Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Neomys Sapiens]

And here a NON-Aquisition that I will need a long time (and will need much compensation). On friday evening, I looked at the offer before going home and decided that I would not have a chance to get it below 1000.-
https://www.ebay.de/itm/R-S-ESVD-Test-Receiver-20-2050-Mhz-mit-Option-B1-B2/163573054701
FFUUUUCK! MEGA-FUUUUCK!
Sorry.

[bd139]

Ah crap. It hurts when that happens. Had same thing with a CMU200 a while back.

[beanflying]

Tell the neighbors to piss off and hang that 40M sucker on roof out in open so they can bitch and moan about it. It's your freaking house. 

Gah can't go over the roof unfortunately. Not enough length over the property. Plus right at the front there's bastard EMI pissing LED street lamp 

Going to:

1. Piss around with test gear and not much else now.
2. When I move buy something I can get a full porcupine farm in and a moat full of alligators to keep the complainers out.

Oh sucks. Yes, LED lamps do emit a surprising amount of RFI.

Alligators? Too passive. Toss them chicken and they're happy. Get crocodiles. They always mean and hungry for 2 legged creatures. 

It even upsets us wannabe voltnuts. 3PPM @ 1.5m  https://www.eevblog.com/forum/metrology/metrology-grade-lighting-i-am-in-the-dark/

[Brumby]

And here a NON-Aquisition that I will need a long time (and will need much compensation). On friday evening, I looked at the offer before going home and decided that I would not have a chance to get it below 1000.-
https://www.ebay.de/itm/R-S-ESVD-Test-Receiver-20-2050-Mhz-mit-Option-B1-B2/163573054701
FFUUUUCK! MEGA-FUUUUCK!
Sorry.

Understandable reaction.

I tend to have a go at such opportunities.  If they do go for the sort of money I expected, then I am not surprised - but if I happen to land a bargain, then it is happy days.

If, for whatever reason, I decide to not try and the result is similar to what you have experienced - then I am right with you on the reaction.

[0culus]

Tell the neighbors to piss off and hang that 40M sucker on roof out in open so they can bitch and moan about it. It's your freaking house. 

Gah can't go over the roof unfortunately. Not enough length over the property. Plus right at the front there's bastard EMI pissing LED street lamp 

Going to:

1. Piss around with test gear and not much else now.
2. When I move buy something I can get a full porcupine farm in and a moat full of alligators to keep the complainers out.

Oh sucks. Yes, LED lamps do emit a surprising amount of RFI.

Alligators? Too passive. Toss them chicken and they're happy. Get crocodiles. They always mean and hungry for 2 legged creatures. 

Crappy power supplies. The old lamp I had on my bench was designed for incandescent bulbs, so I had put an LED replacement bulb in. Finally tracked down the mysterious source of EMI on the bench to that bulb. I ended up replacing the whole lamp with a much nicer LED Ottlite that uses a wall wart that I can site away from my work area. Much quieter now.

[mnementh]

And here a NON-Aquisition that I will need a long time (and will need much compensation). On friday evening, I looked at the offer before going home and decided that I would not have a chance to get it below 1000.-
https://www.ebay.de/itm/R-S-ESVD-Test-Receiver-20-2050-Mhz-mit-Option-B1-B2/163573054701
FFUUUUCK! MEGA-FUUUUCK!
Sorry.

Understandable reaction.  I tend to have a go at such opportunities.  If they do go for the sort of money I expected, then I am not surprised - but if I happen to land a bargain, then it is happy days.

If, for whatever reason, I decide to not try and the result is similar to what you have experienced - then I am right with you on the reaction.

Do they have some equivalent to Gixen for eBay over there?

mnem
*Ducks soggy ol' boot thrown from the general vicinity of Frankfurt*

[SilverSolder]

Well what a shitty day I've had. Got up this morning, thought to myself, hey I'll put my antenna back up now I've got an antenna analyser. So I go out the back (i rarely go in the garden) and one of the border trees has bent slightly onto the property boundary which is where I was going to put up my antenna. FFS. So I thought bugger it I'll do it anyway and just work around it. So antenna goes up, which took three hours due to the tree logistics.  And that's when it all started to go to crap. Went to tune up the antenna and the best SWR I could get was 3:1 across any frequency which is in no way anywhere near acceptable for a simple 40m dipole. Bloody fecking trees are too close to the antenna now. So I put the tuner on it and tuned this out. 6W out WSPR for an hour and I got two contacts in Sweden which is shit. Put antenna analyser back on it after that and it's got even worse at 8:1 SWR. Awful! So I go out and look and half the aforementioned sodding bastard tree has fallen off and taken half of the antenna with it. So I pulled the whole fucking thing down. Feed and balun undamaged but it trashed about 10m of antenna wire.

Gah I think I might be done with this until I move house. I am seriously considering selling all my ham gear and going full TEA until I move which is going to be a couple of years off at the very least at the moment. Got a pile of cash tied up in this which could be spent on less frustrating things.

Tell the neighbors to piss off and hang that 40M sucker on roof out in open so they can bitch and moan about it. It's your freaking house. 

You just need to cleverly disguise the antenna, and the neighbours won't notice anything!

[Specmaster]

Yep, that'll do it, tell em a fishy tale 

[Brumby]

Just give them a copy of Sharknado.  Explains everything.

[Brumby]

Do they have some equivalent to Gixen for eBay over there?

I haven't used a sniping service for years, but there were a couple.  I don't know what's currently available.

[beanflying]

Do they have some equivalent to Gixen for eBay over there?

I haven't used a sniping service for years, but there were a couple.  I don't know what's currently available.

I setup a Gixen account recently. Bit of a pain to tell it I wanted to use something other than ebay.com to login when sorted it sniped well 

[mnementh]

Just give them a copy of Sharknado.  Explains everything.

Finally... a plus side to that whole steaming pile of lowest common denominator... 

Well done!

mnem
Every silver lining has it's stormy cloud.

[VK5RC]

Tell the neighbors to piss off and hang that 40M sucker on roof out in open so they can bitch and moan about it. It's your freaking house. 

Gah can't go over the roof unfortunately. Not enough length over the property. Plus right at the front there's bastard EMI pissing LED street lamp 

Going to:

1. Piss around with test gear and not much else now.
2. When I move buy something I can get a full porcupine farm in and a moat full of alligators to keep the complainers out.

Oh sucks. Yes, LED lamps do emit a surprising amount of RFI.

Alligators? Too passive. Toss them chicken and they're happy. Get crocodiles. They always mean and hungry for 2 legged creatures. 

It even upsets us wannabe voltnuts. 3PPM @ 1.5m  https://www.eevblog.com/forum/metrology/metrology-grade-lighting-i-am-in-the-dark/

We have S6-7 noise here thanks to a block of flats nearby and cheap SMPSUs. Have had a bit of luck with a horizontal loop, open ladder feeder to a balun then atu, quite a bit quieter than a dipole or esp a vertical.
Also putting in a big earth system also helps. We had a talk by our local broadcast techno boffin - also a ham - he sorts out when the local radio stations get a bad swr, his point was a lot of noise can come in on the mains earth. From an rf perspective the grounding at the meter is rubbish - I have yet to build a 'mains rf sampler' but intend to do so.
Rob

[0culus]

Just give them a copy of Sharknado.  Explains everything.

Finally... a plus side to that whole steaming pile of lowest common denominator... 

Well done!

mnem
Every silver lining has it's stormy cloud.

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

[Brumby]

Sadly, I believe the answer to that question is "yes".

If nothing else, movies like Sharknado have provided some curious meme opportunities.

[mnementh]

Just give them a copy of Sharknado.  Explains everything.

Finally... a plus side to that whole steaming pile of lowest common denominator... 

Well done!

mnem
Every silver lining has it's stormy cloud.

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

Pretty much every one that has ever achieved this status has been MST3Ked. Exception list is short; "I Married A Monster From Outer Space", "Moontrap" and the few classic "Godzilla" movies that weren't MST3Ked are all I can think of ATM.

Of course, I'm deliberately ignoring all the 70-90s anime that we got by dribs and drabs... and the whole 70's "Blacksploitation" & "Kung-Fu This & That" genres. Therein lies a sea of drecht littered with cult gems... fortunately, the minefield maps for those have been pretty well-established by now.

mnem
1998's Lost in Space and Godzilla are two of my own personal guilty pleasures.

[worsthorse]

Tell the neighbors to piss off and hang that 40M sucker on roof out in open so they can bitch and moan about it. It's your freaking house. 

Gah can't go over the roof unfortunately. Not enough length over the property. Plus right at the front there's bastard EMI pissing LED street lamp 

Going to:

1. Piss around with test gear and not much else now.
2. When I move buy something I can get a full porcupine farm in and a moat full of alligators to keep the complainers out.

Oh sucks. Yes, LED lamps do emit a surprising amount of RFI.

Alligators? Too passive. Toss them chicken and they're happy. Get crocodiles. They always mean and hungry for 2 legged creatures. 

It even upsets us wannabe voltnuts. 3PPM @ 1.5m  https://www.eevblog.com/forum/metrology/metrology-grade-lighting-i-am-in-the-dark/

We have S6-7 noise here thanks to a block of flats nearby and cheap SMPSUs. Have had a bit of luck with a horizontal loop, open ladder feeder to a balun then atu, quite a bit quieter than a dipole or esp a vertical.
Also putting in a big earth system also helps. We had a talk by our local broadcast techno boffin - also a ham - he sorts out when the local radio stations get a bad swr, his point was a lot of noise can come in on the mains earth. From an rf perspective the grounding at the meter is rubbish - I have yet to build a 'mains rf sampler' but intend to do so.
Rob

as some famous american guy said, "i feel your pain".  i live in a sea of noise that is, on average, S8 deep and that's with a metric crap ton of ferrite on every cable in my house, going back to incandescent lights, switching out SMPS for linears, and getting rid of ethernet. my house is surrounded by plasma TVs, grow lights, solar power systems, and LED street lights, none of which i can do anything about.  the only real solution is going where the RFI ain't, so i do some portable operating but that is no fun when it is really cold, dark, or wet outside.  and the reality is, at least in the urban united states, it is only going to get much much worse.

i guess if there is good news it is that i have more time for TEA-compliant activities and for building in general, as indicated by the stack of recently acquired CROs sitting on the shack floor.

and i vote for crocodiles.

[mnementh]

https://youtu.be/p-MdmLOEC-8

mnem
Lasers. Sharks. Laser Sharks!!!

[Neomys Sapiens]

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....

[Kosmic]

Today I had to save another piece of equipment from a certain death. I found this nice Keithley electrometer and the previous owner decided to let it go for only 40$. Even though the 610CR is relatively old, the specs are still impressive (1fA current, 100TOhms resistance). Of course, at that price I was not expecting the unit to necessarily be functional.

[Kosmic]

The line filter is particularly interesting 



And the main switch constructed with Teflon, was custom made by Keithley.

[beanflying]

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

[bitseeker]

The beaded tantalums in the series 465/465B/475/475A have a nasty habit of shorting which results in minor explosions and magic stanky smoke.

Oh, I hate those little buggers! I've had them shoot off of old PC motherboards while working inside the case. It's a good thing I have eye protection. Grrr!

[bitseeker]

Today I had to save another piece of equipment from a certain death. I found this nice Keithley electrometer and the previous owner decided to let it go for only 40$. Even though the 610CR is relatively old, the specs are still impressive (1fA current, 100TOhms resistance). Of course, at that price I was not expecting the unit to necessarily be functional.

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.

[Kosmic]

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