I think that for station monitoring purposes the readings don't have to be accurate as long as they're fairly consistent, I just want to know if something changed.
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Bird Meters and scopes
- Thread starter undertaker
- Start date
Yes, it is epeen extending.
It's not hard to turn controls or adjust slugs in a transformer.
It's even more hilarious watching the guys with the DSOs that can't get them to trigger properly on RF envelopes and claim that the DSOs are "garbage".
It's a lot harder to take non-functional electronics and make them functional again.
You should not be impressed. We are witnessing the rise of the 30 year old CDMA test sets and these guys don't know how to use half of the functions.
A real spectrum analyser is either out of reach pricewise or they can't grasp the simple concept that you can't stuff 100 watts into the frontend of one without attenuating it.
Over the years, I have visited probably 20 "repair technicians", and of those, I would say that only about 1/4 to 1/3 of them had more in the way of test equipment than a watt meter and a multimeter. I think I only saw about 3 that had a signal generator, and only one had a spectrum analyzer.
People just don't know enough to question how someone can do a proper tune without proper equipment.
People just don't know enough to question how someone can do a proper tune without proper equipment.
Having the equipment is a big step.
It's not a huge cost like it was a decade ago since there is a much more robust secondary market now.
It's still a significant investment.
Once you have it you have to know how to use it.
There is a video that garnered much hilarity of someone that bought a low end Siglent DSO.
One of those $300 units... 1 gigasamples that turns into 500 megasamples with two channels... you might know the kind.
Great low cost beginner DSO.
Used it incorrectly, then complained that the instrument was inferior.
Then said that it was a horrible beginner DSO.
Oh, and didn't realise that it does not have 50 ohm termination. It's a cheap scope and doesn't have that feature. Kept stuffing RF into it with the wrong termination.
You have to know how to use this equipment., too.
On Youtube I have so far seen 7 people that post videos and have the right equipment and know how to use it.
6 of those people do not work on CB radios either at all or for hire.
If this sampling represents the number of people with the expertise to do it and actually do it for hire we are in serious trouble.
What it means is that once we strip away the people without the gear, knowledge, and availability we are probably in the low single digit % of real, actual, capable techs.
I am not talking about blue LED installers or magic coax sellers but real down to earth people doing the right thing by both customers and the airwaves.
The other 90 some percent are as @Handy Andy put it, sharks in the water.
It's not a huge cost like it was a decade ago since there is a much more robust secondary market now.
It's still a significant investment.
Once you have it you have to know how to use it.
There is a video that garnered much hilarity of someone that bought a low end Siglent DSO.
One of those $300 units... 1 gigasamples that turns into 500 megasamples with two channels... you might know the kind.
Great low cost beginner DSO.
Used it incorrectly, then complained that the instrument was inferior.
Then said that it was a horrible beginner DSO.
Oh, and didn't realise that it does not have 50 ohm termination. It's a cheap scope and doesn't have that feature. Kept stuffing RF into it with the wrong termination.
You have to know how to use this equipment., too.
On Youtube I have so far seen 7 people that post videos and have the right equipment and know how to use it.
6 of those people do not work on CB radios either at all or for hire.
If this sampling represents the number of people with the expertise to do it and actually do it for hire we are in serious trouble.
What it means is that once we strip away the people without the gear, knowledge, and availability we are probably in the low single digit % of real, actual, capable techs.
I am not talking about blue LED installers or magic coax sellers but real down to earth people doing the right thing by both customers and the airwaves.
The other 90 some percent are as @Handy Andy put it, sharks in the water.
Completely right, some still believe that radios are such a simple thing that you can do 99% of all repairs with very few tools. Therefore, I always say, self-repair isn't necessarily cheaper than an experienced service centre with appropriate equipment and competent staff. Especially the adjustments of older devices can be a real challenge.
I'd even go so far as to take it a step further than that by mentioning that having test equipment doesn't mean the person knows how to do anything with it.
Making it functional is the easy part. Making it perform in a desirable manner is the hard part.
Could you perhaps show us some results you have achieved with modern test equipment or is this just meaningless drivel? Test equipment doesn't impress me but people who are willing to show the results they've achieved in the real world instead of flapping their gums do. Unfortunately, the folks that flap their gums drastically outnumber the folks that demonstrate results in the real world.
You're missing out on all sorts of cheap entertainment like guys using big amplifiers to talk to each other across the same parking lot.
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This has to be one of the stupidest things I have read in my decades in the electronics industry.
I don't think I will find one to top this.
Wow.
I am going to put this one on my bulletin board.
I sure can.
So I went to dig out a piece of modern, but older gear to be comparable.
I don't keep 30 and 40 year old EOL test gear around so I got a VSA out.
now, I doubt you have the understanding to read any of these screen grabs - and that's okay.
You "guy" likes to talk about 50Khz, here it is.
And I didn't fiddle with the resolution bandwidth, input attenuation, and offsets like he does. It's all on the screen grabs.
Now you, a non-engineer can tell me that this transmitter is dirty and horrible and you can see how bad it sounds and that it has third order products so bad that they can hear them on mars, and I will at least get a good laugh, and another thing for my bulletin board.
And that your "guy" can miraculously make the sidebands disappear or some other wizardry.
Please, entertain me.
I fail to hear it or observe any real world performance characteristics, although I do see some pictures.
Audio consumes less data than video, and the fact you don't believe the performance tells me it is better than anything you've experienced without an amplifier. It isn't a sales pitch so much as a standard of measurement to determine if everyone has gotten their money's worth. Anything less would be money down the drain. Hopefully someone else can duplicate the results using a different tech. I'd love to see it happen.
But you will not address your doctored audio and offer no proof of the locations you were?
My pictures are not believable despite being date/time stamped but your doctored audio and edited image is quite okay?
Do you really believe this stuff you post?
My pictures are not believable despite being date/time stamped but your doctored audio and edited image is quite okay?
Do you really believe this stuff you post?