Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

So, if crocodiles are found to be generally beneficial to radio communications, we have to establish some guidelines to their application:
Do bigger crocodiles equate to better reception/transmission?
Can crocodiles be applied preemptively, for example, by placing them into the dwellings of people likely to cause radio interference?
Will different species of crocodile have an effect on the preferred radio bands?
Is it necessary to select individual crocodiles by their RF parameters?
etc....

This is why I prefer Laser Sharks; they're impervious to RF interference, and they're programmable for Wideband and Narrowband applications. For the truly recidivist interferants, try the Hammerhead model. Nothing sticks out when they're done with it. 

Just don't breathe or sweat on it let alone touch any of the board lest you blow the accuracy  Nice score btw 

Well, I was actually wearing latex gloves during the disassembly 

ooops... I tooted. 

mnem
"When all you have is a hammerhead, every problem looks like..."

[Kosmic]

Very nice! I have yet to own any of this vintage Keithley gear. Mine only go back to the "brown" era.

Added your teardown to the POI index.

Got couples of brown box too 

But in general Keithley equipment are really expensive. It's hard to get a good deal. Not sure why. Only their reputation ?

[bitseeker]

"When all you have is a hammerhead, every problem looks like..."

Circle-Vision! (see also: 1, 2)

[GregDunn]

Is there a point where a movie is so bad it's actually good because it's so bad?   

Plan 9 From Outer Space  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Outer_Space

Robot Monster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Monster

Hours of face-palming, wincing, teeth-gritting fun.

[beanflying]

Random non TEA question. The Shack needs a new keyboard and a better multi button mouse for CAD work.

A safe choice Logitech MK545 combo for the win or?

[VK5RC]

Re good 'bad' movies, "Dark Star" comes to mind!

[bd139]

I love Dark Star. Especially when he's trying to talk the bomb out of exploding

Also Flash Gordon. Quite possibly one of the shittest but best science fiction films ever. Plus Queen as soundtrack. Can't lose.

Oh and Dune. Not as good as the book but I liked it.

[nixiefreqq]

I love Dark Star. Especially when he's trying to talk the bomb out of exploding

Also Flash Gordon. Quite possibly one of the shittest but best science fiction films ever. Plus Queen as soundtrack. Can't lose.

Oh and Dune. Not as good as the book but I liked it.

thumbs up and agree about flash.

hey.....is brian blessed still around?  he sure was good in "I Claudius"

[bd139]

Yeah he's still hanging on. Pacemaker a couple of years back.

[exor]

Got my adapter for Yogogawa WT110 ready today.

[bd139]

Unga bunga. Just scored another 3478A.

[med6753]

Unga bunga. Just scored another 3478A.

So...ditch the Ham stuff and become a volt-nut too? Et tu Brute? 

[bd139]

Yeah the mid-life ham crisis wasn't working out so voltnuttery it is. I moved all the radio related projects to the end of the queue and re-ranked everything else and up top involved buying test gear.  Ergo, got three very tasty bits of gear on the watch list. Still going to the hamfests but for pillaging viking style.

Also big warning to any potential hams out there - it's scary how much you actually spend on shit and you don't actually realise it until you get screwed off with it and list it all on ebay  ... more money for test gear though.

I did consider taking a trip to the US later in the year actually. Wonder if I could slide the Tek museum and Smithsonian air and space into it. Shifting the FT818 would pay for the flights if I'm sly about booking

[Kosmic]

I thought about getting into HAM at some point but then realized I don't really want to talk to anybody 

[bd139]

Honestly that's what I think I worked out. I had first SSB contact who was an asshat. Then it was local 2m net, which is people complaining about health problems and trying to do tech support on printers on a round table (wtf). Then there's CW which the barrier to entry was high but when I got there, everyone is 30wpm and wont slow down even if you ask then. Then there's FT8 which is basically ROBOT RADIO. Fuck it. I fancy playing with microwave frequencies which the license allows me to do which is cool so it wasn't a total waste. I can use them to talk to myself then.

Plan is to build a 10GHz two audio channel FDM multiplexed link. Lots of analogue filter design and goodness there.

Edit: this forum and particularly this topic is about as good as the internet gets 

[Kosmic]

Honestly that's what I think I worked out. I had first SSB contact who was an asshat. Then it was local 2m net, which is people complaining about health problems and trying to do tech support on printers on a round table (wtf).

Hehe 

[med6753]

I thought about getting into HAM at some point but then realized I don't really want to talk to anybody 

That's interesting. Same thought. I used to listen to AMer's on 3.885MHz and those guys were real "rag chewers". Key down for 15 to 20 minutes at a time some interesting topics but mostly bullshit. I quickly came to realize that a lot of these guys had big egos that liked to talk and project themselves as real important. I'm not like that. I'm a person of few words and to the point.     

[tggzzz]

I love Dark Star. Especially when he's trying to talk the bomb out of exploding

Once, in the late 70s / early 80s, I went to see it a second time, at the National Film Theatre in Waterloo. After booking the ticket months in advance, I was miffed to find that it was going to be on TV, starting 15 mins later. Still went to the NFT.

Apparently it was an influence on Red Dwarf.

Dan O'Bannon went on to write the screenplay (and cowrite the story) of that rather more influential film, Alien.

Also Flash Gordon. Quite possibly one of the shittest but best science fiction films ever. Plus Queen as soundtrack. Can't lose.

It's fine; it is fantasy and doesn't cross the "willing suspension of disbelief" threshold. Plus the visuals and aurals are entertaining. The same can be said of Barbarella.

Oh and Dune. Not as good as the book but I liked it.

Rather than watch that again, I'd prefer to be tied down and have to listen to Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, David Davies, and my fragrant MP Liam Fox.

[tggzzz]

Yeah the mid-life ham crisis wasn't working out so voltnuttery it is.
...
Also big warning to any potential hams out there - it's scary how much you actually spend on shit and you don't actually realise it until you get screwed off with it and list it all on ebay  ... more money for test gear though.

So, voltnuttery will be a completely different experience. (Cue a snigger from Dick Dastardly)

[med6753]

Yeah the mid-life ham crisis wasn't working out so voltnuttery it is. I moved all the radio related projects to the end of the queue and re-ranked everything else and up top involved buying test gear.  Ergo, got three very tasty bits of gear on the watch list. Still going to the hamfests but for pillaging viking style.

Also big warning to any potential hams out there - it's scary how much you actually spend on shit and you don't actually realise it until you get screwed off with it and list it all on ebay  ... more money for test gear though.

I did consider taking a trip to the US later in the year actually. Wonder if I could slide the Tek museum and Smithsonian air and space into it. Shifting the FT818 would pay for the flights if I'm sly about booking

There's 2 local hamfests coming up soon. One on 4/28 and another 5/5. Same deal. Viking style...rape and pillage.    Although the last one I attended the pillage was lean and absolutely nothing worth raping. 

[mnementh]

"When all you have is a hammerhead, every problem looks like..."

Circle-Vision! (see also: 1, 2)

Yeah, I remember all this senseless dispute quietly "raging" for decades. Meanwhile, Cousteau arrived at exactly this conclusion 50 years ago completely through observation of how they move their bodies while swimming with them. The whole thing says more about the means human beings use to test theories than the theories themselves; there are times when "the scientific method" literally shoots itself in the head. The decades of recursive argument and conjecture that abounded in this case before such a simple test proved what was obvious to anybody who bothered to actually WATCH the subject shows that empirically.

Is there a point where a movie is so bad it's actually good because it's so bad?   

Plan 9 From Outer Space  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Outer_Space

Robot Monster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Monster

Hours of face-palming, wincing, teeth-gritting fun.

Plan 9 is probably the single best-known example of this "no-class class" of movies; Ed Wood is so well-known as to be considered "mainstream camp". I mean seriously; Michael Medved actually bothered to ragg on him. That proves it was over his head. This movie is actually credited with being a major inspiration for MST3K and Rifftrax. And of course... being the last time Bela Lugosi appeared on the big screen makes it an important bit of cinema.

Robot monster is one I specifically was thinking of when I said they were pretty much all on MST3K; abominable scripting and regurgitated stock footage from a half-dozen other films set aside, it has been the subject of numerous papers for Phil Tucker's innovative use of 3D cinematography, which at the time was a very new technology.

"Dark Star" and "Flash Gordon" are NOT "So bad it's good" movies... they are prime examples of "Deliberate Cheesy Camp"; a different phenomenon altogether. Again; they have a much broader, more mainstream "cult following".

Better examples of serious "B-movie" productions meant as "A-movies" would be "The Car", "Death Race 2000" and "Vanishing Point".

I thought about getting into HAM at some point but then realized I don't really want to talk to anybody 

That's why I got away from "Children's Band" in my teenage years. Yeah, granddad's old FT-101EX could reach out and touch somebody... but nobody whose opinion I gave half a fuck about. 

mnem
Also "Phase IV". 

[med6753]

Vanishing Point...good movie! I especially like the part where he forces that English POS Jaguar into the creek. 

[Specmaster]

I thought about getting into HAM at some point but then realized I don't really want to talk to anybody 

That's interesting. Same thought. I used to listen to AMer's on 3.885MHz and those guys were real "rag chewers". Key down for 15 to 20 minutes at a time some interesting topics but mostly bullshit. I quickly came to realize that a lot of these guys had big egos that liked to talk and project themselves as real important. I'm not like that. I'm a person of few words and to the point.     

Yep, me too, at parties I'm the wallflower, not much good at smalltalk 

[Specmaster]

Yeah the mid-life ham crisis wasn't working out so voltnuttery it is.
...
Also big warning to any potential hams out there - it's scary how much you actually spend on shit and you don't actually realise it until you get screwed off with it and list it all on ebay  ... more money for test gear though.

So, voltnuttery will be a completely different experience. (Cue a snigger from Dick Dastardly)

Oh shit, thought that volt nuttery started with at least 6.5 digits, so if that's not the case, I'm already in that rabbit hole well and truly and that can get as expensive as being a ham I'd have thought, in that case I'd better keep my safety rope firmly attached to something solid to prevent sliding to far into that hole 

[tggzzz]

I fancy playing with microwave frequencies which the license allows me to do which is cool so it wasn't a total waste. I can use them to talk to myself then.
Plan is to build a 10GHz two audio channel FDM multiplexed link. Lots of analogue filter design and goodness there.

If you're "up there", go the whole hog and use 8GHz bandwidth. It is becoming easier: there are devkits that allow you to detect heartbeats at 15m range, e.g.

The new transceiver is compliant with FCC and ETSI spectral regulations for the UWB frequency range, limiting the radiation to -41dBm/MHz.  This energy density is well below the noise floor of mainstream commercial systems, and therefore, this radar can safely be used for 24/7 people presence detection without health concerns. The power consumption of the transciever IC is less than 1mW, at least 100 times less than comparable state-of-the-art solutions. With that, it is able to discern movements and vital signs – breathing and heartbeats – up to 15 meters, which is a record for UWB radars.

https://www.imec-int.com/en/articles/imec-designs-breakthrough-sub-mw-radar-for-presence-detection-in-smart-buildings

Edit: this forum and particularly this topic is about as good as the internet gets 

Social muddia such as this has largely stolen the USP of amateur radio. The amateur bands are (I presume) like usenet - full of pale imitations of Victor Meldrew. There are two main exceptions to that: comp.risks which every technologist should read, and sci.electronics.design for information about AoE III X-Chapters, some experts electronic designers (and too much ranting politics).