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From: Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design,sci.electronics.repair
Subject: Re: Favourite Test Equipment
Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2024 17:33:12 +0100
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On Fri, 05 Apr 2024 07:49:30 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:

>On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Apr 2024 11:56:23 -0000 (UTC)) it happened Phil Hobbs
><pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote in
><uum4h6$kmdl$1@dont-email.me>:
>
>>Klaus Vestergaard Kragelund <klauskvik@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 01-04-2024 09:01, Jan Panteltje wrote:
>>>> On a sunny day (Sun, 31 Mar 2024 18:41:18 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom
>>>> <cd@notformail.com> wrote in <9k7j0jlnbhs8qfg5m17pium0835meean83@4ax.com>:
>>>> 
>>>>> 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.
>>>> 
>>>> 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.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 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.
>>> 
>>> 
>>
>>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.
>
>
>
>
>>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. 
>
>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.