How to dumpster dive?

[CaptDon]

A portion of the 'must be destroyed or returned' was to protect intellectual property, both of the O.E.M. and the user. Yes, those insane repair quotes from Tek and others are totally designed to sell new gear. B.T.W., we had looked at some Tek oscilloscope gear reaching the $250,000 dollar price tag but they did offer a 'trade up' which included some of our broken Tek gear which cost around $100,000 new. I used to love Tek gear but I hate them with a passion these days. Equipment that is easily killed and impossible to repair at any reasonable cost. I wonder if Tucker still exists? They were a used equipment retailer at nearly new prices. I used to look at their rental/purchase equipment catalog and just laugh. 4 or 5 months of rental and you could have bought it used somewhere else. We all have equipment horror stories to share working for companies like Genital Electric, My Bee Em and others. G.E. actually made money by destroying equipment purchased for one job then scrapped because they bought the gear retail and charged the customer list price as part of the project development costs or N.R.E. 'non-recoverable expenditures', then bought the same stuff again for the next project.

[Analog Kid]

... and don't even let's get started on stuff bought on military contracts ...

[Alex Eisenhut]

Finding out about thrift stores in your area would probably be more productive. And cleaner.

I've found a Heathkit vacuum tube oscilloscope, a 12V 7A power supply, Cisco firewall, stuff like that, visiting Value Villages and Goodwills.

Various pieces of antiquated, but amusing to me, audio gear. Obsolete drives like Zip, Jaz, Syquest.

Check out CRD's channel and his trips to thrift stores.

https://youtu.be/s4HAqGrJFCU?list=PLec1d3OBbZ8K3YriSoI-QfzsqP1aGxBaa

[G0HZU]

A portion of the 'must be destroyed or returned' was to protect intellectual property, both of the O.E.M. and the user. Yes, those insane repair quotes from Tek and others are totally designed to sell new gear. B.T.W., we had looked at some Tek oscilloscope gear reaching the $250,000 dollar price tag but they did offer a 'trade up' which included some of our broken Tek gear which cost around $100,000 new. I used to love Tek gear but I hate them with a passion these days. Equipment that is easily killed and impossible to repair at any reasonable cost. I wonder if Tucker still exists? They were a used equipment retailer at nearly new prices. I used to look at their rental/purchase equipment catalog and just laugh. 4 or 5 months of rental and you could have bought it used somewhere else. We all have equipment horror stories to share working for companies like Genital Electric, My Bee Em and others. G.E. actually made money by destroying equipment purchased for one job then scrapped because they bought the gear retail and charged the customer list price as part of the project development costs or N.R.E. 'non-recoverable expenditures', then bought the same stuff again for the next project.

Maybe this only applies in the USA? The last piece of BER Tek gear I salvaged (for free) was one of these:

https://www.testunlimited.com/Product/Tektronix/RSA6114A/3935

It has all the top HW and SW options fitted including 110MHz real time BW and enhanced DPX and 1Gb memory plus lots of demod options and the preamp. Tek didn't want to help with the repair and they definitely didn't want to have it disposed of or returned to them.

Here's an old youtube video of it looking a the Wifi activity at my house across a 100MHz real  time bandwidth. It turned out to have a MMIC failure on one of the LO paths. As you can see, it is now working again

[Ranayna]

In the 70s/80s (even going back to the 50s) there were scheduled "large item collections" in every town, like once or twice a year.
That was a great time to find all sorts of stuff, there were literally piles of old stuff in front of each house - that was the time before ebay - people cleared out old furniture, TV/Hifi, sometimes from pre-war left in the attic or stored away by the grandparents. As there were no city recycling centers, that was pretty much the only way to get rid of this.

These trash days went far into the 90s, maybe even 2000s in my area. I scored many devices to dismantle when i was a kid on these trash collection days. I was always miffed to see all the TVs: They were just too large to carry away with my bicycle

But these went away i think mainly because they attracted, for lack of a better word, organized scavengers, especially in later years. Everything even slightly valueable was collected by scrap collectors ruffling through everything, and leaving a mess. Originally relatively neatly organized piles looked like a bomb exploded during the night.

[themadhippy]

I was always miffed to see all the TVs: They were just too large to carry away with my bicycle

you borrow your dads wheelbarrow.

[wilfred]

These trash days went far into the 90s, maybe even 2000s in my area. I scored many devices to dismantle when i was a kid on these trash collection days. I was always miffed to see all the TVs: They were just too large to carry away with my bicycle

And now they're too large for an ordinary car.