Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

...Come up with a means to convert the captured CO2 into hydrocarbon fuel and O2 using water and sunlight at large scale and low cost and you will be really rich.....

I think you just described a tree... 

mnem
the irony is not lost on me...

I think it's closer to a description of oilseed Rape.

Haven't you scone-eaters fed both to poor little Thomas the Tank Engine from time to time over the years...?

mnem
and then there's hemp...

[mansaxel]

Although the Austrians were the main culprits, West Germans (as they were at the time) got in on the act too:

Thanks for reminding me. Thing is, stick to the dry ones. They're not improved by glycol.

I've had a number of Spätburgunder Trocken that were really impressive. I've even had one from western Czechia that was very good. Not cheap, but quality isn't.

TE:

200CDR and 3552A are home. SK sale, ex-service engineer. Picked up and had a nice chat with the original owners son.

Common: Clean, no brokenness, some stickers, well kept.

200CDR: Works. Off 0,6% in frequency (in spec!) as measured by a recently home-checkibrated (a neologism that says "I've checked it against my DMMCheck plus") 8060A. Gives 20 fine volts unterminated, and drives small speakers. Very smooth tone, as can be expected by a Wien bridge.  German build, one of the very last ones, I guess, judging from the 1981 changelevel (G218). It was in the 1984 catalogue, which really must have been close to the end.  Of note is the fact that Change No. 8 in the manual deletes 2 diodes in favour of a rectifier valve in the HT supply.  That's not how things usually evolve.  Originally sold by (hp) in Sweden; has their country label on.

3552A: Basically works. I need to check levels and so on. Reasonably right in frequency. Batteries fuckerized of course, but will hold a charge for several seconds. Has, judging from sticker residue, lived an interesting life; probably flew around the world with an Ericsson engineer or similar.  Of course built in Scotland.

[factory]

OK checked the other windings on the Tek scope & Wavetek DMM, all have the slight clipping to the waveform, as does the incoming mains. RMS Values measured with the Tek & DMM.

Red wires (155V), Tek 85V, DMM 87V.

Orange wires (18.5V+18.5V), Tek 19.5V+19.7V total 39V, DMM total 39.7V.

Yellow wires (9.5V+9.5V), Tek 10V+10V total 20V, DMM total 20V.
Green wires (1.7V+9.5V+9.5V+1.7V) Tek total 25V, DMM total 25.7V

Ah, that looks bad. So the transformer seems to be toasted. You should measure the idle consumption of the transformer alone. If the transformer does not get hot without load and idle losses are marginal, you could add a second small transformer for the 155V and leave the red wires open. If it gets hot you are lost with the transformer...

Think I've come to the same conclusion the 155V red winding of the transformer in the HP 5340A has failed. No load it's around 87V and drops to 85V after a few minutes, the transformer runs quite warm too.
I'm now wiring up a NOS ex-MOD variac & making a base for it, as the spindle sticks out from the base and it doesn't sit flat on the bench. It will be used with an iso-transfomer tomorrow in place of the red winding, I'll also go the storage place & retrieve the other 5340A.

David

[Cerebus]

Although the Austrians were the main culprits, West Germans (as they were at the time) got in on the act too:

Thanks for reminding me. Thing is, stick to the dry ones. They're not improved by glycol.

Pretty much the only non-dry white wines I've ever voluntarily put past my lips have been Tokajis (in the days when the London restaurant "The Gay Hussar" was still in business under the original Hungarian ownership and it was almost impossible to move inside for Labour party grandees and the occasional Russian 'diplomat').

Digging out that story on the German involvement in the adulteration scandal was a bit weird. I'd forgotten how news media always used to prefix German with either East or West and it just felt a little odd reading it. It's also an object lesson in how we normalise propaganda in the media. Sure, for some things it's mere necessary clarification differentiating between East and West Germany, but the media always used to differentiate the two, even in contexts where it wasn't necessary, and that smacks of a form of unconscious rhetoric which only becomes obvious when you see it years later from a fresh and somewhat more neutral perspective.

[factory]

TE:

200CDR and 3552A are home. SK sale, ex-service engineer. Picked up and had a nice chat with the original owners son.

Common: Clean, no brokenness, some stickers, well kept.

200CDR: Works. Off 0,6% in frequency (in spec!) as measured by a recently home-checkibrated (a neologism that says "I've checked it against my DMMCheck plus") 8060A. Gives 20 fine volts unterminated, and drives small speakers. Very smooth tone, as can be expected by a Wien bridge.  German build, one of the very last ones, I guess, judging from the 1981 changelevel (G218). It was in the 1984 catalogue, which really must have been close to the end.  Of note is the fact that Change No. 8 in the manual deletes 2 diodes in favour of a rectifier valve in the HT supply.  That's not how things usually evolve.  Originally sold by (hp) in Sweden; has their country label on.

3552A: Basically works. I need to check levels and so on. Reasonably right in frequency. Batteries fuckerized of course, but will hold a charge for several seconds. Has, judging from sticker residue, lived an interesting life; probably flew around the world with an Ericsson engineer or similar.  Of course built in Scotland.

The 200CD was in the catalog till 1985 according to the memory project webpage.
https://www.hpmemoryproject.org/wb_pages/wall_b_page_10a.htm

G218 would be 1962 design rev not 1982, manuals aren't too helpful for those made in Germany, unless the correct change sheets are included covering the German units.
Change number "8" is the last change listed in the 1965 manual, it makes sense that the newer units have the solid state rectifier.

David

[0culus]

The bad news is the megaphase cables I got for free...well I got what I paid for. They are total junk above ~3 GHz.  Worst of all, they all seem to have anomalies right in X band towards the lower end of Ku band....RIGHT where I want to work of course. 

Luckily, while I save pennies for a pair of known good high quality phase stable test cables ($$$$  ), I came up with a workable interim solution from my collection of RF plumbing. 1 pair of brand new, never used Minicircuits hand formable cables, 1 pair of precision phase adjusters tightened down to the minimum length. All connectors gaged and cleaned before mating. And it gives me a pretty good cal from dc-daylight. Not bad for a parts bin solution. Decidedly NOT phase stable though, but at least the hand formable cables are relatively easy to work with and don't flop around much. Check out this Narda 2-18 GHz coupler!

Next thing I need to do is get the 8510C hooked up to my modest HP-IB network so I can use some of the KE5FX utilities with it.

[Cerebus]

It was the Austrians who did that, not the Germans.

As noted above, it was vintners in both countries.

As far as adulterated drink in modern times goes England is not without blame. During the whole of the 1960s and 70s Watneys sold Red Barrel under the guise of it being beer.

What was it, then, apart from gnats piss?

My contention is merely that it wasn't beer. Quite what it was I'm not sure, but consider that a red barrel is a much more likely container for hazardous inductrial chemicals than for anything else. 

Having just had a trawl to see if I could identify anything truly horrible and also factual about the constituents of Red Barrel I came across this gem:

Cross-referring to a set of brewing logs from the Watney’s (Usher’s) brewery in Trowbridge, he reached a startling conclusion – that Watney’s was in the habit of dumping stale beer into fresh beer to maximise profits:

I’ve seen thousands of brewing records from several countries, but these were the first to shock me. And the first where I haven’t thought, “I’d really like to try that beer.” CAMRA was right to tell readers to “avoid like the plague” in the first Good Beer Guide. Because Watney’s products were up to 20 percent muck: beer returned from pubs, sludgy stuff from the bottom of tanks and other crap lying around the brewery.

So although I was just joking around the idea of the general awfulness of Red Barrel it looks like I might have inadvertently been on the money with 'adulteration'.

[mnementh]

Bet it was still better than Corona... Or Dos Equis (named after the 2 horses it came from, I'll wager) 

mnem
oh, who am I kidding... It all tastes like pee.

[Specmaster]

It was the Austrians who did that, not the Germans.

As noted above, it was vintners in both countries.

As far as adulterated drink in modern times goes England is not without blame. During the whole of the 1960s and 70s Watneys sold Red Barrel under the guise of it being beer.

What was it, then, apart from gnats piss?

My contention is merely that it wasn't beer. Quite what it was I'm not sure, but consider that a red barrel is a much more likely container for hazardous inductrial chemicals than for anything else. 

Having just had a trawl to see if I could identify anything truly horrible and also factual about the constituents of Red Barrel I came across this gem:

Cross-referring to a set of brewing logs from the Watney’s (Usher’s) brewery in Trowbridge, he reached a startling conclusion – that Watney’s was in the habit of dumping stale beer into fresh beer to maximise profits:

I’ve seen thousands of brewing records from several countries, but these were the first to shock me. And the first where I haven’t thought, “I’d really like to try that beer.” CAMRA was right to tell readers to “avoid like the plague” in the first Good Beer Guide. Because Watney’s products were up to 20 percent muck: beer returned from pubs, sludgy stuff from the bottom of tanks and other crap lying around the brewery.

So although I was just joking around the idea of the general awfulness of Red Barrel it looks like I might have inadvertently been on the money with 'adulteration'.

Don't forget that other famous beer around at the same time, Double Diamond https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TGCrBE3JvY it never worked any wonders for me either 

[vk6zgo]

It was the Austrians who did that, not the Germans.

As noted above, it was vintners in both countries.

As far as adulterated drink in modern times goes England is not without blame. During the whole of the 1960s and 70s Watneys sold Red Barrel under the guise of it being beer.

What was it, then, apart from gnats piss?

My contention is merely that it wasn't beer. Quite what it was I'm not sure, but consider that a red barrel is a much more likely container for hazardous inductrial chemicals than for anything else. 

Having just had a trawl to see if I could identify anything truly horrible and also factual about the constituents of Red Barrel I came across this gem:

Cross-referring to a set of brewing logs from the Watney’s (Usher’s) brewery in Trowbridge, he reached a startling conclusion – that Watney’s was in the habit of dumping stale beer into fresh beer to maximise profits:

I’ve seen thousands of brewing records from several countries, but these were the first to shock me. And the first where I haven’t thought, “I’d really like to try that beer.” CAMRA was right to tell readers to “avoid like the plague” in the first Good Beer Guide. Because Watney’s products were up to 20 percent muck: beer returned from pubs, sludgy stuff from the bottom of tanks and other crap lying around the brewery.

So although I was just joking around the idea of the general awfulness of Red Barrel it looks like I might have inadvertently been on the money with 'adulteration'.

Don't forget that other famous beer around at the same time, Double Diamond https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TGCrBE3JvY it never worked any wonders for me either 

Did Tankard "help you excel?"

[Cerebus]

Did Tankard "help you excel?"

There was a typo in the original advertising copy, they got tippex on the page and it covered up the lower arm and part of the curve of the letter 'p'.

[Cerebus]

Bet it was still better than Corona... Or Dos Equis (named after the 2 horses it came from, I'll wager) 

mnem
oh, who am I kidding... It all tastes like pee.

On a really hot day I'm quite partial to a really cold Mexican or South American style beer, Sol for preference, but I'd drink a Corona or Dos Equis. Like many drinks they don't travel well, and you at least need to recreate the conditions they were brewed for before you can appreciate their good qualities.

At the moment I'm gagging for decent pint of heavy English Winter Ale - Young's Winter Warmer or something similar. Dark, malty, redolent of mixed dried fruit, somewhat sweet, and thick enough to need knife and fork to consume. In a damp, cold English winter it's just the thing. In the climate of Mexico or the Southern US I imagine it would go down like trying to drink a pint of syrup of figs.

[vk6zgo]

<snip>
That won't do it as the tip of the socket is not threaded so I can't screw the outside retaining nut back to it.
Can't thread it myself either as there is a big chamfer * so the nut would not bite. could remove the chamfer * but... then I would not have enough metal left to thread. Plus the body is split so not even sure the nut would actually work, it may compress the body inwards, deform it and the nut would lose grip and not be firmly secured to the thread.

* : "Chamfer " seems to be too technical a term these days ?! Firefox dictionary doesn't know about it... reports it as invalid 

Personally, I wouldn't bother trying to retain its originality, if it were mine, I'd do like I said earlier, rip it and fit a panel mount BNC socket. There wouldn't be any noticeable effect of performance but would be a massive uplift in the longevity of the interface.

"Originality" is a funny thing.
I'm not that bothered about it, because, in my experience, equipment with a lot of "life experience" has often been modified in various ways, with the replacement of horrible connectors being a fairly common one.

Of course, these are "part of its history", so may be regarded as more legitimate than a more recent mod.

The silly thing about Belling Lee (which I will refer to as "B/L") connectors is that there isn't a lot wrong with the original concept, it is just that the realisation of that concept has been almost universally awful!

All my TV antenna outlets have "F" connectors on them, as do the connecting leads from there to the TV.
On the TV end of each lead, is a "F" to "B/L" adaptor, the plug part of which is a demonstration of what the "B/L" connectors could have been.

I now only have the crappy "B/L" socket on the TV to contend with.

[vk6zgo]

Toolcase = British Telecom?

Yup, that's at least, according to the story from Canford Audio, where they became popular.  When something's being sold with the phrase "distinctive standard issue cases" I immediately thought of "Q" out of a Bond movie, and the deal was done. I've got a No. 2 that's been retired, but retained, because my dear wife gave me a No. 6 she'd dug out of UK Ebay, at a bargain, as Christmas gift some 6 years ago.

Do you lug your "No 6" cells around in it?

[Zucca]

Oh Lord have mercy I am a sinner, have mercy on me.
I sinned again...



first time I buy Metcal tips from Amazon.

[Neomys Sapiens]

The bad news is the megaphase cables I got for free...well I got what I paid for. They are total junk above ~3 GHz.  Worst of all, they all seem to have anomalies right in X band towards the lower end of Ku band....RIGHT where I want to work of course. 
.
.
Check out this Narda 2-18 GHz coupler!

Nice coupler.
'One tip: do NOT fall for Gore test cables. They are in my company lab and I came to hate them. They transmit torque with every movement and work loose the connector at my VNA in no time!

[0culus]

The bad news is the megaphase cables I got for free...well I got what I paid for. They are total junk above ~3 GHz.  Worst of all, they all seem to have anomalies right in X band towards the lower end of Ku band....RIGHT where I want to work of course. 
.
.
Check out this Narda 2-18 GHz coupler!

Nice coupler.
'One tip: do NOT fall for Gore test cables. They are in my company lab and I came to hate them. They transmit torque with every movement and work loose the connector at my VNA in no time!

Ideally I'd like to find a pair of the cables it would have come with new. But those are megabux, when they are available at all.  Any other recommends for the epay saved search? 

[Neomys Sapiens]

As the new signalling system was commissioned a few years earlier, the Siemens signal box computer kept crashing.

Siemens had a bit of a rough time in the 90s with light-rail prototypes that wouldn't brake, self-igniting diesel locos in Norway, disintegrating Combino trams a bit all over the country, and tilting ICE VT high-speed trains that wouldn't tilt.

That did not only hit Siemens. I did a project at ABB Henschel Schienenfahrzeuge (later AdTrans, now part of Bombardier) while another branch of them sold light rail vehicles to the local operator. One day I (and several other colleagues) showed up rather late for work. Asked what had happened, we were able to report that we were held up by the doors not opening on our own bloody trains.

[Neomys Sapiens]

The bad news is the megaphase cables I got for free...well I got what I paid for. They are total junk above ~3 GHz.  Worst of all, they all seem to have anomalies right in X band towards the lower end of Ku band....RIGHT where I want to work of course. 
.
.
Check out this Narda 2-18 GHz coupler!

Nice coupler.
'One tip: do NOT fall for Gore test cables. They are in my company lab and I came to hate them. They transmit torque with every movement and work loose the connector at my VNA in no time!

Ideally I'd like to find a pair of the cables it would have come with new. But those are megabux, when they are available at all.  Any other recommends for the epay saved search? 

I can recommend Suhner Testflex/Sucoflex and also some from Radiall.

[Neomys Sapiens]

Thats says to me that the future is not electric. Fact is that they are just way too complicated.

I'd argue that the keeping-track-of-things amount of electronics is roughly equivalent in a modern premium EV and a simple ICE car. Only the "simple" ICE car has a couple 1000  parts in the engine bay, gearbox (if automatic a command and control problem in and of itself) and transmission, whereas the EV has 2 induction motors, at most some reduction gears, all of which can be lubricated to a service interval of at least 10 years, if not life.

The induction motor has 1 (one) moving part. No pressure compartments, no fluid containment, no fire, all in all less fuss.  The rest is electronics, which in component count you need to have at least as much in a ICE car built the last 30 years -- or it won't meet emission regulations. 

Further, the ICE car needs a lot of finicky sensors; lambda, angle, pressure, absence of pressure, fluid level, fluid flow, fluid regulation (injectors) and so on. Those are what breaks.  The temperature sensing problem is about the same, probably a bit easier in the EV case.

I'd like to quit with a quote from a previously secret report on BAOR trials of the Swedish "S" tank, the wedge without a turret model.  They were shipped to Soltau and BAOR and tried together with the Chieftain tanks 2nd Royal Armoured Regiment usually drove around and annoyed German farmers with.

Whenever a Chieftain tank is parked or stands idle for some time an oil puddle is left behind.

Please do not say that EVs do not have fluid containment problems. They have a massive one due to the cooling circuits of the battery. I had to talk my arse off to get fluid leakage (or level ) sensors introduced into the batteries for the MB EVs. And then I had to tell them and Continental all about hot to build one, while being looked on by several people as a nuisance. (operation with an AC signal, in order to avoid electrolytic damage etc.) It was all  like 'we did not have one in the earlier batteries and nothing happened, so what?'.
Fortunately I found an ally in their safety department. Before I left, I gave her the rather obscure USAF report about water/glycol mixtures constituting a fire hazard in connection with silver-plated connector contacts and wires. Should have kept them occupied for a time.

[tautech]

The bad news is the megaphase cables I got for free...well I got what I paid for. They are total junk above ~3 GHz.  Worst of all, they all seem to have anomalies right in X band towards the lower end of Ku band....RIGHT where I want to work of course. 
.
.
Check out this Narda 2-18 GHz coupler!

Nice coupler.
'One tip: do NOT fall for Gore test cables. They are in my company lab and I came to hate them. They transmit torque with every movement and work loose the connector at my VNA in no time!

Ideally I'd like to find a pair of the cables it would have come with new. But those are megabux, when they are available at all.  Any other recommends for the epay saved search? 

Yep even the Rosenberger cables we can get from Siglent are an arm and a leg although we get them a lot cheaper.
https://siglentna.com/product/nm-smam-cable100cm18-ghz/

Ask hendorog what he thinks of the one we gifted him.

[cyclin_al]

As the new signalling system was commissioned a few years earlier, the Siemens signal box computer kept crashing.

Siemens had a bit of a rough time in the 90s with light-rail prototypes that wouldn't brake, self-igniting diesel locos in Norway, disintegrating Combino trams a bit all over the country, and tilting ICE VT high-speed trains that wouldn't tilt.

That did not only hit Siemens. I did a project at ABB Henschel Schienenfahrzeuge (later AdTrans, now part of Bombardier) while another branch of them sold light rail vehicles to the local operator. One day I (and several other colleagues) showed up rather late for work. Asked what had happened, we were able to report that we were held up by the doors not opening on our own bloody trains.

I thought it was Alcatel that had all the problems then:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Municipal_Railway#1990s:_the_%22Muni_Meltdown%22

Now that we are in the 2010 and 2020s, it is Bombardier trying to be the champion of most problems:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_Flexity_Freedom

Nope, Alstom wants to share in the debacle, although this wiki article has not been updated to include 2021 when it got much worse:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederation_Line

(luckily I was working on station controllers, not on vehicle on-board controllers in the 90s, and not on the projects referenced here)

[mansaxel]

Although the Austrians were the main culprits, West Germans (as they were at the time) got in on the act too:

Thanks for reminding me. Thing is, stick to the dry ones. They're not improved by glycol.

Pretty much the only non-dry white wines I've ever voluntarily put past my lips have been Tokajis (in the days when the London restaurant "The Gay Hussar" was still in business under the original Hungarian ownership and it was almost impossible to move inside for Labour party grandees and the occasional Russian 'diplomat').

There are good sweet whites. Sauternes is the obvious one -- its neighbour appelations like Cadillac are very close too. In the right context a Spätlese from Mosel has something of importance to say. I've got a Kerpen Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spätlese 2004 in the fridge waiting for the right moment. That one is popular enough that it's got videos made about it:

Digging out that story on the German involvement in the adulteration scandal was a bit weird. I'd forgotten how news media always used to prefix German with either East or West and it just felt a little odd reading it. It's also an object lesson in how we normalise propaganda in the media. Sure, for some things it's mere necessary clarification differentiating between East and West Germany, but the media always used to differentiate the two, even in contexts where it wasn't necessary, and that smacks of a form of unconscious rhetoric which only becomes obvious when you see it years later from a fresh and somewhat more neutral perspective.

And today, the right wing men here keep on harping how public service media efforts to treat the two halves as neutrally as possible was "proof" of the left-leaning in public service media. I for one think it is a good thing die Wende happened, and that the Bundesrepublik got new Länder, not the opposite, but I also think that DDR deserved to disappear on its own merits, not because an external propaganda campaign made it worse than it really was. Not needed.

[mansaxel]

G218 would be 1962 design rev not 1982, manuals aren't too helpful for those made in Germany, unless the correct change sheets are included covering the German units.
Change number "8" is the last change listed in the 1965 manual, it makes sense that the newer units have the solid state rectifier.

Ah, there's a non-showing 0 in "G218", it should have been "G0218". Thanks.  That then also makes more sense with the diodes and so on.

[mansaxel]

Toolcase = British Telecom?

Yup, that's at least, according to the story from Canford Audio, where they became popular.  When something's being sold with the phrase "distinctive standard issue cases" I immediately thought of "Q" out of a Bond movie, and the deal was done. I've got a No. 2 that's been retired, but retained, because my dear wife gave me a No. 6 she'd dug out of UK Ebay, at a bargain, as Christmas gift some 6 years ago.

Do you lug your "No 6" cells around in it?

No, the only strange cell I carry is the split-in-2 3V cell that powers German post-war VOM like the Multavi or the Unigor.

It's heavy as it is...  12,6 kilos is not much for the sturdy construction of that toolcase, but it is quite a lot to lug around.