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From: legg <legg@nospam.magma.ca>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design,sci.electronics.repair
Subject: Re: Favourite Test Equipment
Date: Mon, 01 Apr 2024 08:29:00 -0400
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On Mon, 01 Apr 2024 11:36:48 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
wrote:

>On a sunny day (Mon, 01 Apr 2024 09:39:59 +0100) it happened Cursitor Doom
><cd@notformail.com> wrote in <j6sk0j5cpqb46pt9tg6uvji35a2bstb9o8@4ax.com>:
>
>>On Mon, 01 Apr 2024 07:01:34 GMT, Jan Panteltje <alien@comet.invalid>
>>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 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 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?
>
>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)
>
>.

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