Favourite Test Equipment

Post by Cursitor Doom
Hi all,
I'm starting to get a bit fed up with having my test equipment blow up
just when it's needed. This is the drawback with vintage gear; if it's
not used frequently then it can go *bang* the next time you switch it
on. It makes for good practice in repairing stuff, but wastes a lot of
time which could be better spent doing other things.
I think it's time I modernised my test gear. I was just wondering if
anyone has any recommendations they can share. Is there a particular
piece of test equipment you couldn't live without? Something you're
particularly impressed with? I'd be interested to know so I can
perhaps acquire said item and thereby reduce the number of explosions
I experience.
Thanks,
CD.

The Rigol scopes are excellent. And you can run a fan or charge your
phone from the front-panel USB connector.

The Siglent power stuff seems good too.

Extech DVMs seem good too.

Cursitor Doom

2024-03-31 23:31:03 UTC

The Rigol scopes are excellent. And you can run a fan or charge your
phone from the front-panel USB connector.
The Siglent power stuff seems good too.
Extech DVMs seem good too.

I have not heard a bad word said about Rigol scopes yet. Siglent do
some interesting RF stuff at competetive prices, assuming the
quality's good (again, not heard anything to the contrary).

Jan Panteltje

2024-04-01 07:01:34 UTC

On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

Cursitor Doom

2024-04-01 08:39:59 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

I don't think any of us here truly understand what electrons do, Jan!
Boat anchors don't impress anyone nowadays; they're more likely to
make one look like some sort of oddball mad scientist who couldn't get
laid. ;-)
I'm guessing you don't have a TV. Would I be right?

Jan Panteltje

2024-04-01 11:36:48 UTC

On a sunny day (Mon, 01 Apr 2024 09:39:59 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with it, fixed it locating the problem with the other
channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

I learned the basics of how electrons behave and move as a small kid from this book:
https://www.boekenwebsite.nl/techniek/zowerkt-de-radio
'That is how radio works'
He also wrote
that is how TV works
and
That is how the transistor works.
I remember walking the streets of Amsterdam looking for usable parts for my own TV in primary school
Tried to make an OLED TV too.

In high-school were I build an tube amplifier for the school band
I got an old tube CRT from a TV shop.
Made an HV generator using a car ignition coil on the output of an old EL84 audio amp,
made that amp oscillate by feeding back some output to the input.
The output of the ignition coil rectified by an old TV HV diode
Horizontal deflection coils on same amp
Vertical defection coils on an other audio amp.
That was my first scope.
Not very high frequency..
Had a transistor FM transmitter of my own design working too,
we had a radio program!
As to understand electrons START THERE
That is what it is all about.
That is how I started as a kid, books from Van Aisberg
Later when studying electronics I got some old tube TV, and gradually replaced each part with transistors
rewound horizontal output transformer, build a new tuner.
By that time Elector magazine published the 'teletor'
https://archive.org/details/elektuur-36-1965-11_20200524
used some ideas from that and had my first transistor TV, mine was MUCH bigger had a real CRT.
In 1968 designed my own TV vidicon camara, left my current design job and started in broadcasting, hired on the spot,
6 month payed training in the school banks all about broadcasting all about television
Many years nothing but film, TV and audio, video recording, satellite, slow motion, video editing, running a TV studio, what not
So, you could f*cking learn a bit
Yes I have a nice Samsung TV and a portable one too.
I can build one from scrap in no time, but the digital decoders these days need a chip
but I can code that too.
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/newsflex/download.html
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/raspberry_pi_dvb-s_transmitter/

I like to open source things, worked in all sort of science fields electronics is used for,
from medical to space to army to navy to broadcasting, been there done it
Electrons try to understand, math is just about quantities and breaks down anyways as mamaticians will do a divide by zero
and claim a new reality.
EInsteinianism is brain dead.
hehe

PS I had a TV repair shop in Amsterdam for many years (see it is also going to ..repair)

.

legg

2024-04-01 12:29:00 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Mon, 01 Apr 2024 09:39:59 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with it, fixed it locating the problem with the other
channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

https://www.boekenwebsite.nl/techniek/zowerkt-de-radio
'That is how radio works'
that is how TV works
and
That is how the transistor works.
I remember walking the streets of Amsterdam looking for usable parts for my own TV in primary school
Tried to make an OLED TV too.
In high-school were I build an tube amplifier for the school band
I got an old tube CRT from a TV shop.
Made an HV generator using a car ignition coil on the output of an old EL84 audio amp,
made that amp oscillate by feeding back some output to the input.
The output of the ignition coil rectified by an old TV HV diode
Horizontal deflection coils on same amp
Vertical defection coils on an other audio amp.
That was my first scope.
Not very high frequency..
Had a transistor FM transmitter of my own design working too,
we had a radio program!
As to understand electrons START THERE
That is what it is all about.
That is how I started as a kid, books from Van Aisberg
Later when studying electronics I got some old tube TV, and gradually replaced each part with transistors
rewound horizontal output transformer, build a new tuner.
By that time Elector magazine published the 'teletor'
https://archive.org/details/elektuur-36-1965-11_20200524
used some ideas from that and had my first transistor TV, mine was MUCH bigger had a real CRT.
In 1968 designed my own TV vidicon camara, left my current design job and started in broadcasting, hired on the spot,
6 month payed training in the school banks all about broadcasting all about television
Many years nothing but film, TV and audio, video recording, satellite, slow motion, video editing, running a TV studio, what not
So, you could f*cking learn a bit
Yes I have a nice Samsung TV and a portable one too.
I can build one from scrap in no time, but the digital decoders these days need a chip
but I can code that too.
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/newsflex/download.html
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/raspberry_pi_dvb-s_transmitter/
I like to open source things, worked in all sort of science fields electronics is used for,
from medical to space to army to navy to broadcasting, been there done it
Electrons try to understand, math is just about quantities and breaks down anyways as mamaticians will do a divide by zero
and claim a new reality.
EInsteinianism is brain dead.
hehe
PS I had a TV repair shop in Amsterdam for many years (see it is also going to ..repair)
.

Jan, do you have a 'toy' budget?

Most new stuff (that might actually save time or work
better than home brew) seems to fall into that category.

RL

Jan Panteltje

2024-04-02 10:51:30 UTC

On a sunny day (Mon, 01 Apr 2024 08:29:00 -0400) it happened legg

Post by legg
Jan, do you have a 'toy' budget?
Most new stuff (that might actually save time or work
better than home brew) seems to fall into that category.

No idea what you mean by that.
What are you doing and what do you want to accomplish?

Jan Panteltje

2024-05-02 07:59:37 UTC

On a sunny day (Mon, 01 Apr 2024 09:39:59 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with it, fixed it locating the problem with the other
channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

John Larkin

2024-05-02 15:12:38 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Mon, 01 Apr 2024 09:39:59 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with it, fixed it locating the problem with the other
channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

There was a cool book, "A Boy And A Battery"

Jan Panteltje

2024-05-02 08:00:18 UTC

On a sunny day (Mon, 01 Apr 2024 09:39:59 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with it, fixed it locating the problem with the other
channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

piglet

2024-04-01 12:09:00 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

Many wise words there.

Boat anchors can still be great as they require you to understand better
what is being measured and don’t hide things away with abstraction and
unhelpful software.

--
piglet

John Larkin

2024-04-01 16:15:42 UTC

On Mon, 1 Apr 2024 12:09:00 -0000 (UTC), piglet

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

Many wise words there.
Boat anchors can still be great as they require you to understand better
what is being measured and dont hide things away with abstraction and
unhelpful software.

A color digital scope is fabulous. It can measure volts and time and
frequency, save and analyze waveforms, display pre-trigger, and you
can lift one with one hand. And the traces are in color!

Cursitor Doom

2024-04-01 16:37:49 UTC

Post by John Larkin
On Mon, 1 Apr 2024 12:09:00 -0000 (UTC), piglet

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

Many wise words there.
Boat anchors can still be great as they require you to understand better
what is being measured and dont hide things away with abstraction and
unhelpful software.

A color digital scope is fabulous. It can measure volts and time and
frequency, save and analyze waveforms, display pre-trigger, and you
can lift one with one hand. And the traces are in color!

I know they have their advantages, but they can also tell lies by
showing glitches in waveforms that are internally generated by the
scope rather than the DUT. For such occasions, it can be very useful
to keep an old analogue scope. I've got 13 of 'em!

john larkin

2024-04-01 17:30:50 UTC

Post by John Larkin
On Mon, 1 Apr 2024 12:09:00 -0000 (UTC), piglet

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

Many wise words there.
Boat anchors can still be great as they require you to understand better
what is being measured and dont hide things away with abstraction and
unhelpful software.

A color digital scope is fabulous. It can measure volts and time and
frequency, save and analyze waveforms, display pre-trigger, and you
can lift one with one hand. And the traces are in color!

I know they have their advantages, but they can also tell lies by
showing glitches in waveforms that are internally generated by the
scope rather than the DUT.

I've never seen that. Aliasing is obvious.

Post by Cursitor Doom
For such occasions, it can be very useful
to keep an old analogue scope. I've got 13 of 'em!

I have several oldn Taks on carts, as antiques, but I never expect to
power them up again.

We do have a bunch of 11801 samplers that still work. They are all
solid-state except for the raster-scan CRT.

Phil Hobbs

2024-04-02 09:56:33 UTC

Post by John Larkin
On Mon, 1 Apr 2024 12:09:00 -0000 (UTC), piglet

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter,
still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

Many wise words there.
Boat anchors can still be great as they require you to understand better
what is being measured and dont hide things away with abstraction and
unhelpful software.

A color digital scope is fabulous. It can measure volts and time and
frequency, save and analyze waveforms, display pre-trigger, and you
can lift one with one hand. And the traces are in color!

I know they have their advantages, but they can also tell lies by
showing glitches in waveforms that are internally generated by the
scope rather than the DUT.

I've never seen that. Aliasing is obvious.

Some instruments do kick crap out of their inputs. I have an otherwise very
nice Krohn-Hite tunable filter box that is hard to use because of its
terrible kickout.

Scopes generally don’t do that, because there are vertical amps and
attenuators in the way.

However, you do need to understand a little bit about how sampling works.
For instance, say you’re looking at a noisy signal. You want to see some
more detail, so you start cranking the horizontal scale knob to the right.
Everything looks fine until you get past the maximum sampling rate.

The scale keeps getting finer, but the display breaks up completely,
turning into a lot of nearly vertical lines. Of course that’s because it’s
gone from real-time to equivalent-time sampling, but it’s puzzling the
first time you see it. (To the analog-only folks: ET is useful, but
requires careful attention to triggering and averaging. )

In general, 1980-2005ish vintage boat anchors really rock, but you have to
get the best. Just yesterday I bought a Tek TDS 684C—1 GHz BW, 4 GS/s
simultaneously on all four channels, with fabulous knob response. It was
$300, about 1.5 cents on the dollar versus new.

When I was at IBM, bought one brand new in the late 90s (probably $20k) and
used it for nearly everything.

Post by Cursitor Doom
For such occasions, it can be very useful
to keep an old analogue scope. I've got 13 of 'em!

I have several oldn Taks on carts, as antiques, but I never expect to
power them up again.
We do have a bunch of 11801 samplers that still work. They are all
solid-state except for the raster-scan CRT.

I’m a big fan of those too, and use them often. I have a very nearly
complete collection of sampling and O/E heads, too—just missing the SD-32
50 GHz sampler.

Right now I’m working on a lab amplifier, based on three paralleled
SAV-331+ pHEMTs. Characterizing its noise performance is turning out to be
a bit of a puzzle, despite a pile of top-of-the-line boat anchors, but I’ll
keep that for its own thread.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC /
Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

John Larkin

2024-04-02 15:07:56 UTC

On Tue, 2 Apr 2024 09:56:33 -0000 (UTC), Phil Hobbs

Post by John Larkin
On Mon, 1 Apr 2024 12:09:00 -0000 (UTC), piglet

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter,
still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

Many wise words there.
Boat anchors can still be great as they require you to understand better
what is being measured and don?t hide things away with abstraction and
unhelpful software.

A color digital scope is fabulous. It can measure volts and time and
frequency, save and analyze waveforms, display pre-trigger, and you
can lift one with one hand. And the traces are in color!

I know they have their advantages, but they can also tell lies by
showing glitches in waveforms that are internally generated by the
scope rather than the DUT.

I've never seen that. Aliasing is obvious.

Some instruments do kick crap out of their inputs. I have an otherwise very
nice Krohn-Hite tunable filter box that is hard to use because of its
terrible kickout.
Scopes generally dont do that, because there are vertical amps and
attenuators in the way.
However, you do need to understand a little bit about how sampling works.
For instance, say youre looking at a noisy signal. You want to see some
more detail, so you start cranking the horizontal scale knob to the right.
Everything looks fine until you get past the maximum sampling rate.
The scale keeps getting finer, but the display breaks up completely,
turning into a lot of nearly vertical lines. Of course thats because its
gone from real-time to equivalent-time sampling, but its puzzling the
first time you see it. (To the analog-only folks: ET is useful, but
requires careful attention to triggering and averaging. )
In general, 1980-2005ish vintage boat anchors really rock, but you have to
get the best. Just yesterday I bought a Tek TDS 684C1 GHz BW, 4 GS/s
simultaneously on all four channels, with fabulous knob response. It was
$300, about 1.5 cents on the dollar versus new.

You've seen my SDxx sampling head collection. Must have been worth
$250K new, twice that adjusted for inflation.

Post by Phil Hobbs
When I was at IBM, bought one brand new in the late 90s (probably $20k) and
used it for nearly everything.

Post by Cursitor Doom
For such occasions, it can be very useful
to keep an old analogue scope. I've got 13 of 'em!

I have several oldn Taks on carts, as antiques, but I never expect to
power them up again.
We do have a bunch of 11801 samplers that still work. They are all
solid-state except for the raster-scan CRT.

Im a big fan of those too, and use them often. I have a very nearly
complete collection of sampling and O/E heads, toojust missing the SD-32
50 GHz sampler.

Some day my 11802 will die. I'll mourn it.

Post by Phil Hobbs
Right now Im working on a lab amplifier, based on three paralleled
SAV-331+ pHEMTs. Characterizing its noise performance is turning out to be
a bit of a puzzle, despite a pile of top-of-the-line boat anchors, but Ill
keep that for its own thread.

The old HP analog noise figure meters got way sub 1 dB, with some sort
of lock-in technique.

I remember some germanium jfets that got below 1 dB at low MHz (for a
Raydist navigation receiver, pre-GPS) and was astounded.

Come to think of it, I slightly helped get GPS started. That's another
story.

Jan Panteltje

2024-04-02 10:10:36 UTC

On a sunny day (Mon, 1 Apr 2024 12:09:00 -0000 (UTC)) it happened piglet

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

Many wise words there.
Boat anchors can still be great as they require you to understand better
what is being measured and donât hide things away with abstraction and
unhelpful software.

That is why I still use an analog scope
it is old, it is big, but it does not lie.

I build a 300 MHz analog one long time ago,
but then moved to far away and donated all stuff,
including my guitar and trumpet .. amplifiers, audio and video tape recorders, records, TV, radio, what not.

And then many years later when back in the Netherlands started accumulating stuff again, now have boxes full of electronics
and a nice musical keyboard to play with.
For me it all is a learning experiment / experience.
Maybe some code I wrote or some circuit I designed helped somebody, cool.
I never use much math, a tennis player does not use math to see where the ball will go (wind speed, mass of ball, force of backhand, angles,
would take ages.
It is all in my neural net, electronics
And somehow everything works.
Maybe some small building blocks, circuits that I then combine, ever newer ones being accumulated trying out things.
I did some neural net programming years ago, good chance Ai can beat us in a while.
It can already do that in the medical field
But it does not stop at electronics for me, I am very interested in the things it is used for,
been working in many fields fixing and designing electronics.
What you learn in one you can sometimes use in the other.

John Larkin

2024-04-02 15:09:18 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Mon, 1 Apr 2024 12:09:00 -0000 (UTC)) it happened piglet

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

Many wise words there.
Boat anchors can still be great as they require you to understand better
what is being measured and don’t hide things away with abstraction and
unhelpful software.

That is why I still use an analog scope
it is old, it is big, but it does not lie.
I build a 300 MHz analog one long time ago,
but then moved to far away and donated all stuff,
including my guitar and trumpet .. amplifiers, audio and video tape recorders, records, TV, radio, what not.
And then many years later when back in the Netherlands started accumulating stuff again, now have boxes full of electronics
and a nice musical keyboard to play with.
For me it all is a learning experiment / experience.
Maybe some code I wrote or some circuit I designed helped somebody, cool.
I never use much math, a tennis player does not use math to see where the ball will go (wind speed, mass of ball, force of backhand, angles,
would take ages.
It is all in my neural net, electronics
And somehow everything works.
Maybe some small building blocks, circuits that I then combine, ever newer ones being accumulated trying out things.
I did some neural net programming years ago, good chance Ai can beat us in a while.
It can already do that in the medical field
But it does not stop at electronics for me, I am very interested in the things it is used for,
been working in many fields fixing and designing electronics.
What you learn in one you can sometimes use in the other.

We still have one Tek 7104 (1 GHz microchannel analog scope) that
works. One of my guys likes it.

Gerhard Hoffmann

2024-04-05 21:31:28 UTC

Post by John Larkin
We still have one Tek 7104 (1 GHz microchannel analog scope) that
works. One of my guys likes it.

Wasn't that the scope that always switched off the beam current
when things got interesting?

Gerhard

john larkin

2024-04-05 21:42:55 UTC

Post by Gerhard Hoffmann

Post by John Larkin
We still have one Tek 7104 (1 GHz microchannel analog scope) that
works. One of my guys likes it.

Wasn't that the scope that always switched off the beam current
when things got interesting?
Gerhard

Yes, it shuts off the display often, to not wear out the microchannel
plate.

One develops a sophisticated thumb-flic motion to hit the enable
button in milliseconds. You can see a single-shot sweep at 1 ns/cm.

The 719 was a fast CRT scope too, but the screen was about the size of
a postage stamp, and there was no vertical amplifier. I don't want one
of those huge ugly beasts, but I do have a CRT. I dug it out of a 719
in a parking lot in Los Alamos, in the cold rain.

John Larkin

2024-04-06 02:34:05 UTC

Post by Gerhard Hoffmann

Post by John Larkin
We still have one Tek 7104 (1 GHz microchannel analog scope) that
works. One of my guys likes it.

Wasn't that the scope that always switched off the beam current
when things got interesting?
Gerhard

Yes, it shuts off the display often, to not wear out the microchannel
plate.
One develops a sophisticated thumb-flic motion to hit the enable
button in milliseconds. You can see a single-shot sweep at 1 ns/cm.
The 719 was a fast CRT scope too, but the screen was about the size of
a postage stamp, and there was no vertical amplifier. I don't want one
of those huge ugly beasts, but I do have a CRT. I dug it out of a 719
in a parking lot in Los Alamos, in the cold rain.

Sorry, that was a 519.

Loading Image...

Klaus Vestergaard Kragelund

2024-04-04 09:55:40 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

Very true about specifically the 1% statement. Sidebar, at an earlier
employment, we needed to equip a new lab. Guys wanted GHz scopes. When
asked if the ever looked at edges faster than 1ns, no one did.

Jan Panteltje

2024-04-04 11:44:57 UTC

On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:55:40 +0200) it happened Klaus Vestergaard

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with it, fixed it locating the problem with the other
channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

When a kid you could test if the 4.5 V battery was empty with your tongue
(nowadays likely forbidden to do that ;-)

It is all relative
In the frequency domain the rtl-sdr sticks I have are 1 ppm.
I do have a 10 MHz Rubidium frequency reference, was cheap, from ebay
that I can use for frequency stuff so as to lock the xtal oscillator in my satellite LNB
that has around 10 GHz in and 1 GHz out, into that RTL-SDR stick, was good enough
for SSB reception (so a few hundred Hz accuracy) on QO100
Loading Image...

replaced that crystal in the LNB on the right by 24 Mhz external reference locked to the 10 MHz Rubidium reference
Loading Image...

about 1 GHz LNB output to the rtl-sdr stick, so now have a 10 GHz spectrum analyzer.. few Hz precision...
Even without the Rubidium lock:
Loading Image...

Cost, a few Euro, cheap LNBs are 5 dollar on ebay, but have no xtal oscillator but some ceramic resonator so drift a lot, too much for SSB,
but still useful for watching spectra...

signal generator:
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/newsflex/download.html#freq_pi

frequency counter;
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/pic/freq_pic/index.html
cost < 10 Euro

Its easy,..

Phil Hobbs

2024-04-04 11:56:23 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

It’s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all you’re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.

It’s also true that you can often make do with what you have—the most
important test instrument is the one between your ears.

In the before times, doctors were much better with stethoscopes than they
are now.

But I’d sure prefer a cardiologist who could use tomography and ultrasound
over the best stethoscope guy.

And it’s a lot easier finding gigahertz oscillations if you aren’t limited
to a 10-MHz
scope with scale marks in cuneiform.

Good boat anchors make capability like that very affordable. My lab is full
of top-of-the-line gear (over $2M at list price), for which I’ve paid about
2-3 cents on the dollar. (Not counting a few very helpful donations early
on.) Of course I have some good newer stuff, such as a two-channel arb, a
NanoVNA2, and a logic analyzer with protocol decoding.

It’s a bit old-school-looking, so it doesn’t impress visitors unless they
actually know something, and that suits me perfectly well.

But by all means don’t buy any, so it’ll keep being cheap for me. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC /
Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

John Larkin

2024-04-04 15:04:13 UTC

On Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC), Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

Its true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all youre doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.
Its also true that you can often make do with what you havethe most
important test instrument is the one between your ears.
In the before times, doctors were much better with stethoscopes than they
are now.
But Id sure prefer a cardiologist who could use tomography and ultrasound
over the best stethoscope guy.
And its a lot easier finding gigahertz oscillations if you arent limited
to a 10-MHz
scope with scale marks in cuneiform.

We have a product in development, a new digital delay generator, that
had too many picoseconds of excess, erratic jitter. Turns out that the
50 MHz LC oscillator squeggs at about 6 GHz, which I guess is my
fault. We found that with a spectrum analyzer, not a scope.

My new oscillator, using a BUF602 as the gain element, looks good.
Jitter is under 10 ps RMS at 5 usec out, which is great for a
triggered LC.

The Rigol scopes are pretty good frequency counters too. Mine hasn't
been calibrated in maybe 5 years, and I checked it against a 10 MHz
GPS, and it's perfect, given its 1 PPM resolution.

Bill Sloman

2024-04-05 06:04:22 UTC

Post by John Larkin
On Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC), Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

But it's rubbish for a free-running oscillator

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7331424

https://spectrum.ieee.org/for-precision-the-sapphire-clock-outshines-even-the-best-atomic-clocks

You need a system architecture that can exploit a free running clock. I
came up with one that worked in 1988, and I'm sure that there are others.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

bitrex

2024-04-04 16:20:19 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

It’s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all you’re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.
It’s also true that you can often make do with what you have—the most
important test instrument is the one between your ears.
In the before times, doctors were much better with stethoscopes than they
are now.
But I’d sure prefer a cardiologist who could use tomography and ultrasound
over the best stethoscope guy.
And it’s a lot easier finding gigahertz oscillations if you aren’t limited
to a 10-MHz
scope with scale marks in cuneiform.
Good boat anchors make capability like that very affordable. My lab is full
of top-of-the-line gear (over $2M at list price), for which I’ve paid about
2-3 cents on the dollar. (Not counting a few very helpful donations early
on.) Of course I have some good newer stuff, such as a two-channel arb, a
NanoVNA2, and a logic analyzer with protocol decoding.
It’s a bit old-school-looking, so it doesn’t impress visitors unless they
actually know something, and that suits me perfectly well.
But by all means don’t buy any, so it’ll keep being cheap for me. ;)
Cheers
Phil Hobbs

My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!

<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>

$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

Phil Hobbs

2024-04-05 01:12:09 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter,
still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then
when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

It’s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all you’re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.
It’s also true that you can often make do with what you have—the most
important test instrument is the one between your ears.
In the before times, doctors were much better with stethoscopes than they
are now.
But I’d sure prefer a cardiologist who could use tomography and ultrasound
over the best stethoscope guy.
And it’s a lot easier finding gigahertz oscillations if you aren’t limited
to a 10-MHz
scope with scale marks in cuneiform.
Good boat anchors make capability like that very affordable. My lab is full
of top-of-the-line gear (over $2M at list price), for which I’ve paid about
2-3 cents on the dollar. (Not counting a few very helpful donations early
on.) Of course I have some good newer stuff, such as a two-channel arb, a
NanoVNA2, and a logic analyzer with protocol decoding.
It’s a bit old-school-looking, so it doesn’t impress visitors unless they
actually know something, and that suits me perfectly well.
But by all means don’t buy any, so it’ll keep being cheap for me. ;)
Cheers
Phil Hobbs

My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>
$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

I used to have an 8013B, which is the dual channel version.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC /
Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

bitrex

2024-04-05 20:24:30 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channal once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter,
still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then
when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

It’s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all you’re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.
It’s also true that you can often make do with what you have—the most
important test instrument is the one between your ears.
In the before times, doctors were much better with stethoscopes than they
are now.
But I’d sure prefer a cardiologist who could use tomography and ultrasound
over the best stethoscope guy.
And it’s a lot easier finding gigahertz oscillations if you aren’t limited
to a 10-MHz
scope with scale marks in cuneiform.
Good boat anchors make capability like that very affordable. My lab is full
of top-of-the-line gear (over $2M at list price), for which I’ve paid about
2-3 cents on the dollar. (Not counting a few very helpful donations early
on.) Of course I have some good newer stuff, such as a two-channel arb, a
NanoVNA2, and a logic analyzer with protocol decoding.
It’s a bit old-school-looking, so it doesn’t impress visitors unless they
actually know something, and that suits me perfectly well.
But by all means don’t buy any, so it’ll keep being cheap for me. ;)
Cheers
Phil Hobbs

My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>
$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

I used to have an 8013B, which is the dual channel version.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs

Looks like it was designed in the late 60s! From the date code I believe
mine is a 1982 model. It's still listed in the 1987 HP catalog for a
list price of $1750. The 8013B is listed at $1650, maybe those prices
are swapped. I wonder when they finally stopped selling it. It's quite a
bit cheaper than the fully-programmable HP-IB equipped 8112A which
listed for $4775.

Jan Panteltje

2024-04-05 07:49:34 UTC

On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 12:20:19 -0400) it happened bitrex

Post by bitrex
My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>

Nice, real components...

Post by bitrex
$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

mm 50 dollars,
even today with people using dollars for wallpaper,
buys you a nice pulse generator on ebay..

555 timer works fine too
Or use sox in Linux for all sort of audio, including sweeps:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/howto-sox-audio-tool-as-a-signal-generator.4242/
or just use a Raspberry Pi as signal generator:
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/newsflex/download.html#freq_pi

bitrex

2024-04-05 20:26:49 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 12:20:19 -0400) it happened bitrex

Post by bitrex
My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>

Nice, real components...

Post by bitrex
$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

mm 50 dollars,
even today with people using dollars for wallpaper,
buys you a nice pulse generator on ebay..

It cost $1700 USD in the 1987 catalog, about $4500 equivalent today!

Post by Jan Panteltje
555 timer works fine too
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/howto-sox-audio-tool-as-a-signal-generator.4242/
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/newsflex/download.html#freq_pi

john larkin

2024-04-05 21:22:28 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 12:20:19 -0400) it happened bitrex

Post by bitrex
My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>

Nice, real components...

Post by bitrex
$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

mm 50 dollars,
even today with people using dollars for wallpaper,
buys you a nice pulse generator on ebay..

It cost $1700 USD in the 1987 catalog, about $4500 equivalent today!

Our DDG is about $4K, addmittedly over the top for a home lab.

http://highlandtechnology.com/DSS/P500DS.shtml

I love my beat-up old unit on my bench. Timing and levels are
brutally quantitative.

Klaus Vestergaard Kragelund

2024-04-05 22:35:46 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 12:20:19 -0400) it happened bitrex

Post by bitrex
My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>

Nice, real components...

Post by bitrex
$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

mm 50 dollars,
even today with people using dollars for wallpaper,
buys you a nice pulse generator on ebay..

It cost $1700 USD in the 1987 catalog, about $4500 equivalent today!

Our DDG is about $4K, addmittedly over the top for a home lab.
http://highlandtechnology.com/DSS/P500DS.shtml
I love my beat-up old unit on my bench. Timing and levels are
brutally quantitative.

I bought a Siglent DDS SDG6022X for 1300USD, 200MHz thingie. I knew
forehand that it could be hacked to 500MHz, so "saved" 3000 USD for 1
hours work :-)

https://www.batronix.com/shop/waveform-generator/Siglent-SDG6022X.html

EEVBLOG has hacking details if anyone is interested...

John Larkin

2024-04-06 02:37:27 UTC

On Sat, 6 Apr 2024 00:35:46 +0200, Klaus Vestergaard Kragelund

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 12:20:19 -0400) it happened bitrex

Post by bitrex
My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>

Nice, real components...

Post by bitrex
$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

mm 50 dollars,
even today with people using dollars for wallpaper,
buys you a nice pulse generator on ebay..

It cost $1700 USD in the 1987 catalog, about $4500 equivalent today!

Our DDG is about $4K, addmittedly over the top for a home lab.
http://highlandtechnology.com/DSS/P500DS.shtml
I love my beat-up old unit on my bench. Timing and levels are
brutally quantitative.

I bought a Siglent DDS SDG6022X for 1300USD, 200MHz thingie. I knew
forehand that it could be hacked to 500MHz, so "saved" 3000 USD for 1
hours work :-)
https://www.batronix.com/shop/waveform-generator/Siglent-SDG6022X.html
EEVBLOG has hacking details if anyone is interested...

We bought a few Rigol 300 MHz 4-chan scopes and insisted that they
throw in the 500 MHz upgrade.

I remember when FFT was an extra-cost feature. Now it's free.

Cursitor Doom

2024-04-06 20:39:25 UTC

Post by John Larkin
On Sat, 6 Apr 2024 00:35:46 +0200, Klaus Vestergaard Kragelund

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 12:20:19 -0400) it happened bitrex

Post by bitrex
My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>

Nice, real components...

Post by bitrex
$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

mm 50 dollars,
even today with people using dollars for wallpaper,
buys you a nice pulse generator on ebay..

It cost $1700 USD in the 1987 catalog, about $4500 equivalent today!

Our DDG is about $4K, addmittedly over the top for a home lab.
http://highlandtechnology.com/DSS/P500DS.shtml
I love my beat-up old unit on my bench. Timing and levels are
brutally quantitative.

I bought a Siglent DDS SDG6022X for 1300USD, 200MHz thingie. I knew
forehand that it could be hacked to 500MHz, so "saved" 3000 USD for 1
hours work :-)
https://www.batronix.com/shop/waveform-generator/Siglent-SDG6022X.html
EEVBLOG has hacking details if anyone is interested...

We bought a few Rigol 300 MHz 4-chan scopes and insisted that they
throw in the 500 MHz upgrade.
I remember when FFT was an extra-cost feature. Now it's free.

Excuse me for being a bit slow on the uptake here, but it seems to me
that there are a *lot* of products which are fundamentally all
manufactured to the same spec - but then deliberately crippled unless
you pay some sort of ransom to have them 'unlocked' as it were. Would
that be correct or am I being too cynical?

John Larkin

2024-04-06 21:37:59 UTC

Post by John Larkin
On Sat, 6 Apr 2024 00:35:46 +0200, Klaus Vestergaard Kragelund

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 12:20:19 -0400) it happened bitrex

Post by bitrex
My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>

Nice, real components...

Post by bitrex
$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

mm 50 dollars,
even today with people using dollars for wallpaper,
buys you a nice pulse generator on ebay..

It cost $1700 USD in the 1987 catalog, about $4500 equivalent today!

Our DDG is about $4K, addmittedly over the top for a home lab.
http://highlandtechnology.com/DSS/P500DS.shtml
I love my beat-up old unit on my bench. Timing and levels are
brutally quantitative.

I bought a Siglent DDS SDG6022X for 1300USD, 200MHz thingie. I knew
forehand that it could be hacked to 500MHz, so "saved" 3000 USD for 1
hours work :-)
https://www.batronix.com/shop/waveform-generator/Siglent-SDG6022X.html
EEVBLOG has hacking details if anyone is interested...

We bought a few Rigol 300 MHz 4-chan scopes and insisted that they
throw in the 500 MHz upgrade.
I remember when FFT was an extra-cost feature. Now it's free.

It's very common to have bits in an eeprom that enable expensive
features or, in the case of oscilloscopes, do or don't software damage
the bandwidth.

We do that on many of our products, not usually quantitative specs but
features. Our best digital delay generator has a frames/trains mode
where delays and widths can be reprogrammed every trigger, from a
list, and can make multiple output pulses per trigger. Setting that
bit costs about $1500. We justify that as paying for our development
cost. We're selling software.

If there's competition, there is pressure to eventually price that
sort of bit cheap or free, like the FFT case.

Roger Hayter

2024-04-06 22:05:35 UTC

Post by John Larkin
On Sat, 6 Apr 2024 00:35:46 +0200, Klaus Vestergaard Kragelund

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 12:20:19 -0400) it happened bitrex

Post by bitrex
My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>

Nice, real components...

Post by bitrex
$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

mm 50 dollars,
even today with people using dollars for wallpaper,
buys you a nice pulse generator on ebay..

It cost $1700 USD in the 1987 catalog, about $4500 equivalent today!

Our DDG is about $4K, addmittedly over the top for a home lab.
http://highlandtechnology.com/DSS/P500DS.shtml
I love my beat-up old unit on my bench. Timing and levels are
brutally quantitative.

I bought a Siglent DDS SDG6022X for 1300USD, 200MHz thingie. I knew
forehand that it could be hacked to 500MHz, so "saved" 3000 USD for 1
hours work :-)
https://www.batronix.com/shop/waveform-generator/Siglent-SDG6022X.html
EEVBLOG has hacking details if anyone is interested...

We bought a few Rigol 300 MHz 4-chan scopes and insisted that they
throw in the 500 MHz upgrade.
I remember when FFT was an extra-cost feature. Now it's free.

No, but is differentiating products on softwar supplies any different from
differentiating them on hardware? Cheap ones simply wouldn't be available to
hobbyists if they had to sell them all as top of the range, where they make
the money for the effort to make a high bandwidth scope. There is also the
advantage that they can perhaps be hacked by well-informed hobbyists, but most
commercial buyers wouldn't be happy doing that for one or another reason.

--
Roger Hayter

Cursitor Doom

2024-04-07 08:41:26 UTC

Post by Roger Hayter

Post by John Larkin
On Sat, 6 Apr 2024 00:35:46 +0200, Klaus Vestergaard Kragelund

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 12:20:19 -0400) it happened bitrex

Post by bitrex
My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>

Nice, real components...

Post by bitrex
$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

mm 50 dollars,
even today with people using dollars for wallpaper,
buys you a nice pulse generator on ebay..

It cost $1700 USD in the 1987 catalog, about $4500 equivalent today!

Our DDG is about $4K, addmittedly over the top for a home lab.
http://highlandtechnology.com/DSS/P500DS.shtml
I love my beat-up old unit on my bench. Timing and levels are
brutally quantitative.

I bought a Siglent DDS SDG6022X for 1300USD, 200MHz thingie. I knew
forehand that it could be hacked to 500MHz, so "saved" 3000 USD for 1
hours work :-)
https://www.batronix.com/shop/waveform-generator/Siglent-SDG6022X.html
EEVBLOG has hacking details if anyone is interested...

We bought a few Rigol 300 MHz 4-chan scopes and insisted that they
throw in the 500 MHz upgrade.
I remember when FFT was an extra-cost feature. Now it's free.

AFAIC, it *does* matter if the limitations are in hardware or
software. In the case of scopes for example, good bandwidth don't
come cheap! So if you're going to go to the expense of developing high
bandwidth capability it just seems like self-mutilation to cripple all
that hard work to produce an inferior product.

Phil Hobbs

2024-04-07 09:19:54 UTC

Post by Roger Hayter

Post by John Larkin
On Sat, 6 Apr 2024 00:35:46 +0200, Klaus Vestergaard Kragelund

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 12:20:19 -0400) it happened bitrex

Post by bitrex
My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>

Nice, real components...

Post by bitrex
$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

mm 50 dollars,
even today with people using dollars for wallpaper,
buys you a nice pulse generator on ebay..

It cost $1700 USD in the 1987 catalog, about $4500 equivalent today!

Our DDG is about $4K, addmittedly over the top for a home lab.
http://highlandtechnology.com/DSS/P500DS.shtml
I love my beat-up old unit on my bench. Timing and levels are
brutally quantitative.

I bought a Siglent DDS SDG6022X for 1300USD, 200MHz thingie. I knew
forehand that it could be hacked to 500MHz, so "saved" 3000 USD for 1
hours work :-)
https://www.batronix.com/shop/waveform-generator/Siglent-SDG6022X.html
EEVBLOG has hacking details if anyone is interested...

We bought a few Rigol 300 MHz 4-chan scopes and insisted that they
throw in the 500 MHz upgrade.
I remember when FFT was an extra-cost feature. Now it's free.

Depends.

The value of a thing is what a willing buyer will pay for it in a free and
stable market. (*) That has only an oblique connection with the BOM and
engineering costs.

Then there are economies of scale. Parts get cheaper when you buy more of
them, so if you build only your high-end model, the total BOM cost may well
go down. Certainly the cost of engineering, testing, and inventory will go
down.

Keeping inventory of finished goods down also reduces business risk and tax
liability, because most companies have to pay taxes as though it was
already sold. (There are probably tax advantages to keeping inventory of
nearly-finished goods instead.)

So there are lots of reasons to sell what some customers might regard as
crippleware.

That being said, I don’t think it immoral for folks to figure out how to
unlock the other features. It’s not that hard to prevent, if you really
care to.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

(*) Yes, there are issues with the time-dependence of actual markets, but
then honesty and fair dealing are themselves valuable.)

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC /
Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

Ralph Mowery

2024-04-07 13:48:54 UTC

Post by Roger Hayter
No, but is differentiating products on softwar supplies any different from
differentiating them on hardware? Cheap ones simply wouldn't be available to
hobbyists if they had to sell them all as top of the range, where they make
the money for the effort to make a high bandwidth scope. There is also the
advantage that they can perhaps be hacked by well-informed hobbyists, but most
commercial buyers wouldn't be happy doing that for one or another reason.

From what I am seeing on the Internet there are some scopes that the
software limits them but to get the full bandwidth some components need
to be changed. I bought a China function generator and while it does
not have a software upgrade there are several components to be changed
that make it function better at higher frequencies.

I heard some cars have functions that can be turned on and off remotely
so they can charge you yearly.

The sat and cable TV is like that . The equipment is the same but they
only enable the channels you pay for.

Bill Sloman

2024-04-07 04:52:47 UTC

Post by John Larkin
On Sat, 6 Apr 2024 00:35:46 +0200, Klaus Vestergaard Kragelund

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 12:20:19 -0400) it happened bitrex

Post by bitrex
My most useful old machine dollar for dollar is my 8012B pulse generator!
<https://imgur.com/a/2GaSZVq>

Nice, real components...

Post by bitrex
$50 "not working." It was just a burned-out pilot lamp and dirty controls.

mm 50 dollars,
even today with people using dollars for wallpaper,
buys you a nice pulse generator on ebay..

It cost $1700 USD in the 1987 catalog, about $4500 equivalent today!

Our DDG is about $4K, addmittedly over the top for a home lab.
http://highlandtechnology.com/DSS/P500DS.shtml
I love my beat-up old unit on my bench. Timing and levels are
brutally quantitative.

I bought a Siglent DDS SDG6022X for 1300USD, 200MHz thingie. I knew
forehand that it could be hacked to 500MHz, so "saved" 3000 USD for 1
hours work :-)
https://www.batronix.com/shop/waveform-generator/Siglent-SDG6022X.html
EEVBLOG has hacking details if anyone is interested...

We bought a few Rigol 300 MHz 4-chan scopes and insisted that they
throw in the 500 MHz upgrade.
I remember when FFT was an extra-cost feature. Now it's free.

Probably. You have got to run tests to be sure that the feature works
before you can ship it to a customer, and the tests tkae time, cost
money and don't always work. If only a few customers want it, it makes
sense to sell to the cheaper spec and charge the customers who are
prepared to pay for the extra performance.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

Jan Panteltje

2024-04-05 07:49:30 UTC

On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channel once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

Itâs true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all youâre doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.

Bull,
I have been using my Trio 10 MHz dual channel for digital TV too
see
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/raspberry_pi_dvb-s_transmitter/
GHz output..

Its is about UNDERSTANDING the systems
You cannot repair a TV set in a short time if you do not UNDERSTAND every part of the circuit and its function, the whole system
neither with a 10 MHz or with a 10 GHz scope.
Fault finding had been my job most of the time, sometimes with 'the show must go on'
or rocket must launch or whatever.

In an environment a million times more complex than your back-room with boat anchors.
And always delivered.. unlike some that dropped out or broke down.
It is indeed about what is between the ears as you mentioned.

Itâs also true that you can often make do with what you haveâthe most
important test instrument is the one between your ears.
In the before times, doctors were much better with stethoscopes than they
are now.
But Iâd sure prefer a cardiologist who could use tomography and ultrasound
over the best stethoscope guy.

Only useful if you can read the screens, these days they train AI to find cancer in the scans.....
Yes I worked in an Uni hospital too.
How many people die each year because of medical errors?
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-america.html
Remember Jim Thompson stating 'they are giving me ... but I had a warning I was not supposed to get that'
Few days later he was dead.

And itâs a lot easier finding gigahertz oscillations if you arenât limited
to a 10-MHz
scope with scale marks in cuneiform.

Giggle Hertz oscillations are not happening in LC circuits of specific kind
where those can happen you can figure from the parts used, no giggle Hz in a BC109.
look at the components used.
I worked on a missile launch system once that did strange things that were tracked down to an oscillating emitter follower...
Replacing that transistor by exactly the same part fixed it.. not one transistor is the same it seems, especially from different manufacturers..
but those were not very high frequency oscillations and I had a faster scope there.
In broadcast I ran around with a big Tec on a cart all day...
A TV studio complex and control is something vastly bigger than your back room.
https://www.mediapark.nl/
and every second counts
Yes without in depth knowledge of all that stuff you would not even know where to start .
And THAT in depth knowledge is the key.

Good boat anchors make capability like that very affordable. My lab is full
of top-of-the-line gear (over $2M at list price), for which Iâve paid about
2-3 cents on the dollar. (Not counting a few very helpful donations early
on.) Of course I have some good newer stuff, such as a two-channel arb, a
NanoVNA2, and a logic analyzer with protocol decoding.
Itâs a bit old-school-looking, so it doesnât impress visitors unless they
actually know something, and that suits me perfectly well.
But by all means donât buy any, so itâll keep being cheap for me. ;)

I won't, if I specifically want to KNOW some thing I build something for that purpose,
I better not ask if you per accident contributed to that F35 crap.
Anyways, carry on, makes me feel safer...

Cheers

Do not drink when doing 'tronics

John Larkin

2024-04-05 15:13:07 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

It’s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all you’re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.

Does anyone still repair TVs? TV repair shops used to be common but
seem to be gone now.

TVs are insanely cheap and reliable now. I suspect that a failure
under an over-priced "extended warranty" gets you a replacement.

Nobody makes schematics available now, and a TV is full of exotic
custom chips.

Cursitor Doom

2024-04-05 16:59:42 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

It’s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all you’re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.

Does anyone still repair TVs? TV repair shops used to be common but
seem to be gone now.
TVs are insanely cheap and reliable now. I suspect that a failure
under an over-priced "extended warranty" gets you a replacement.
Nobody makes schematics available now, and a TV is full of exotic
custom chips.

All which make repair extremely difficult! There are moves afoot in
Europe, I believe, to introduce some sort of 'compulsory
repairability' law, to enable freelance repairers to fix up stuff
that's gone kaput. That would be an excellent idea, given the massive
amount of electronics that goes into landfill. Our 'throw away
culture' is not doing the environment any favours at all. This is what
needs to be focused on, not some garbage about greenhouse gases.

Bill Sloman

2024-04-06 11:48:45 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs

<snip>

Post by John Larkin
Nobody makes schematics available now, and a TV is full of exotic
custom chips.

The "garbage about greenhouse gases" that you want us to believe is
spread by the fossil carbon extraction industry, who want to keep on
digging up and selling huge amounts of fossil carbon to be burnt as fuel.

The mass of fossil carbon involved is orders of magnitude larger than
the mass of material that being junked as consumer electronics, which is
easy enough to recycle. Landfill is just land to be mined by the next
generation.

Extra CO2 in the atmosphere is having nasty effects on the climate right
now. Junked electronics in landfill doesn't do anything.

Do please grow up. Your petulant ignorance is irritating.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

bitrex

2024-04-06 02:27:23 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

Itâ€™s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all youâ€™re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.

Does anyone still repair TVs? TV repair shops used to be common but
seem to be gone now.
TVs are insanely cheap and reliable now. I suspect that a failure
under an over-priced "extended warranty" gets you a replacement.
Nobody makes schematics available now, and a TV is full of exotic
custom chips.

They've become reliable enough that there isn't enough business to
support lots of shops, but even a smaller city like Boston still has a
couple. There are Facebook groups dedicated to sharing tips for
repairing them, too.

Not all TVs are "extremely cheap", some large displays cost several
thousand dollars and since the most common faults are with the power
supply, capacitors, LEDs etc. and often don't need a detail schematic to
diagnose, they can definitely be economical to repair.

Video cards/GPUs are expensive enough nowadays that they're often
economical to repair, too, they're a lot easier to ship than TVs so this
one shop probably handles a significant fraction of the GPU repairs in
the US:

<https://www.youtube.com/@NorthridgeFix>

Cursitor Doom

2024-04-05 16:33:12 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

It’s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all you’re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.

Bull,
I have been using my Trio 10 MHz dual channel for digital TV too
see
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/raspberry_pi_dvb-s_transmitter/
GHz output..
Its is about UNDERSTANDING the systems
You cannot repair a TV set in a short time if you do not UNDERSTAND every part of the circuit and its function, the whole system
neither with a 10 MHz or with a 10 GHz scope.
Fault finding had been my job most of the time, sometimes with 'the show must go on'
or rocket must launch or whatever.
In an environment a million times more complex than your back-room with boat anchors.
And always delivered.. unlike some that dropped out or broke down.
It is indeed about what is between the ears as you mentioned.

Post by Phil Hobbs
It’s also true that you can often make do with what you have—the most
important test instrument is the one between your ears.
In the before times, doctors were much better with stethoscopes than they
are now.
But I’d sure prefer a cardiologist who could use tomography and ultrasound
over the best stethoscope guy.

Jim had pancreatic cancer, which is notoriously tricky to diagnose due
to the misleading symptoms it gives rise to.

john larkin

2024-04-05 17:15:43 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

It’s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all you’re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.

Bull,
I have been using my Trio 10 MHz dual channel for digital TV too
see
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/raspberry_pi_dvb-s_transmitter/
GHz output..
Its is about UNDERSTANDING the systems
You cannot repair a TV set in a short time if you do not UNDERSTAND every part of the circuit and its function, the whole system
neither with a 10 MHz or with a 10 GHz scope.
Fault finding had been my job most of the time, sometimes with 'the show must go on'
or rocket must launch or whatever.
In an environment a million times more complex than your back-room with boat anchors.
And always delivered.. unlike some that dropped out or broke down.
It is indeed about what is between the ears as you mentioned.

Jim had pancreatic cancer, which is notoriously tricky to diagnose due
to the misleading symptoms it gives rise to.

He talked constantly about wine. That can kill your pancreas.

There are people who drink bottles per day.

Bill Sloman

2024-04-06 12:07:37 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

Itâ€™s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all youâ€™re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.

Bull,
I have been using my Trio 10 MHz dual channel for digital TV too
see
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/raspberry_pi_dvb-s_transmitter/
GHz output..
Its is about UNDERSTANDING the systems
You cannot repair a TV set in a short time if you do not UNDERSTAND every part of the circuit and its function, the whole system
neither with a 10 MHz or with a 10 GHz scope.
Fault finding had been my job most of the time, sometimes with 'the show must go on'
or rocket must launch or whatever.
In an environment a million times more complex than your back-room with boat anchors.
And always delivered.. unlike some that dropped out or broke down.
It is indeed about what is between the ears as you mentioned.

Itâ€™s also true that you can often make do with what you haveâ€”the most
important test instrument is the one between your ears.
In the before times, doctors were much better with stethoscopes than they
are now.
But Iâ€™d sure prefer a cardiologist who could use tomography and ultrasound
over the best stethoscope guy.

Jim had pancreatic cancer, which is notoriously tricky to diagnose due
to the misleading symptoms it gives rise to.

He talked constantly about wine. That can kill your pancreas.
There are people who drink bottles per day.

But teetotallers still get it. In reality you have to smoke as well
drink to increase your risk of pancreatic cancer. It can double the risk.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4391718/

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

Cursitor Doom

2024-04-06 21:21:45 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

It’s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all you’re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.

Bull,
I have been using my Trio 10 MHz dual channel for digital TV too
see
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/raspberry_pi_dvb-s_transmitter/
GHz output..
Its is about UNDERSTANDING the systems
You cannot repair a TV set in a short time if you do not UNDERSTAND every part of the circuit and its function, the whole system
neither with a 10 MHz or with a 10 GHz scope.
Fault finding had been my job most of the time, sometimes with 'the show must go on'
or rocket must launch or whatever.
In an environment a million times more complex than your back-room with boat anchors.
And always delivered.. unlike some that dropped out or broke down.
It is indeed about what is between the ears as you mentioned.

Jim had pancreatic cancer, which is notoriously tricky to diagnose due
to the misleading symptoms it gives rise to.

He talked constantly about wine. That can kill your pancreas.
There are people who drink bottles per day.

Oh yes, he loved his wine alright. As I recall, you sent him several
cases of the stuff over the years. But no amount of peace offerings
could placate Jim if he felt you'd disrespected him. Anyway, all
credit to you for at least trying to heal the rift, even if it came to
naught.

John Larkin

2024-04-06 21:48:38 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

It’s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all you’re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.

Bull,
I have been using my Trio 10 MHz dual channel for digital TV too
see
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/raspberry_pi_dvb-s_transmitter/
GHz output..
Its is about UNDERSTANDING the systems
You cannot repair a TV set in a short time if you do not UNDERSTAND every part of the circuit and its function, the whole system
neither with a 10 MHz or with a 10 GHz scope.
Fault finding had been my job most of the time, sometimes with 'the show must go on'
or rocket must launch or whatever.
In an environment a million times more complex than your back-room with boat anchors.
And always delivered.. unlike some that dropped out or broke down.
It is indeed about what is between the ears as you mentioned.

Jim had pancreatic cancer, which is notoriously tricky to diagnose due
to the misleading symptoms it gives rise to.

He talked constantly about wine. That can kill your pancreas.
There are people who drink bottles per day.

I think I sent him two bottles of Frog's Tooth, not cases.

I get the Frog's Tooth free. The vintner is also our sales rep for
pick+place gear, and he throws in a bottle or a case with every big
order.

JT was a little touchy at times (never me!) but we didn't actually
have a rift. I think that serious electronics designers always get
along pretty well. Circuit design is a sport that we play.

I miss JT. He was fun. I often drive on Thompkins Street and it
reminds me of him.

Cursitor Doom

2024-04-07 08:50:50 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

It’s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all you’re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.

Bull,
I have been using my Trio 10 MHz dual channel for digital TV too
see
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/raspberry_pi_dvb-s_transmitter/
GHz output..
Its is about UNDERSTANDING the systems
You cannot repair a TV set in a short time if you do not UNDERSTAND every part of the circuit and its function, the whole system
neither with a 10 MHz or with a 10 GHz scope.
Fault finding had been my job most of the time, sometimes with 'the show must go on'
or rocket must launch or whatever.
In an environment a million times more complex than your back-room with boat anchors.
And always delivered.. unlike some that dropped out or broke down.
It is indeed about what is between the ears as you mentioned.

Jim had pancreatic cancer, which is notoriously tricky to diagnose due
to the misleading symptoms it gives rise to.

He talked constantly about wine. That can kill your pancreas.
There are people who drink bottles per day.

I think I sent him two bottles of Frog's Tooth, not cases.
I get the Frog's Tooth free. The vintner is also our sales rep for
pick+place gear, and he throws in a bottle or a case with every big
order.
JT was a little touchy at times (never me!) but we didn't actually
have a rift. I think that serious electronics designers always get
along pretty well. Circuit design is a sport that we play.
I miss JT. He was fun. I often drive on Thompkins Street and it
reminds me of him.

I think the passage of time has mellowed your recollections, John.
Shortly after he died, you called him a crabby old man! There was
something about you he clearly didn't much like. No idea why, since
you've never come across as anything but well-mannered and helpful as
far as I can tell.
Jim gave me a hell of a rough time when I first arrived here back in
'96. He didn't suffer fools gladly and boy did he let me know when he
believed I was one. But that did me a huge favour. He did have a point
inasmuch as my fundamental electronics knowledge needed a lot of
remedial attention. So he forced me to sit down and go back through
all the stuff I should have known before I came here and I became much
better for it. And when I finally did, he praised me for it. Praise
from Jim was praise indeed! He was a GIANT of this group and I miss
him terribly, too.

Phil Hobbs

2024-04-07 09:38:42 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

My 10 MHz Trio dual trace analog scope is from 1979 or there about, I
blew up a channel once myself in the first week
when I accidently touched a booster diode in a TV I was repairing with
it, fixed it locating the problem with the other channel.
Later I cracked the graticule when a soldering station fell on it from
the table (scope stands on the ground)
Made a new graticule.
So, and still working perfectly, OK for all things I build with micros.
For RF to about 1.6 GHz I use RTL_SDR USB sticks and the spectrum analyzer I wrote.
and for AC DC measurements I have some made in China digital
meters and an analog one.
also a Voltcraft clamp-on meter for current when you do not - or cannot
interrupt things with the meter impedance.
Also have a Voltcraft soldering station.
Blew up one of my digital meters a while back (volts on the resistance
scale) but fixed it again (replaced resistor).
Many other test equipment I designed and build, like amplifiers LF and
RF, SWR meter, radiation meters, gamma spectrometer,
GHz stuff for satelite, transmitters low and very high power, what not,
a frequency converter to use the RTL-SDR sticks and so the spectrum
analyzer on higher and lower frequencies.
Have a SARK100 SWR analyzer too.
Things last forever here...
Scope used on a regular basis..
RTL-SDR stick 24/7.
Digital meters used every day.
Use my self designed lab power supply every day..
What more do you need?
Learn to use the stuff, understand what's important, and that is it
When I started in electronics as a kid I did not even _have_ a
meter, still stuff worked.
Build my own scope at some point back then when I somehow got the parts
Not much pocket mony as a kid.
UNDERSTAND your systems, what electrons do.
Showing of with boat anchors may impress people, especially the clueless...
But it does not help you one bit.
Anything with an accuracy better than 1 percent in most cases is just
like apes screaming load trying to impress other apes.

Itâs true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all youâre doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.

Bull,
I have been using my Trio 10 MHz dual channel for digital TV too
see
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/raspberry_pi_dvb-s_transmitter/
GHz output..
Its is about UNDERSTANDING the systems
You cannot repair a TV set in a short time if you do not UNDERSTAND
every part of the circuit and its function, the whole system
neither with a 10 MHz or with a 10 GHz scope.
Fault finding had been my job most of the time, sometimes with 'the show must go on'
or rocket must launch or whatever.
In an environment a million times more complex than your back-room with boat anchors.
And always delivered.. unlike some that dropped out or broke down.
It is indeed about what is between the ears as you mentioned.

Only useful if you can read the screens, these days they train AI to
find cancer in the scans.....
Yes I worked in an Uni hospital too.
How many people die each year because of medical errors?
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/medical-errors-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-america.html
Remember Jim Thompson stating 'they are giving me ... but I had a
warning I was not supposed to get that'
Few days later he was dead.

Jim had pancreatic cancer, which is notoriously tricky to diagnose due
to the misleading symptoms it gives rise to.

He talked constantly about wine. That can kill your pancreas.
There are people who drink bottles per day.

I think I sent him two bottles of Frog's Tooth, not cases.
I get the Frog's Tooth free. The vintner is also our sales rep for
pick+place gear, and he throws in a bottle or a case with every big
order.
JT was a little touchy at times (never me!) but we didn't actually
have a rift. I think that serious electronics designers always get
along pretty well. Circuit design is a sport that we play.
I miss JT. He was fun. I often drive on Thompkins Street and it
reminds me of him.

We all remember all sorts of stuff about Jim, much of it very good. He
certainly raised the technical level here, which I for one miss very much.

For the remainder, it’s best to follow the good old rule of not speaking
ill of the dead (or of the living, mostly). We stand or fall by what we
make of what we’re given, which is well worth keeping in mind.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC /
Hobbs ElectroOptics Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

ehsjr

2024-04-07 22:25:49 UTC

Post by Phil Hobbs
We all remember all sorts of stuff about Jim, much of it very good. He
certainly raised the technical level here, which I for one miss very much.

Post by Phil Hobbs
For the remainder, it’s best to follow the good old rule of not speaking
ill of the dead (or of the living, mostly).

+100

Ed

Post by Phil Hobbs
We stand or fall by what we
make of what we’re given, which is well worth keeping in mind.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs

John Larkin

2024-04-07 16:40:03 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom

It’s true that there are a lot of relatively undemanding jobs in
electronics. You can get on fine with a 200-MHz scope if all you’re doing
is PIC and Pi and ham radio and analog TV.

Bull,
I have been using my Trio 10 MHz dual channel for digital TV too
see
https://panteltje.nl/panteltje/raspberry_pi_dvb-s_transmitter/
GHz output..
Its is about UNDERSTANDING the systems
You cannot repair a TV set in a short time if you do not UNDERSTAND every part of the circuit and its function, the whole system
neither with a 10 MHz or with a 10 GHz scope.
Fault finding had been my job most of the time, sometimes with 'the show must go on'
or rocket must launch or whatever.
In an environment a million times more complex than your back-room with boat anchors.
And always delivered.. unlike some that dropped out or broke down.
It is indeed about what is between the ears as you mentioned.

Jim had pancreatic cancer, which is notoriously tricky to diagnose due
to the misleading symptoms it gives rise to.

He talked constantly about wine. That can kill your pancreas.
There are people who drink bottles per day.

I think I sent him two bottles of Frog's Tooth, not cases.
I get the Frog's Tooth free. The vintner is also our sales rep for
pick+place gear, and he throws in a bottle or a case with every big
order.
JT was a little touchy at times (never me!) but we didn't actually
have a rift. I think that serious electronics designers always get
along pretty well. Circuit design is a sport that we play.
I miss JT. He was fun. I often drive on Thompkins Street and it
reminds me of him.

I think the passage of time has mellowed your recollections, John.
Shortly after he died, you called him a crabby old man!

But he *was* a crabby old man. That's no big deal. He probably would
have enjoyed the description. He died bravely.

There was

Post by Cursitor Doom
something about you he clearly didn't much like.

There was some teasing involved. We got along fine in emails.

No idea why, since

Post by Cursitor Doom
you've never come across as anything but well-mannered and helpful as
far as I can tell.

I can be crabby too, but that's a common hazard on an unmoderated
public forum.

Post by Cursitor Doom
Jim gave me a hell of a rough time when I first arrived here back in
'96. He didn't suffer fools gladly and boy did he let me know when he
believed I was one. But that did me a huge favour. He did have a point
inasmuch as my fundamental electronics knowledge needed a lot of
remedial attention. So he forced me to sit down and go back through
all the stuff I should have known before I came here and I became much
better for it. And when I finally did, he praised me for it. Praise
from Jim was praise indeed! He was a GIANT of this group and I miss
him terribly, too.

He wasn't a bad sort, but I wouldn't call someone a fool because they
don't understand electronics. "Fool" is reserved for people who
presume to expertise that they clearly don't have.

Cursitor Doom

2024-04-07 17:23:38 UTC

Post by Jan Panteltje
On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs