Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Danny_40]

Hi I am looking for a BG7TBL FA-2 1Hz-12-4G   precision-FREQ-counter User Manual because when I select the 2th input, without any cable or signal feeded, tle display show
CH2 Freq:
15 508.055 604 458
                        MHz
Gate=0.1S INT-REF

Is the FA-2 working well or i must return it at the supplyer?
Can you send me the English User Manual?
Thanks
omcalamai@gmail.com

[McBryce]

2. We're not recording people who left hospital after recovery believe it or not.

They must be, otherwise, where are they getting these figures on the right from?
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

According to these numbers, 312 people in the UK have recovered.

McBryce.

[Cerebus]

Sometimes overreaction is the only way to "encourager les autres" - especially Dunning-Krueger candidates that think they know best.

No. It's important that the law, and the enforcement of the law is and is seen to be fair. Two people who commit the same offence with the same mitigating and aggravating circumstances should receive the same punishment. Fortunately in England we do have sentencing guidelines (with legal force) and ways to appeal sentences that are either overly harsh or overly lenient - one assumes similar exist for Aus and NZ. It is not acceptable to set a punishment or choose the level of enforcement to 'send a message' or because one has some animosity towards the individual offender (doing the latter is a criminal offence at common law in England).

Any arbitrary punishment is bad for society, bad for the rule of law, and erodes public confidence in the law. It is also ipso facto unlawful under English common law. Arbitrary punishment is the reserve of regimes that tend to end badly.

In the case in point an arbitrary punishment "pour encourager les autres" is doubly bad because two people closed in a car is not going to spread this disease and the whole point of any movement restrictions is that, to prevent the spread of disease. Therefore it looks like the punishment is not because the act frustrated the purpose of the current restriction, but as a punishment for offending a particular officer who had decided for himself what was and was not acceptable. My prediction - quashed or massively reduced fine imposed by the courts on appeal.

[worsthorse]

I think we need to look at it rationally at the moment. The statistics we are recording here are absolutely not meaningful or useful as they stand and serve only to make the situation sound worse than it currently is. This is being leveraged by the press somewhat and the governments and being relatively poorly extrapolated by our universities into a set of wild assumptions. Granted wild assumptions are the only places we go but presenting them as fact and policy is somewhat disingenuous. Some problems with our recording:

[.....]

Really though, don't get wrapped up in the guilt towards others. We should be respecting and looking after each other anyway, not just because the government told us we should be doing it at the moment...

[/begin rant]

I listened to a podcast discussion yesterday Three epidemiologists talking about exactly these issues: the dataset we have is not useful yet except in the very broadest terms.  Their conclusions are not startling: however the numbers turn out, we have enough of them now to draw useful statistical conclusions: (a) the virus is much more infectious and seems to have morbidity rates an order of magnitude higher than the flu and (b) physical distancing is buying us time. Unfortunately the collection, analysis and vetting of vast amounts of unfiltered data doesn't happen in real time, whatever the claims of "big data" champions, and it will be months before we know a lot more. 

The problem, of course, is that people are necessarily making decisions in real time because pandemics happen in real time. This leaves all those who are convinced, and behave as if, science and mathematics are either magic incantations or tools of oppression to rely on whichever "expert" or "leader" plays best to their darkest fears.  And so people crowd beaches on spring break, drink aquarium chemicals and methanol to kill the virus, hoard toilet paper, and burn down cell phone towers. 

As I said before, I'd like to believe that many of these folks will watch what is unfolding and begin to question whether being driven by fear and ignorance has worked out very well for them or the people they care about. But that seems unlikely.

How to help?  Don't be an asshole. Don't take advantage of someone's fear. Be kind. Be patient. Keep your sense of humor.

And, yeah, stay away from other people.

[/end rant]

[Kosmic]

Hi I am looking for a BG7TBL FA-2 1Hz-12-4G   precision-FREQ-counter User Manual because when I select the 2th input, without any cable or signal feeded, tle display show
CH2 Freq:
15 508.055 604 458
                        MHz
Gate=0.1S INT-REF

Is the FA-2 working well or i must return it at the supplyer?
Can you send me the English User Manual?
Thanks
omcalamai@gmail.com

I think it's normal (at least for this instrument). You should check this thread: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/metrology/bg7tbl-fa1-frequency-analyzer/

Cheers!

[bd139]

2. We're not recording people who left hospital after recovery believe it or not.

They must be, otherwise, where are they getting these figures on the right from?
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

According to these numbers, 312 people in the UK have recovered.

McBryce.

Quick Sankey diagram to explain the issue with the statistics (zoom it):

Not the propensity for everything to migrate to "fuck knows" including ICU outcomes. The dataset is absolutely useless.



Not to scale. It'd be much much harder to read if it was to scale and I wasn't shaking like a leaf after all this coffee today 

I should have put legends on there as well but there's not much point as the confirmed = ~52,000 and we don't know if that's the same people tested 3 times or not (so that's no good). ICU=~unknown because it's just unknown.

You can tell when there is certainty in the statistical methods only when betfair, with the best paid staticians start reducing their odds on a specific body count if they dared allow that bet . Cynical but true.

[Cerebus]

... when we don't really understand just how this virus behaves and what can be done to counter it.

We do understand how this behaves. In terms of disease transmission this is just like any cold or the flu. It is spread by viruses in expressed mucus. It is only infectious if you breathe in droplets of infected bodily fluids or transfer then to your own mucous membranes (eyes, nose, mouth) by hand contact with a contaminated surface and thence on to eyes, nose, mouth etc. (There are no recorded instances, that I know of, of transmission via other bodily orifices but that is not impossible.)

There are not any unknown mechanisms of transmission. If you keep far enough away from other people that you don't get hit by the spray from coughs, sneezes or even normal saliva spray from talking, or drifting droplets from such spray, and you follow meticulous hand hygiene you will not get infected.

The 2m separation distance being touted in the UK is pretty arbitrary, actual 'not a chance if getting infected' distance is going to be very situation specific - indoors, outdoors, still air, windy and so on. If you're 10m away from an infectious person who sneezes without a tissue or mask in still air or upwind of them then you have a snowball's chance in hell of getting infected, even 5m is highly unlikely.

It is not like the common cold or normal flu, it is an invisible, silent killer that can strike anyone.

It is just like both in basic essence. The only difference is one of degree in the virulence and pathogenicity. Flu kills people every year, even common colds kill the very vulnerable. In terms of how it is transmitted, how it works in the body etc. it is just the same as colds and flu - the 'common' cold is frequently attributable to coronaviruses (among others such as rhinoviruses), just different ones to the one that we're battling at the moment.

It was initially thought that it would be most deadly to the elderly and infirm, that has subsequently been shown to be incorrect as there are now many people that fall outside that demographic that have tragically lost their lives. It was also thought that only about 1% of those that caught it would die from it, figures from the UK disprove that theory as can be seen from site https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/ it is in fact around 10%.

There has been no change in the profile of morbidity or mortality. It is still the case, and was always thought to be, that the majority of deaths would be in the elderly. Don't be fooled by isolated cases - i.e. just because you have heard of a few healthy young people dying doesn't mean they are dropping like flies - it's a common human failing to jump on isolated evidence and draw a distorted picture, we all do it, all the time.

The figures being used for modelling in the UK, based on the best available data at 16th march are:

Age-group (years)	% symptomatic cases requiring hospitalisation	% hospitalised cases requiring critical care	Infection Fatality Ratio
0 to 9	0.1%	5.0%	0.002%
10 to 19	0.3%	5.0%	0.006%
20 to 29	1.2%	5.0%	0.03%
30 to 39	3.2%	5.0%	0.08%
40 to 49	4.9%	6.3%	0.15%
50 to 59	10.2%	12.2%	0.60%
60 to 69	16.6%	27.4%	2.2%
70 to 79	24.3%	43.2%	5.1%
80+	27.3%	70.9%	9.3%

i.e. Someone who is  80+ who gets infected is 310 times more likely to die than someone 20-29 years old who gets infected. It's pretty obvious that the "% hospitalised cases requiring critical care" figures for the lowest ages groups are estimates with large safety margins (probably because the number of serious cases in those age groups have been too low to produce statistically valid estimates).

As far as the 10% death rate is concerned that is just not correct. I don't know quite what worldometer have done to mess up those numbers, or what qualifications they are missing but every scientific paper that I've looked at shows death rates in line with expectations - which is 1-3% depending on the population and the healthcare resources available to them. The case fatality ratio for the West seems to be at around 1.3% on an age-adjusted population basis. I suspect that there's some serious problems with their data labelling and sampling. e.g. current confirmed cases (excluding unreported like BD139) versus cumulative deaths.

[tggzzz]

Could people please keep generic covid-19 discussions in the other covid-19 threads.

Non-generic includes specific "best wishes" and the like, or perhaps how our addictions could help/hinder the situation.

Thanks.

[BU508A]

How to help?  Don't be an asshole. Don't take advantage of someone's fear. Be kind. Be patient. Keep your sense of humor.

 

You sound like the Queen in her speech. 

[Ero-Shan]

Now look what followed me home today ...

Today I took a leave from home office and went to my workplace. And while I was there, and since I had a chauffeur, I was able to get this thing finally home (by the same reasoning, my manager added a Dell Latitude E6500).
Thing is, 2 PM3050 had survived the great dumping and were moved to the new place. Several weeks ago, a colleague asked the boss whether he could have one. Boss didn't have any problems, just asked for a small donation to the kitty.
Colleague come back the other day, quite disappointed, as the bloody thing wouldn't work. Boss just asked him to take the other one. And I asked for the dead one.   

Since it is completely dead, it might be something simple. Anyway, now I have 2 of them.

[bd139]

Watch the RIFAs in that. Don't want to add to the death statistics 

[Cerebus]

Watch the RIFAs in that. Don't want to add to the death statistics 

Beaten to death by SWMBO for stinking the house out when she's not allowed to escape from it?

[Specmaster]

@tggzzz those figures quoted were for people were are hospitalised, as this extract from the following site confirms https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public


"Published 24 January 2020
Last updated 7 April 2020 — see all updates

From:
    Department of Health and Social Care and Public Health England

Contents

    Number of cases and deaths
    Risk level
    Recent government action

Stay at home to stop coronavirus spreading.

Read more about what you need to do.
Number of cases and deaths

As of 9am on 7 April, 266,694 tests have concluded across the UK, with 14,006 tests carried out on 6 April. Some individuals are tested more than once for clinical reasons.

213,181 people have been tested, of whom 55,242 tested positive. Today’s figure for people tested does not include Manchester and Leeds due to a data processing delay. The tests concluded figure excludes data from Northern Ireland.

As of 5pm on 6 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 6,159 have died.

Data on UK positive and negative tests and data on deaths is updated on this page daily at 2pm or shortly after. The figures for test results and for deaths are compiled from different sources. This is why the figures for deaths are reported from an earlier point in time than the figures for test results."

Using the figures above, it is now clearly greater than 10% fatalities and looks likely this will get a lot of worse before it gets better.

[Ero-Shan]

Ahhh I haven't heard that for years.

As for who's who, Raab and Boris are definitely tripods.

Best bit

My absolute favorite while ironing. The sacrifice of the Thunderchild still brings tears to my eyes. 

[capt bullshot]

Now look what followed me home today ...

Nice, I've got one too (followed me home in a similar way as yours). Service manual with schematics can be found on the net. It has a nice sharp trace, but one thing I really dislike: All the settings are lost on power down, the scope always starts to the same defaults (no battery inside to replace that could backup the settings). And if the LCD backlight is burned out (it's incandescent), the LCD is hard to read.

Oh, wait a moment - mine has more buttons, indeed it's a PM3055. Looks quite similar otherwise.

[bd139]

Watch the RIFAs in that. Don't want to add to the death statistics 

Beaten to death by SWMBO for stinking the house out when she's not allowed to escape from it?

Yes. Been exactly there. So she was sick and tucked in on the sofa and there I am with a PM3217 plugged in on the former bench in the corner. Smells hot and funny in the living room. Couldn't work out what it was for a few minutes. Eventually by chance I put my hand on the back of the scope and it was red hot. Unplugged it, opened it up and got a huff of that smell. Bleurgh. Took HOURS to clear even after snipping the bastard out and cleaning it. Solicited HOURS of evils that did.

Photo of the actual insidious bastard



This was followed a few weeks later by the inline mains filter on a PM3315 actually blowing up like a hand grenade while it was burning in and I was enjoying a curry .

Edit: found a picture. That had an X2 on the power supply which was removed before power up. Tuns out the mains filter I had missed as it was hiding inside the chassis edge!



Nice power supply that apart from the RIFA!

[Specmaster]

Sometimes overreaction is the only way to "encourager les autres" - especially Dunning-Krueger candidates that think they know best.

No. It's important that the law, and the enforcement of the law is and is seen to be fair. Two people who commit the same offence with the same mitigating and aggravating circumstances should receive the same punishment. Fortunately in England we do have sentencing guidelines (with legal force) and ways to appeal sentences that are either overly harsh or overly lenient - one assumes similar exist for Aus and NZ. It is not acceptable to set a punishment or choose the level of enforcement to 'send a message' or because one has some animosity towards the individual offender (doing the latter is a criminal offence at common law in England).

Any arbitrary punishment is bad for society, bad for the rule of law, and erodes public confidence in the law. It is also ipso facto unlawful under English common law. Arbitrary punishment is the reserve of regimes that tend to end badly.

In the case in point an arbitrary punishment "pour encourager les autres" is doubly bad because two people closed in a car is not going to spread this disease and the whole point of any movement restrictions is that, to prevent the spread of disease. Therefore it looks like the punishment is not because the act frustrated the purpose of the current restriction, but as a punishment for offending a particular officer who had decided for himself what was and was not acceptable. My prediction - quashed or massively reduced fine imposed by the courts on appeal.

But the point is that everyone seems to be missing is that it is NOT the Police who are handing out the fines, they are merely reporting the offenders, it's the judges who are possibly over reacting, not the Police, who last time I checked had not been given permission to issue on the spot fines, and in any case they would be pre-fixed by the government and the officer on the spot.

[bd139]

But the point is that everyone seems to be missing is that it is NOT the Police who are handing out the fines, they are merely reporting the offenders, it's the judges who are possibly over reacting, not the Police, who last time I checked had not been given permission to issue on the spot fines, and in any case they would be pre-fixed by the government and the officer on the spot.

Check the Coronavirus Act 2020 text. They can issue on the spot fines, which you can appeal and refer cases to the CPS for prosecution. The papers are reporting the police action as far as I can see. The judiciary seem to be throwing all the cases out so far because they disagree with the act and don't want us to devolve into a police state.

I appealed a spot fine successfully in 2005 after being apparently caught driving with a phone in my hand. The police officer's initial wording was "why do you think I pulled you over?" in an attempt to incriminate me. I refused to comment and he issued the fine and it was dropped due to no evidence being presented. I was actually scratching my head with a banana at the time (no shit!)

Edit: random technical question for the experts in here seeing as we seem to have such diverse interests and knowledge: can someone recommend a lighter that isn't a piece of shit? I don't smoke and the last one I had was a zippo which was basically perpetually used to set off fireworks when I was a teenager and was a pain in the arse and nearly burned me to death on several occasions

[Cerebus]

@tggzzz those figures quoted were for people were are hospitalised, as this extract from the following site confirms ...
...

Using the figures above, it is now clearly greater than 10% fatalities [for those hospitalised] and looks likely this will get a lot of worse before it gets better.

I think that's the bit you're missing. It's 10% deaths of people who have been hospitalised, not of the whole population of infected people. Without the ratio of infected:hospitalized you can't calculate the true case fatality rate and you're making it sound much worse than it is and worrying yourself more than you need to.

[nixiefreqq]

ahhh man.  you brits and your quaint sayings.

so what does "scratching your head with a banana" actually mean?

[Cerebus]

Edit: random technical question for the experts in here seeing as we seem to have such diverse interests and knowledge: can someone recommend a lighter that isn't a piece of shit? I don't smoke and the last one I had was a zippo which was basically perpetually used to set off fireworks when I was a teenager and was a pain in the arse and nearly burned me to death on several occasions

I've been through all sorts of lighters over the years. If you need something genuinely windproof and waterproof then one of the lighters that uses a catalytic grid is the thing to go for - the last one I had was a no-name one that had o-ring seals on that I got from Field and Trek about 20 years ago and died last year. For non truly windproof lighters then the Poppell disposable lighters  (piezo type) sold everywhere are remarkably reliable and durable. I had one of the same design that is on sale at the moment last several years of daily use.

[Specmaster]

No, I was talking about the hospitalized figures and that is what was presented a while ago, that only around 1% of those confirmed and admitted to hospitals would die, whereas in reality it is around 10%, so it is worse than we were at first lead to believe. This I think was one of the key factors why the UK was slow to adopt a lock down while other countries appeared to adopt that approach much earlier. The reason for that I think is that we have allowed Brexit to become the main focal point for the last 4 years and paid less attention to what is actually happening globally than we otherwise would have. It caught us of guard and ill prepared for its onslaught brought about by our frankly ridiculous time scale to negotiate our exit from the EU.

[bd139]

ahhh man.  you brits and your quaint sayings.

so what does "scratching your head with a banana" actually mean?

I was literally scratching my head with a banana. Hot summer, itchy from spending all day installing servers into a non air conditioned office. Figured the tough arse of a banana would be fine thing to scratch my sweaty head with. Not when Hertfordshire police are around though! 

Edit: random technical question for the experts in here seeing as we seem to have such diverse interests and knowledge: can someone recommend a lighter that isn't a piece of shit? I don't smoke and the last one I had was a zippo which was basically perpetually used to set off fireworks when I was a teenager and was a pain in the arse and nearly burned me to death on several occasions

I've been through all sorts of lighters over the years. If you need something genuinely windproof and waterproof then one of the lighters that uses a catalytic grid is the thing to go for - the last one I had was a no-name one that had o-ring seals on that I got from Field and Trek about 20 years ago and died last year. For non truly windproof lighters then the Poppell disposable lighters  (piezo type) sold everywhere are remarkably reliable and durable. I had one of the same design that is on sale at the moment last several years of daily use.

Thanks. I shall look into them. I’m not too bothered about all weather survival jobbies here as there’s not much that’ll catch fire in such situations usually but worth a look at it for the ignition capability in normal circumstances.

[Specmaster]

ahhh man.  you brits and your quaint sayings.

so what does "scratching your head with a banana" actually mean?

I was literally scratching my head with a banana. Hot summer, itchy from spending all day installing servers into a non air conditioned office. Figured the tough arse of a banana would be fine thing to scratch my sweaty head with. Not when Hertfordshire police are around though! 

Yep, I can concur with that feeling, having used pencils in the past when in an old car without AC on a really hot summers day, to scratch my head as to use your fingers would have resulted in very wet fingers which would then end up on the steering wheel and make it also wet and slippery, not recommended on cars without power steering.

[Cerebus]

No, I was talking about the hospitalized figures and that is what was presented a while ago, that only around 1% of those confirmed and admitted to hospitals would die, whereas in reality it is around 10%, so it is worse than we were at first lead to believe.

OK, we're on the same page now, sort of. The case fatality rate is ~1% give or take, that's what I and most people, certainly epidemiologists, would casually call a fatality rate. That's the figure that's been bandied about, not the fatality rate for people admitted to hospital - which could easily be on the close order of 10%. So reality is bearing out the predictions, it's as bad as predicted not, thankfully, worse.