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Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

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Can you say what model it is?

One of my most treasured items is a "Sanders" slotted waveguide measuring line. The quality of construction and sheer mechanical precision makes it a wonderful thing in its own right.

Do you have a manual for it?
There is a selection of Sanders uWave and other instruments plus all the drawings and catalogues of the period when Marconi acquired the business in the Marconi Instruments Heritage Collection...



On 7 Oct 2020, at 18:59, Robin Szemeti <robin@...> wrote:

One of my most treasured items is a "Sanders" slotted waveguide measuring line. The quality of construction and sheer mechanical precision makes it a wonderful thing in its own right.
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

On 10/7/20 1:30 AM, Roy Thistle wrote:
On Sun, Oct 4, 2020 at 03:27 PM, Robin Szemeti wrote:

at a reasonable price?

Well Keysight is selling N8481A Thermocouple Power Sensors for 2334 CDN pesos. Which if you are running business, or running a lab... is... I suppose reasonable. (But then your customers, or the government is paying for it.)
If you're not doing those things... then why do you need the dynamic range, and sensitivity? And, they are not all that accurate anyway... so you have to be able to live with that too.
IMO... to many people buy a cheap HP power meter... and then just have to have a cable and sensor.
But then hundreds of dollars later... what have they got? Unless they can afford several hundreds of dollars more for calibration (every so often)...then they've got a more expensive version of a Bird or Daiwa... with a sensor that is a lot easier to destroy.
You are confusing the usual HP power meter, which reads from about -30 dBm to +10 dBm with a Bird or Daiwa, which read from maybe 5 Watts to about a kilowatt, depending on plug-ins or model. Two different
animals, completely. BTW, I find, in my small sample of two Daiwas and one MFJ, compared to a Waters Dummy-Load Wattmeter, the Daiwas are more accurate.
--doug, WA2SAY, retired RF engineer
Re: ROM / EEPROM firmware dump

 

I have sent the program to KO4BB.? Not sure what he will do with it, but at least someone else has it in case I get Covid-19 or get caught up in one of our many fires here in Sonoma county.? The fire two weeks ago, which destroyed about 700 structures (the Glass fire), came within 3000 feet of me.?

I also privately sent it to one other person in this group.
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

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This is a real interesting thread. So I thought I’d throw in my two cents

A SA is not a power meter..... ?actually it is and in some respects a better one. ?True you do have the issues of calibration but assuming you are calibrated you should be able to get within a couple of tenths of a dB. Where the SA shines over a power Peter is that you are measuring the power at your frequency of interest not the fundamental and all of its harmonics like a PM or a bird does.

Calibration, ?well I have had to do inspections (why they let me do QA inspections is beyond me) and I have found exactly two labs that could actually put stickers on power heads with a straight face one was HP Roseville (a while back) where they had the 4 or 5 racks of stuff for PMs and Heads. The other was of all places the Pakistani Navy lab in Karachi. They had HPs desktop sets for both PMs and heads. ?Everyone else used a sig gen to verify the heads and none of them did the entire frequency range nor the math to generate the Cf. ? I’m lucky I have the 11683 range calibrator and a Keysight lab stds calibrated 3458A so I can be fairly certain that my power meters are correct, operative word “fairly”.?

Over the last year or so I have had over a dozen 436As up from one of my customers because they “wouldn’t cal” or were BER, they all got sent back working because I actually read the manual and performed the alignment (with the 11683). ?

The bottom line unless you really know your lab and even then that they actually do alignments everything we have is a guess, maybe a good guess, but still just a guess.?

Remember in radio it takes 6dB ?for you or me to detect a change in the signal. ?Of course if you’re doing it as a challenge that’s another thing.

Regards,

?

Stephen Hanselman

Datagate Systems, LLC




On Oct 7, 2020, at 10:59, Robin Szemeti <robin@...> wrote:

?
Lockdown has been brilliant for hobbies!? I hadn't fired up a transmitter in decades having been out of the hobby for a long time ... now I find myself knee deep in gear again, with a shed full of heliax, aerials and part finished projects.

Good test gear is however a joy in itself.? I have a good stock of mechanical tooling and a small workshop, a good vernier or micrometer is a joy to use whereas a poor instrument is a frustration.?? I enjoy acquiring good test equipment, even if sometimes I have no real use for it.? One of my most treasured items is a "Sanders" slotted waveguide measuring line. The quality of construction and sheer mechanical precision makes it a wonderful thing in its own right.


On Wed, 7 Oct 2020 at 18:39, Dave McGuire <mcguire@...> wrote:
On 10/7/20 1:33 PM, Jim Ford wrote:
> I have the same problem, Tam.? Too much work and not enough time for
> hobbies like ham radio.

? ?I've not keyed up a transmitter in years.? I'm pretty sad about that.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

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But I bet the newer model produced more heat to warm your tush! ;)

Jim Ford?



Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone

-------- Original message --------
From: Wilko Bulte <wkb@...>
Date: 10/7/20 10:44 AM (GMT-08:00)
Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] HP435 measuring head?

Cray... I got to sit on one. At Shell here in NL. They were complaining their new Cray was less comfy than the previous model. Less padding ?
Re: HP435 measuring head? kW's?

 

They all have their place ...? a Bird thruline is essential gear on a hilltop UHF or VHF site ... a 435 is perfect on the bench with the internals of a transverter ... horses for courses.

My 432MHz? transmitters have calibrated sampling ports on an SMA with around -45dB of coupling, perfect for attaching to a 435 and a head with a suitable attenuator.


On Wed, 7 Oct 2020 at 18:43, Tom Holmes <tholmes@...> wrote:
One other point regarding the contention that power meters are not very
accurate. Keysight and every other reputable Sig Gen maker, uses a power
meter as the traceable to NIST device for calibration of power output. If
it's good enough for them...

Granted, you can argue about resistive vs. thermocouple vs. Diode detector
accuracy, but it ain't much of a difference.

Tom Holmes, N8ZM
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

Lockdown has been brilliant for hobbies!? I hadn't fired up a transmitter in decades having been out of the hobby for a long time ... now I find myself knee deep in gear again, with a shed full of heliax, aerials and part finished projects.

Good test gear is however a joy in itself.? I have a good stock of mechanical tooling and a small workshop, a good vernier or micrometer is a joy to use whereas a poor instrument is a frustration.?? I enjoy acquiring good test equipment, even if sometimes I have no real use for it.? One of my most treasured items is a "Sanders" slotted waveguide measuring line. The quality of construction and sheer mechanical precision makes it a wonderful thing in its own right.


On Wed, 7 Oct 2020 at 18:39, Dave McGuire <mcguire@...> wrote:
On 10/7/20 1:33 PM, Jim Ford wrote:
> I have the same problem, Tam.? Too much work and not enough time for
> hobbies like ham radio.

? ?I've not keyed up a transmitter in years.? I'm pretty sad about that.

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
hp laser printer repair group?

 

I've been an instrument tech for most of my life, but once in a while have to work on a HP Laser printer.? Does anybody know of a group that covers these repairs?? I've searched groups.io, no luck, or I'm looking for the wrong thing.? I've left most of the yahoo groups behind.

Jim
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

On 10/7/20 1:44 PM, Wilko Bulte wrote:
Cray... I got to sit on one. At Shell here in NL. They were complaining their new Cray was less comfy than the previous model. Less padding ?
That was real leather in the commercial machines. But some US Gov't departments had restrictions on purchasing animal hide products, so Cray offered Naugahyde coverings over the power supply/coolant pump "bench" as an option for them.

Now we're getting very much off-topic..

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

Cray... I got to sit on one. At Shell here in NL. They were complaining their new Cray was less comfy than the previous model. Less padding ?
Re: HP435 measuring head? kW's?

 

One other point regarding the contention that power meters are not very
accurate. Keysight and every other reputable Sig Gen maker, uses a power
meter as the traceable to NIST device for calibration of power output. If
it's good enough for them...

Granted, you can argue about resistive vs. thermocouple vs. Diode detector
accuracy, but it ain't much of a difference.

Tom Holmes, N8ZM
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

On 10/7/20 1:33 PM, Jim Ford wrote:
I have the same problem, Tam.? Too much work and not enough time for hobbies like ham radio.
I've not keyed up a transmitter in years. I'm pretty sad about that.

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

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I have the same problem, Tam.? Too much work and not enough time for hobbies like ham radio.?

Jim Ford?



Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone

-------- Original message --------
From: Tam Hanna <tamhan@...>
Date: 10/7/20 9:28 AM (GMT-08:00)
Subject: Re: [HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment] HP435 measuring head?

Hello,
Well. Back to the old topic...of why you buy what. I tend to "overspec" - both in test kit and in general stuff.

But, work often prevents me. It's a pity...wanted to do some HAM stuff, but literally never made it on air. Just so much other things to do.

Tam
With best regards
Tam HANNA (emailing on a BlackBerry PRIV)

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Am 7. Oktober 2020 18:23:46 MESZ schrieb Robin Szemeti <robin@...>:
Oh we all have that in our legal text, something to be able to determine your frequency and power, but I have been in the hobby for 30 years and I never heard of someone being inspected. The regulations say somewhere you are supposed to be able to measure your frequency, but 99% of people just have the display on the front of the radio they purchased from the shop.? People might buy a cheap $50 power and SWR meter, but the only people with a proper one like a 435 are the microwave experimenters.

On Wed, 7 Oct 2020 at 16:55, Tam Hanna <tamhan@...> wrote:
Hello,
Checked again - Betriebstechnik by Ing. Zwingl.

For self built transmission systems, a frequency measurement is required. If a larger than licensed power is possible to use, a power meter is required (to be connected at all time).

He, however, does not name the actual legal text. But, this is the official answer to question 44B of the Austrian government ham radio exam...

So, back to the original question we go. Why do people buy HP power meters...

Tam
With best regards
Tam HANNA (emailing on a BlackBerry PRIV)

Enjoy electronics? Join 14k other followers by visiting the Crazy Electronics Lab at

Am 7. Oktober 2020 16:19:04 MESZ schrieb Carsten Bormann <cabocabo@...>:
On 2020-10-07, at 11:07, Robin Szemeti <robin@...> wrote:

I've not heard of the european thing about required equipment for hams, it's certainly not like that in the UK.

Or anywhere else in Europe.

Grü?e, Carsten
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Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

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I do not know what the situation is in Europe but I know that here in the states there has been a seismic shift in telecommunications.? I do not have a ham license but have been following it with some interest for a long time.? For probably 30 years after the war, the majority of people here used TV antennas and radios for entertainment.? Especially in urban areas they were very sensitive to rf interference from transmitters, ham and otherwise.? Cable TV, Internet, music downloads and cellphones have changed all that.? There are far fewer people here who even know what is going on in the rf spectrum to have any complaints.? That probably explains the perceived lack of enforcement.

Jack Reynolds

On 10/7/2020 12:39 PM, Robin Szemeti wrote:

I absolutely guarantee that in the UK 95% of amateurs have nothing more than a cheap multimeter and a cheap SWR meter.?? A very few might have a "Bird" thruline, but only the serious VHF/UHF guys.??? The only time you might get an inspection is if you are creating a lot of interference in your local neighbourhood, and even then, they really don't have any inspectors for that anymore as there is no charge for the licence so no funds to pay for the inspectors.? Once you get your licence, you are very unlikely to ever hear from the authorities ever again in the UK.
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

On 10/7/20 1:24 PM, Kuba Ober wrote:
Hah, I’d love a scrap Cray I for its ECL nand gates and RAM – perfect if you want to do anything in that technology, all the building blocks are there to just pull and reuse.
You won't find any, unfortunately. And if you did, building it up is a much better idea than tearing it down.

We wouldn't melt down a "scrap" Model T Ford for a few pounds of steel, either.

Are old Motorola ECL chips really that hard to find now? I used to see them everywhere.

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

Hah, I’d love a scrap Cray I for its ECL nand gates and RAM – perfect if you want to do anything in that technology, all the building blocks are there to just pull and reuse.

7 okt. 2020 kl. 12:59 em skrev Dave McGuire <mcguire@...>:

?On 10/7/20 12:28 PM, Tam Hanna wrote:
Well. Back to the old topic...of why you buy what. I tend to "overspec" - both in test kit and in general stuff.
"Anything worth doing is worth overdoing."

I once balanced my checkbook on a Cray supercomputer. Because I could. B-)

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

Hello to the group.
With respect to HP power meters. They have great accuracy subject to the head. But go up to 20 GHz plus.
So for above 1 GHz (I have gear to 10 GHz)?its the only way to go. Especially measuring 180 watts at 10 GHz.
Birds simply can't do that and honestly they seem reasonable to 500 MHz. I do have slugs to 1.3 GHz and the made higher slugs.
But the HP heads easily allow me to go from 10 MHz and up with reasonable confidence. Having numbers of heads and meters and them all being close feels good. Certainly not a legal reference.
Same with counters. Good to know what frequency you may be on.
But I have been lucky in the test equipment "happy times" to have purchased pounds of equipment for nothing.
Much needed repair and TLC. Cleaning really does help.
The key to the HP meters are good attenuators that are accurate or at least known. The meter helps you determine how good or bad they are.
These days HP heads are really costly and you stand a serious risk of losing?money.
Several months ago I responded on homebrewing replacement elements/thermistors.
The thermistors are a dot in size like this period. The thermal mass of anything I could do was hundreds of times larger. It actually worked. But the meter lag was really really long. Made it useless. But learned a lot.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

On 10/7/20 12:28 PM, Tam Hanna wrote:
Well. Back to the old topic...of why you buy what. I tend to "overspec" - both in test kit and in general stuff.
"Anything worth doing is worth overdoing."

I once balanced my checkbook on a Cray supercomputer. Because I could. B-)

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

On Wed, Oct 7, 2020 at 09:09 AM, Harke Smits wrote:
Because they like them
Yes! That's legit.
I like them too!
Re: HP435 measuring head?

 

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I think that's highly unlikely, Robin.

Possibly 95% of the hams who aren't electronic enthusiasts and had to struggle to get their licenses, but I believe there's a significant proportion of hams that came into the hobby because of their interest in electronics, and they will certainly have a comprehensive collection of test gear, even if a lot of it isn't SOTA.

Mike - M0MLM

On 07/10/2020 17:39, Robin Szemeti wrote:

I absolutely guarantee that in the UK 95% of amateurs have nothing more than a cheap multimeter and a cheap SWR meter.?? A very few might have a "Bird" thruline, but only the serious VHF/UHF guys.??? The only time you might get an inspection is if you are creating a lot of interference in your local neighbourhood, and even then, they really don't have any inspectors for that anymore as there is no charge for the licence so no funds to pay for the inspectors.? Once you get your licence, you are very unlikely to ever hear from the authorities ever again in the UK.

On Wed, 7 Oct 2020 at 17:31, Tam Hanna <tamhan@...> wrote:
Hello,
As said, IANAL. But I passed the exam with basically this answer...and had a friendly chat with the guy afterwards.

If they accept an SA for power meter, it's good OFC. But then, the issue remains - do you want to run your 4195A or your Anritsu SA for hours on piece?

(The Examiner saw my TMI pile on my phone...so maybe he just was suggesting another bit of fun kit. No idea)
With best regards
Tam HANNA (emailing on a BlackBerry PRIV)

Enjoy electronics? Join 14k other followers by visiting the Crazy Electronics Lab at

Am 7. Oktober 2020 18:28:08 MESZ schrieb Wilko Bulte <wkb@...>: 
Any ham is supposed to ensure that [s]he is operating within the limits of their license. That does not constitute a legal requirement that you have to have, say,a power meter or frequency counter, or SA, or ...

"Alternative facts" this

Wilko

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