What Are These Good For?

[Adler]

Found these in my schools trash room. No idea what they are good for or how to tell if they even work.

Metronomic Photometer:

I guess this measures light? There is almost nothing in it and I can't get the needle to move by shining lights at it.





Takes two 9-volt batteries and they are wires to the output jack, weird...



Thornton Amplifier-Power Supply APS-101 - w/ Microwave Generator:

I'm a little afraid to plug this in...

[mark-r]

I wouldn't worry too much about the microwave generator, it'll be lower power and probably X-band (10GHz or thereabouts) - perfectly safe, no worse than a radar speed gun. Without a receiver it's not really much use though.

Since the photometer is calibrated in milliwatts I would guess it's used to measure laser power. Try shining a laser pointer at it. Alternatively, if it was paired with the microwave source it could be sensitive to microwaves, which would explain why visible light had no effect.

[Adler]

I tried the photometer again with fresh batteries and 'lo it works!

Interestingly incandescent lighting makes the needle move far more than fluorescent lighting.

[G7PSK]

Is that photometer what they use to use in photography. My father had a photometer in his darkroom many years ago for checking how even the light was from enlargers he also had a photometer for calibrating his computer monitors.

[amyk]

I tried the photometer again with fresh batteries and 'lo it works!

Interestingly incandescent lighting makes the needle move far more than fluorescent lighting.

Probably all the infrared.

[TerraHertz]

Have a look around the 'trash room' for another one of those rectangular horn antennas - the receiver. It might be just a horn, with almost nothing but a connector on the back or side of it. Typically there'll be just the horn with a PIN diode at the small end.

If you're not interested in playing with it, the obvious alternative is ebay.