are often found together, at least according to the speech therapist I worked with as a young teen.

mnem
I do still find it maddening in others, tho.

If Cardinals break the rules & piss off His Holiness, they might get demoted to Archbishop!

mnem
I'm not seeing a downside here.