Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tautech]

Just removed the rubbery goo that was covering the driver chip. 16 pin.

Most usually a 8 pin chip.....just saying.

Give us the # on that chap please.

Are you drunk or what ?! 

I already gave you the P/N in huge big bold letters, in that very message that you replied to ! 

And no it's not 8 pin, I just said it was 16 ! 

Maybe you have not had your morning coffee just yet ?! 

The other TV was also a 16 pin controller. An MP3394S.

This one as I just said, not 100% sure what the P/N is, but at least sure about the first characters and no match on Google that I can see.


OK, it's morning for you I guess, but 02H30 for me here, I am going to bed... now.

See you later.... 

Best you do after a  reply like that ! 
I asked a civil question and get this BS. 

Off now to put customers purchases in the mail..........

[mnementh]

TEAMS sorted... friend paid me a visit this evening, passed me his old work laptop.

While I think another poor soul in Teams is not a thing to celebrate per se, this is excellent news for you as it's a potential stepping stone.

1000x this. We all have to get our hands dirty to make the world a better place... Teams is Vince's Pandora Box Shithole, just like MS Ticketing once was mine. 

Please take a moment to say a prayer for both our tarnished souls, my brothers; before the old ones carry us off... 

mnem
I am not my pants. No, I am not your pants, either.

My company uses Teams.  We actually went from Skype for Business to Teams.  Our bi-weekly conference calls are on Teams.  I participate by phone only, even when I am not actually on the road.  I had a program manager call me today asking why I didn't respond to his question in Teams chat.  I said I was in the kitchen.  He said that I was green and asked if I use a mouse jiggler.  I said of course, I can't stand my laptop suspending itself every 15 minutes and it can't be disabled, I don't have that level of privilage.  That little jiggler dongle is a life saver.

Thankfully, I am not my pants either.  I have forgotten my phone, keys, wallet, BT headset and pen but I haven't YET left the house without my pants.  Yet.  I hope that day never comes.   My memory seems to be slipping more and more.  Mrs GreyWoolfe thinks its the chemotherapy/fatigue from it that causes my memory issues.  I will not disabuse her of that notion.

This fellow seems to have done pretty well after forgetting his pants; I wouldn't worry too much aboot it.

mnem

[Saskia]

just a quick update: Hubby and me seem to have pulled thru. COVID tests are back to negative. Still weak and coughing our brains out tho

[Cubdriver]

just a quick update: Hubby and me seem to have pulled thru. COVID tests are back to negative. Still weak and coughing our brains out tho

Glad to hear you’re back to negative for the Coof.  Hope the cough and weakness leaves soon, too.

-Pat

[Saskia]

thnx, it's a Bronchitis and I am on cortisone inhaler for that ..
still feel rotten, but at least I am able to stand ... ( which was difficult for a couple of days ...
Still on sick leave until at least end of week. Missed a whole lot at work ....

[mansaxel]

The rest, not so much: a major benefit of going out is to inhabit somewhere completely different, not to stay in cyberspace.

The trick is to do Augmented Reality -- experience the Real World enhanced with information from Other Places. It makes the Real World a more multifaceted place. And it takes less time to immerse yourself into something when you can apply the aggregate previous knowledge of the world on top of the actual experience.  The most obvious example to me is GPS and electronic maps.

That feels close to someone else indicating what I should experience, and to avoiding thinking and planning, and accidentally avoiding serendipity. (One of my favourite concepts and words!)

Do offline research, then experience X for yourself, then do research to find what you missed. And equally, what other people missed.

I argue they're essentially the same; what's being done is shortening the feedback cycle.

For the furthering of knowledge, there's nothing like aggregating and criticising said knowledge and disseminating it (both before and after critique; what's in the cupboard can't be discussed, so dissemination is essential to critique). This, the Internet and the applications built on the changing circumstances that data flows are available and cheaply so, has made faster. 

What I do when I travel is to make heavy use of online resources to plan in advance.  Then, I have stored information easily carried (one of my favourite tools is a GPS app for Android that is completely offline-capable; it uses OpenStreetMap data that can be freely downloaded) that is the guide book of what I have decided to do. As we travel, we verify and enhance the online resources we use -- the hotels all get reviews that add to data and so on.

But, having the tools available at low cost (thanks to the EU and their telco-whipping policies) makes it possible to do a more fluid information processing. What I described above is "easy" to do on paper too. I've done it, several times.  But, I'd rather not, again.

Two examples;

• Day before yesterday, we were zig-zagging around the northern peak of Luxembourg to do three earlier planned things, get from Dortmund to Sedan, shop and fill up diesel in Luxembourg (very cheap!) and pass Bastogne to see the Battle of the Bulge museum.  I went through this region with my parents a very snowy Easter in the early 80s and we were amazed at the amount of war memorials; there's one in every village, and not the usual "Aux Morts" we see in France, but a Sherman tank or similar. I had been talking about that with my own family, and on a whim decided to try finding one. Sure, 8 km away from where we were, there was a PaK 43 in a park, with a stone talking about the US 6th armoured division.  This took 5 minutes to find online, and enhanced the day.
• Yesterday as we were done with visiting the Main de Massiges outdoor trench museum, youngest son was hungry and specifically wanted pizza. Online, we located a pizzeria in a nearby town, got the directions and drove there. The pizza was excellent! This saved enormous amounts of time, and made for a better experience.

[mansaxel]

Pah! You can have my compass and Ordnance Survey 1:25000 maps when you can prise them out of my cold dead hands.

I've done that, and since we actually have forests we're allowed to be in (Allemansrätt, the ages-old right of Swedes to be in the forest and do actually quite a lot, regardless who owns the forest.) I've made some pretty serious cross-country trips on maps alone. If I can, I have both, please.

Now, while being on a long motoring trip in Europe, we carry several different GPS and map combinations (Android with both OpenStreetMap and Google maps; Apple and their maps, et c.) for redundancy.  No paper map, though. I brought it along several years without using it; this time I simply forgot because it did not even cross my mind.

Actually, I'm quite the luddite, but this is so good that I will adopt.

[mansaxel]

OSmaps show interesting features that you didn't know existed.
VR stuff tends to have advertising features that you don't care exist. Plus black propaganda, fake news, and people/organisations flashing "look at me".

No contest really.

I very specifically wrote Augmented Reality, not "VR".  That is a thing, actually.

You don't have to be on the Holo-Deck to use the Tricorder.

[Saskia]

@mansaxel located the HDMI matrix. Digitus 4*2 if I glanced at it correctly. pM if interested.

[bd139]

Pah! You can have my compass and Ordnance Survey 1:25000 maps when you can prise them out of my cold dead hands.

I've done that, and since we actually have forests we're allowed to be in (Allemansrätt, the ages-old right of Swedes to be in the forest and do actually quite a lot, regardless who owns the forest.) I've made some pretty serious cross-country trips on maps alone. If I can, I have both, please.

Now, while being on a long motoring trip in Europe, we carry several different GPS and map combinations (Android with both OpenStreetMap and Google maps; Apple and their maps, et c.) for redundancy.  No paper map, though. I brought it along several years without using it; this time I simply forgot because it did not even cross my mind.

Actually, I'm quite the luddite, but this is so good that I will adopt.

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.

Killer feature? Not having to piss around with a map case in this…



22km of 80mph gusts and pissing rain. My phone was soaked through to the point there was all sorts of detritus floating in the clear case. So map would have been mush, even the plastic coated ones!

I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

[Specmaster]

Let's see....am I in the right thread? 

Anyway, starting looking at this FUBAR'ed Type 1A1 plug-in. On the lower vertical settings (20mV, 10mV, 5mV) ranges there is considerable noise on the channel 1 trace. And the noise is still present when the input is set to GND position.



First suspects are FET's Q122 and Q142. Located on this little pre-amp board. I have spares from a parts Type 1A1. Changed them out and it took care of the excess noise. However, now the DC balance, gain, compensation for channel 1 are completely out the window and I'll have to re-calibrate Channel 1.





Once Channel 1 is re-calibrated then on to Channel 2. On the lower vertical settings the high frequency compensation is peaking and can't be adjusted out.

Cool, you're back I see, I thought you'd huffed and puffed and went back to your vacation again 

[tggzzz]

The rest, not so much: a major benefit of going out is to inhabit somewhere completely different, not to stay in cyberspace.

The trick is to do Augmented Reality -- experience the Real World enhanced with information from Other Places. It makes the Real World a more multifaceted place. And it takes less time to immerse yourself into something when you can apply the aggregate previous knowledge of the world on top of the actual experience.  The most obvious example to me is GPS and electronic maps.

That feels close to someone else indicating what I should experience, and to avoiding thinking and planning, and accidentally avoiding serendipity. (One of my favourite concepts and words!)

Do offline research, then experience X for yourself, then do research to find what you missed. And equally, what other people missed.

I argue they're essentially the same; what's being done is shortening the feedback cycle.

VR tends to present what someone else determines is interesting is to an average person, and too often that means profitable for them.

Offline research allows you to pull together multiple disparate sources of information that are relevant to your peculiar (even strange!) interests.

For the furthering of knowledge, there's nothing like aggregating and criticising said knowledge and disseminating it (both before and after critique; what's in the cupboard can't be discussed, so dissemination is essential to critique). This, the Internet and the applications built on the changing circumstances that data flows are available and cheaply so, has made faster. 

Agreed, but that isn't VR.

What I do when I travel is to make heavy use of online resources to plan in advance.  Then, I have stored information easily carried (one of my favourite tools is a GPS app for Android that is completely offline-capable; it uses OpenStreetMap data that can be freely downloaded) that is the guide book of what I have decided to do. As we travel, we verify and enhance the online resources we use -- the hotels all get reviews that add to data and so on.

I often use Openstreetmap, and have contributed corrections to it that Google continues to screw up. Prime example near me is finally recognising that an 80 year old road exists, but putting it in the wrong place (residents now put house numbers on their back gates!) and giving identifies some house with two different unique <cough> postcodes!

But Openstreetmap (and all the others) doesn't allow you to browse to find non-commercial interesting things that you didn't realise you might find - i.e. serendipity. As one example, see the difference between an Openstreetmap map and a "paper" map...

But, having the tools available at low cost (thanks to the EU and their telco-whipping policies) makes it possible to do a more fluid information processing. What I described above is "easy" to do on paper too. I've done it, several times.  But, I'd rather not, again.

Two examples;

• Day before yesterday, we were zig-zagging around the northern peak of Luxembourg to do three earlier planned things, get from Dortmund to Sedan, shop and fill up diesel in Luxembourg (very cheap!) and pass Bastogne to see the Battle of the Bulge museum.  I went through this region with my parents a very snowy Easter in the early 80s and we were amazed at the amount of war memorials; there's one in every village, and not the usual "Aux Morts" we see in France, but a Sherman tank or similar. I had been talking about that with my own family, and on a whim decided to try finding one. Sure, 8 km away from where we were, there was a PaK 43 in a park, with a stone talking about the US 6th armoured division.  This took 5 minutes to find online, and enhanced the day.
• Yesterday as we were done with visiting the Main de Massiges outdoor trench museum, youngest son was hungry and specifically wanted pizza. Online, we located a pizzeria in a nearby town, got the directions and drove there. The pizza was excellent! This saved enormous amounts of time, and made for a better experience.

Online searching is usually better than offline searching. But browsing enables you to spot things you weren't expecting.

But, to me, neither of those is "true VR". Yes, I expect we could have long discussions about what "true VR" might mean, and wouldn't agree a definition but would agree on relative characteristics.

[AVGresponding]

<Snip>

Lloyds have been very good for me for the last twenty-odd years, with good customer service in UK call centres. Though personally I would try to pick a bank with a branch as local to you as possible (such things do still exist, though sometimes I think they are only accessible from platform 12 3/4).



EDIT: Also their data centre is just down the road from me, so if they screw up I can knock on the door with a frowny face on...

Equally I can say the same about the Cooperative bank, local branches and an excellent banking app and 24hr telephone service.

Having contracted for Cooperative bank I would rather keep my money in BTC. The whole company is held together with sticky tape and string. That's all I'm going to say on the matter.

Oh and don't get me started on their funeral care who took £150 of donated flowers to the wrong bloody funeral, were late and an absolute shit show to deal with offering no compensation or even an apology from their branch or the call centre.

I still fume quietly when I'm reminded of this horrific example of corporate incompetence. As a Co-Op member, I was utterly disgusted when they chose to sell their profit-making farms in order to prop up their loss-making bank.

[tggzzz]

OSmaps show interesting features that you didn't know existed.
VR stuff tends to have advertising features that you don't care exist. Plus black propaganda, fake news, and people/organisations flashing "look at me".

No contest really.

I very specifically wrote Augmented Reality, not "VR".  That is a thing, actually.

You don't have to be on the Holo-Deck to use the Tricorder.

Indeed, but there is a lot of grey overlap!

[AVGresponding]

TV REPAIR

I guess of course the most likely suspect is the MOSFET. So I could just remove it, should be easy, and stick it in my superb, very helpful 5 Euros Chinese component tester... I am so happy I bought this horrible thing, one of the best investments in the lab 

Stay tuned !!!   

Did you check those MOSFETs yet? Interesting to see that the two are from different batches/manufacturers, and also to note that the left-hand one appears to have far less heatsink compound between it and the heatsink.

[Specmaster]

thnx, it's a Bronchitis and I am on cortisone inhaler for that ..
still feel rotten, but at least I am able to stand ... ( which was difficult for a couple of days ...
Still on sick leave until at least end of week. Missed a whole lot at work ....

Glad to hear you're recovering, over here, our crazy lot in power still want people to work and pass it onto others 

[tggzzz]

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.
...
I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

Yes, but in the UK it isn't illegal to sit in a stationary car and read a paper map. Touch a phone to do that and you've committed an offence which can get your driving licence revoked.

Yes, I know it is more nuanced than that. The whole topic is subject for creative misinterpretation by drivers and the police

Try to choose an alternative route on a satnav, and it is nearly impossible. The best route is what the manufacturer in their "wisdom" decides is the best route. Plenty of scope for arguments with daughter there

[tggzzz]

thnx, it's a Bronchitis and I am on cortisone inhaler for that ..
still feel rotten, but at least I am able to stand ... ( which was difficult for a couple of days ...
Still on sick leave until at least end of week. Missed a whole lot at work ....

Glad to hear you're recovering, over here, our crazy lot in power still want people to work and pass it onto others 

It is worse than that. Their philosophical stance of what ought to be prevents them from recommending simple cheap everyday precautions such as using ventilation and masks.

Long covid isn't and won't be a problem for individuals and companies <cough>

[Specmaster]

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.
...
I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

Yes, but in the UK it isn't illegal to sit in a stationary car and read a paper map. Touch a phone to do that and you've committed an offence which can get your driving licence revoked.

Yes, I know it is more nuanced than that. The whole topic is subject for creative misinterpretation by drivers and the police

Try to choose an alternative route on a satnav, and it is nearly impossible. The best route is what the manufacturer in their "wisdom" decides is the best route. Plenty of scope for arguments with daughter there

Even using a satnav unless it is built into the car can land you in trouble, clearly these new laws have been written by an idiot who has zero idea of what they are doing. What harm are you doing if you are stationary (not in a traffic jam, but parked at road side), your not currently driving so no danger to others. I expect the next thing will be banning drivers from talking to passengers FFS.

[bd139]

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.
...
I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

Yes, but in the UK it isn't illegal to sit in a stationary car and read a paper map. Touch a phone to do that and you've committed an offence which can get your driving licence revoked.

Yes, I know it is more nuanced than that. The whole topic is subject for creative misinterpretation by drivers and the police

Try to choose an alternative route on a satnav, and it is nearly impossible. The best route is what the manufacturer in their "wisdom" decides is the best route. Plenty of scope for arguments with daughter there

Full circle. Thanks to the ML processor on my phone I talk to it so I don’t have to touch it.

And it works with alternative routes with trade offs and noticed traffic changes.

And the audio integrates with the car and the built in control stalks.

[vk6zgo]

Monochrome TV sets have a higher resolution than the colour ones.

Here in Germany we are having a bandwidth for the black-and-white TV sets of 5MHz.
For the colour ones (PAL) it is 4.43MHz. The difference goes into the vector encoding for the colours.

More than that in most analogue colour TV encoding schemes the chroma information is at half or less of the bandwidth of the luminance information. e.g. in PAL the colour burst has just enough bandwidth to set the colour for two adjacent pixels on the line (if you define pixel by the horizontal resolution of the luminance signal). This has carried over into some of the digital TV encoding schemes, which is why high quality black and white movies seem crisper than colour ones, because they are.

The human eye has better resolution for black & white than for colour, so the bandwidth of the luma image is designed to be considerably greater than the chroma information.

There are diagrams showing the luma information up to 4.443 MHz, with chroma beyond that point.
These do not show the full story, however, as looking at the video signal with a Spectrum Analyser reveals that the luma information appears as a number of carriers at multiples of the line frequency with upper & lower sidebands at multiples of field rate.

Between these carriers, there are gaps' in the spectrum containing very little information.
The Chroma carrier is offset so that its sidebands appear in these "gaps"---in effect, "frequency interlace".

Early domestic Colour TVs could not distinguish between the two sets of signals in the Chroma region, because they used simple filters.
Later designs used "comb filters" & could resolve the full luma spectra.

[Cerebus]

Thankfully, I am not my pants either.  I have forgotten my phone, keys, wallet, BT headset and pen but I haven't YET left the house without my pants.  Yet.  I hope that day never comes.  

Why not? it's fun to go out without your pants. Ask any toddler. 

My memory seems to be slipping more and more.  Mrs GreyWoolfe thinks its the chemotherapy/fatigue from it that causes my memory issues.  I will not disabuse her of that notion.

You aren't losing your marbles yet, it is the chemo. A friend has been complaining about getting "chemo brain" after his treatments but he bounces back to normal after a couple of weeks.

[Cerebus]

Just so.

OSmaps show interesting features that you didn't know existed.
VR stuff tends to have advertising features that you don't care exist. Plus black propaganda, fake news, and people/organisations flashing "look at me".

No contest really.

You used to be able to get that just from a quiet stroll on Hampstead Heath. 

[tggzzz]

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.
...
I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

Yes, but in the UK it isn't illegal to sit in a stationary car and read a paper map. Touch a phone to do that and you've committed an offence which can get your driving licence revoked.

Yes, I know it is more nuanced than that. The whole topic is subject for creative misinterpretation by drivers and the police

Try to choose an alternative route on a satnav, and it is nearly impossible. The best route is what the manufacturer in their "wisdom" decides is the best route. Plenty of scope for arguments with daughter there

Full circle. Thanks to the ML processor on my phone I talk to it so I don’t have to touch it.

And it works with alternative routes with trade offs and noticed traffic changes.

Traffic changes, sometimes but not always.

How does it display multiple alternative routes and the tradeoffs? How do you tell it what tradeoffs you regard as important?

And the audio integrates with the car and the built in control stalks.

Ah yes, the old voice recognition trick in which you walk up to someone's computer and say "sudo rm -rf /"  And they are saved by it autocorrupting it to "sugar rm -rf slash".

[bd139]

Yeah there are some recent advances which pretty much make the paper maps a backup option only in the UK. It has got to the point where even on the mountain leader courses it’s secondary navigation only.

The OSMaps app is a fine example. You have vector, 25k and 50k layers, full offline support, precise positioning and backtracking. Importantly it’s far more up to date than paper maps, particularly in areas with coastal erosion which change very rapidly.   This all fits in a little box that lasts all day, is waterproof and takes photos too and works in the dark without having to shoot your adjusted eyes with a torch. And it syncs with the compass on your wrist to give you absolute bearings for each leg. Of course I have backup nav. I usually carry an eTrex 10 for backtracking and GPX plotting and paper map in bag.
...
I’ll take the phone any day! It’s much better.

Yes, but in the UK it isn't illegal to sit in a stationary car and read a paper map. Touch a phone to do that and you've committed an offence which can get your driving licence revoked.

Yes, I know it is more nuanced than that. The whole topic is subject for creative misinterpretation by drivers and the police

Try to choose an alternative route on a satnav, and it is nearly impossible. The best route is what the manufacturer in their "wisdom" decides is the best route. Plenty of scope for arguments with daughter there

Full circle. Thanks to the ML processor on my phone I talk to it so I don’t have to touch it.

And it works with alternative routes with trade offs and noticed traffic changes.

Traffic changes, sometimes but not always.

How does it display multiple alternative routes and the tradeoffs? How do you tell it what tradeoffs you regard as important?

And the audio integrates with the car and the built in control stalks.

Ah yes, the old voice recognition trick in which you walk up to someone's computer and say "sudo rm -rf /" 

You tell it what tradeoffs are important up front i.e. you don't want toll roads, don't like motorways etc. Then it remembers your preference. When you ask it to navigate to an address it gives you a shortest time and shortest distance option. When traffic changes it notifies you that it thinks it can save X minutes by rerouting and you can choose to accept it or decline it.

As for the voice recognition it doesn't allow you to do anything destructive by design i.e. you can't incur cost or delete things with it. That's a manual process. It's very well engineered in that respect.

I appreciate your cynical outlook on it. The ideas need testing. I am usually the first person to shred an idea that doesn't work or is stupid but these tools are significantly saving time, energy and cost or improving life in some way.

Importantly they enable me to have more time to enjoy what I want to do.