SCORE! Bought a bunch of stuff on a pallet sale

[Gyro]

Just recently, I relocated my bed from master bedroom to a smaller room.  The master bedroom became my lab.  But it's already filling up.  Some spilled over to living room.  Any time now, my girlfriend will complain....   

Any time now??? I bet it will be a biggie when it comes, from that description it will have been building for a while! 

[hendorog]

Just recently, I relocated my bed from master bedroom to a smaller room.  The master bedroom became my lab.  But it's already filling up.  Some spilled over to living room.  Any time now, my girlfriend will complain....   

Any time now??? I bet it will be a biggie when it comes, from that description it will have been building for a while! 

If the girlfriend is complaining then the wife must be really pissed.

[tkamiya]

Good thing I don't have one!  hehe.....  It's just me and my dog.  He is also my "lab assistant".  Anything I may drop, he'll find it.  He gives it back to me when he's done chewing it up.

An interesting find.  There is one unit I'm working on right now, which "OVEN COLD" message comes up periodically.  Located the OCXO and to my surprise, it is marked "X" with a pencil.  SOMEONE has been in here....  Replaced it with a unit from another one (junk) and it is fixed.  I wonder why someone went through the trouble, found the problem/solution and didn't complete his job?  Hum....

[tv84]

Good thing I don't have one!  hehe.....  It's just me and my dog.  He is also my "lab assistant".

Must train him to keep you away from eBay for some periods!

[tkamiya]

Sorry, I joined the club.  ebay is my friend....

[ollopa]

SCORE! Bought a bunch of stuff on a pallet sale

My congratulations and condolences   

Been there done that for an order of magnitude more money, still haven't sold any of the stuff but maybe one of these days...

[bsfeechannel]

OK guys....  I paid $300 for the lot.

Somehow I get the feeling someone is very happy that his/her trash got hauled away and the person picking it up even paid for it.  But then again: one man's trash is another man's treasure. 

According to Wikipedia:

One of the first items sold on AuctionWeb [later ebay] was a broken laser pointer for $14.83. Astonished, Omidyar [the founder] contacted the winning bidder to ask if he understood that the laser pointer was broken. In his responding email, the buyer explained: "I'm a collector of broken laser pointers."

That pretty much defines us ebay buyers: a bunch of collectors of broken laser pointers for $14.83.

[tkamiya]

That's interesting.....  I guess there isn't a thing that someone doesn't collect somewhere....

I used to love buying non-functional or problem Ham Radio gear on eBay, especially 70s to 90s HF radios.  They are ruggedly build but because of their age, some stupid thing breaks and many people won't bother fixing them.  I buy them as broken and find the problem - fix it - and enjoy.  From real examples that I've seen, "Receiver weak"  Its front end had a light bulb for fuse.  That was burned.  Also, attenuator was burned.  "Transmitter out".  SG (screen grid) switch was off.  I have my share of dead-dead stuff but to me, this is like a puzzle.  I have my dream station for less than 10th of money - only 30 years later.

It's a challenge though these days.  Just about anything I'm interested in are classified as "for parts" "not working", and if I read the descriptions, the seller says "it actually works but due to fraud.... etc".  I'm really not liking this practice as a buyer.  So I end up paying working price with no working guarantees.

Anyway, my motto is, don't spend I can't afford losing. 

[ar__systems]

Well....  discussion is ALREADY in progress.  Another pallet.  Soon, I'll have to buy a forklift and build a bigger workshop.

Just recently, I relocated my bed from master bedroom to a smaller room.  The master bedroom became my lab.  But it's already filling up.  Some spilled over to living room.  Any time now, my girlfriend will complain....   

You have a gf AND your master bedroom is a lab? Something does not add up here 

[tkamiya]

That because you should multiply!

[SoundTech-LG]

Oh, over this sale, I also got a R&S SMIQ03, 300Khz to 3.3Ghz signal generator.  Almost pristine look but it does not work.  I will have to work on these shortly.

Check the 2 backup batteries...  likely they are not 3 volts anymore. Prepare for a self cal using default password protected setup. Just finished one not too long ago...

[tkamiya]

I kind of knew that but I can't find them.  Being an RF equipment, I wasn't going to open all those nicely shielded cards.  Would you recall where they were?

[tkamiya]

I think I found them (on manual which is not searchable!)

Looks like FRO (Front Panel?) and DGEN (Data Generation) modules....  then I have to unlock the general key then each key?  This is really different from HP that I'm fast becoming familiar with.

Kind of interesting....  Very similar to how German car makers write their manuals...

[tkamiya]

OK, they are now spilling out to my living room. 

It's ok.  I can quit this any time.....   

[Brumby]

We've heard that before ... and can attest to such restraint being a temporary phenomenon.

But not to worry.  Just pop into the TEA thread if you start feeling anxious.

[hendorog]

OK, they are now spilling out to my living room. 

It's ok.  I can quit this any time.....   

That is a thing of beauty.

[rob.manderson]

OK, they are now spilling out to my living room. 

It's ok.  I can quit this any time.....   

That is a thing of beauty.

Makes me start to drool! 

[Mechatrommer]

OK, they are now spilling out to my living room. 
It's ok.  I can quit this any time.....   

what the unit you have most there... the rightmost one? is it a HP VNA? if you can fix that, someone may get interested.

[tkamiya]

Actually, one was just offered to me this afternoon. 

A big problem though - I don't know how to use it.  I don't even have a basic knowledge of it.  I understand amplitude and phase.  That's it.
S-parameter thing looks like a whole new world to me.

For now, I'm just happy to sit in the middle of crop circle of SpecAns and have a cold one.

[Mechatrommer]

Actually, one was just offered to me this afternoon. 

A big problem though - I don't know how to use it.  I don't even have a basic knowledge of it.  I understand amplitude and phase.  That's it.
S-parameter thing looks like a whole new world to me.

For now, I'm just happy to sit in the middle of crop circle of SpecAns and have a cold one.

can you tell model number? Or close Photo capture of front panel?

[GregDunn]

Actually, one was just offered to me this afternoon. 

A big problem though - I don't know how to use it.  I don't even have a basic knowledge of it.  I understand amplitude and phase.  That's it.
S-parameter thing looks like a whole new world to me.

There are entire college courses devoted to the scattering matrix, so don't feel too bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scattering_parameters

They're mainly used to characterize the electrical behavior of a two-port network - sort of like a black box which behaves the same as an arbitrarily complex array of components for a particular frequency and source/load.  Very handy if you don't want to analyze the entire circuit each time you want to put a signal through it.

[Towger]

Can we presume the black metal 'gate' in front of them is to keep little hands away?

[hendorog]

Can we presume the black metal 'gate' in front of them is to keep little hands away?

Or dog de-fence.

[tkamiya]

To defend from THESE little paws....

[bitseeker]

Yeah, the black fencing looked to be for zoning off the lab assistant.

There's a company that makes LCD replacements for the CRT in the display units. They're rather pricey (~$600 IIRC). However, I wonder how much more is required to make a replacement for the entire display unit, not just the CRT. It'd certainly be nice for all those headless SA's.