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Always wondered why a HPAKwiki (in the vein of TekWiki) wasnt started earlier, so good work Dave!

On 12/10/23 15:44, Reginald Beardsley via groups.io wrote:

As a practical matter I cannot hire people without specifying the task to be done and arranging for some supervision of the result. So I made up a trial statement of work without knowing anything about hpwiki.org and asked Dave if he'd host it. Dave reminded me he had one. It doesn't get enough attention for a search to return it.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how search engines work. People using the site do not affect search results. People searching for it and then going to it in search engine results affect search results.

That led to accusations I was fundamentally trying to change the wiki. All I was trying to do was describe in generic terms the task of creating wiki entries in *any* wiki.

First, you wanted to hire people abroad to "build" the wiki. Then you wanted me to rewrite the file upload system to enable a user to enter a URL for a manual on Keysight's web site and have my server go retrieve the file that it points to. From that point, your only focus was slurping manuals from Keysight, when it was already made clear that the intent is not to be a(nother) manual archive site.

Perhaps I misunderstood, but these seem like pretty fundamental changes to me.

Without a complete and clear explanation of the structure of the wiki, the reasoning behind it and complete examples of what a page should look like the chances of getting the desired result are a random walk. And no one is happy. Generating hundreds of malformed or incomplete pages is not helpful. They will just get deleted.

The reasoning behind it is clear. There are existing pages there that serve as the complete examples that you claim are absent. I even put together a template page to make it easier.

There are currently 73 user accounts on HPWiki. About a dozen of them have contributed pages. They didn't seem to have any trouble.

So if there are any REAL issues, I hope someone will let me know.

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA

Argentina has the world's highest official rate of inflation. Zimbabwe changed how they calculated theirs to put Argentina in the top spot.

I thought I'd hire some hams in Argentina at low wages to build an HPwiki with manuals, photos, etc.

As a practical matter I cannot hire people without specifying the task to be done and arranging for some supervision of the result. So I made up a trial statement of work without knowing anything about hpwiki.org and asked Dave if he'd host it. Dave reminded me he had one. It doesn't get enough attention for a search to return it.

That led to accusations I was fundamentally trying to change the wiki. All I was trying to do was describe in generic terms the task of creating wiki entries in *any* wiki.

Without a complete and clear explanation of the structure of the wiki, the reasoning behind it and complete examples of what a page should look like the chances of getting the desired result are a random walk. And no one is happy. Generating hundreds of malformed or incomplete pages is not helpful. They will just get deleted.

I thought documenting 600-800 instruments in the wiki with local copies of all the available documentation would be a nice Christmas present to all and stimulate others adding to it. But I no longer see any way to accomplish that.


My apologies to all,
Reg

Thanks
I think that's a separate thing because it is also included with 8515A but the part list for 8515A does not have 10dB pad in it (only 6dBx4 and 13dBx2)
also it is not designated at AT6. In the part list it is clearly designated at AT6 although it is not shown in the block diagram but none of the others are also shown there

On 12/10/23 11:48, Jim Adney wrote:

Long term sustainability is the most important factor. In my mind, the critical part of this is that there are at least TWO people who control it, and that's two people who don't live together but have a long term friendly relationship. This is necessary, because bad things happen to people. There needs to be a way to continue even if the unthinkable happens to the key person.

I agree, but there have been no volunteers yet.

There needs to be a way to pay for this continuation, even if it seems to be free now. I get requests for donations from WikiPedia maybe once a year. I give generously to those drives, simply because I believe it deserves my, and many other's, support.

Hey, don't get me wrong, if people want to send me cash I'll never turn it down. But there are no financial costs associated with this project.

A continuation after my death may change that, but I'm folding it in with another organization that is designed to continue past my death. Those legal arrangements are not yet complete, but they're being worked on, and hopefully that won't be an issue for a while yet. (I'm 54)

Finally, a comment on the 5005A. It's fine for something to be in two, or more, categories, but there should not be duplicate listings. If this is how things are now, it's a mistake. Redundancy can be tempting, but in cases like this, it is crippling, because it means that someone has to remember to make edits to both, or several, so you never know which is correct. [A man with two watches is never sure of the correct time.] Multiple pointers pointing to a single entry is fine, but having multiple entries quickly goes bad.

Pete set up multiple pointers to a single entry. If he hadn't, I'd have requested that he change it. (I do understand data, and so does Pete)

I have not been to the HP Wiki yet, because the TekWiki is already soaking up too much of my time, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually, and I hope I'll be able to contribute what I can, when I can.

That would be great.

This is a worthy effort, long overdue.

Thanks, and I agree. I don't recall this degree of scrutiny and negativity (not from you, but from others) being aimed at TekWiki when it started, but these are all very valid questions, especially with the ephemeral nature of so many things on the net today, and so many people who don't know what they're doing starting big projects. I believe I've set things up the correct way. I come from the startup company world; I know how to set things up to be inexpensive and resilient.

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA

I've been a contributor to TekWiki for awhile now. It's a beautiful resource and I'm pleased to hear that something similar is happening for HP products. I like to add my 2 cents on a couple of things.

Long term sustainability is the most important factor. In my mind, the critical part of this is that there are at least TWO people who control it, and that's two people who don't live together but have a long term friendly relationship. This is necessary, because bad things happen to people. There needs to be a way to continue even if the unthinkable happens to the key person.

There needs to be a way to pay for this continuation, even if it seems to be free now. I get requests for donations from WikiPedia maybe once a year. I give generously to those drives, simply because I believe it deserves my, and many other's, support.

Finally, a comment on the 5005A. It's fine for something to be in two, or more, categories, but there should not be duplicate listings. If this is how things are now, it's a mistake. Redundancy can be tempting, but in cases like this, it is crippling, because it means that someone has to remember to make edits to both, or several, so you never know which is correct. [A man with two watches is never sure of the correct time.] Multiple pointers pointing to a single entry is fine, but having multiple entries quickly goes bad.

I have not been to the HP Wiki yet, because the TekWiki is already soaking up too much of my time, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually, and I hope I'll be able to contribute what I can, when I can.

This is a worthy effort, long overdue.

I suspect that AT6 was supplied seperately to the unit see item 10 of accessories supplied.


Robert.

I picked up a physically damaged HP 8513A Trans/Refl test set (surprisingly in a garage sale!) to harvest some RF components
According to the service manual there must be a 8493C-10dB attenuator (designated by AT6) in the unit but I cannot find where it is
The block diagram in the manual is poorly drawn and misses all attenuators except one. Does anybody know if the 10dB pad
even exist in 8513A and if so where it is located?
I am sure I have looked everywhere. The RF parts are all visible so I am guessing the service manual is wrong

Interested in that. Let me know.?
Best regards

On Sat, Dec 9, 2023 at 08:46 AM, Dave McGuire wrote:

On 12/9/23 10:44, n4buq wrote:

I notice the 5005A is listed twice (under different categories). Is that intentional?

I don't know, I wasn't the one who added it. But it does fit into both of those categories.

-Dave

I uploaded the 5005A, a year or two ago I think. I deliberately put it in both categories - it is a multi-purpose instrument.

Pete

I've signed up, going to need to learn how to use DokuWiki, but editing to correct an error was easy enough.

David

On 12/9/23 13:17, Reginald Beardsley via groups.io wrote:

But you "question" a piece of software because of the color of the buttons?
Seriously?

I have dry macular degeneration. Contrast is a *MAJOR* issue. I am quite certain I'm not alone. Glaucoma doesn't make it any easier. Not being able to find the edit box is a daily experience. So yes, I do take it very seriously.

I'm sorry to hear it. I'm pretty sure there are accessibility tools out there for contrast enhancement, etc, in web browsers.

But "I question using" is a strange way to express "I have visual limitations which make this difficult". It's an unfortunate fact thatbut very little of the Internet is structured for accessibility for the disabled.

All I wanted to do is hire some people in Argentina who are dealing with inflation greater than Zimbabwe make some money by uploading HPAK manuals and datasheets to HPwiki.org. As I had proposed spending several thousand USD paying to have the files archived on Dave's server I had expected a bit more cooperation.

By "cooperation" you wanted to change the nature of the project in impractical and unsustainable ways. And, once again, "Dave's server" is not a file archive site. Uploading files is a small fraction of this project. There are already file archive sites, the most popular being KO4BB. Availability of files is not a problem that this community has.

Oh, well. I'll find another project for the money.

That's your prerogative.

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA

I forgot to mention: the 3335A is fed from a distribution amplifier and that source is rock solid (I checked.)? The unit also does the same when using it's internal reference.

Hal

My 3335A recently developed an jitter in it's output.? I first noticed it on a counter and then verified it on a 'scope.? I then looked at the output on my 53310A and saw it was primarily a variance of +- a couple KHz or less across all frequency outputs.? I'm attaching pics of the 53310A screen along with a listing of measured output - the curve shown on the screen shot is mostly the same across all frequencies.? Further there is a copy of the SA output for a 50MHz input - again, the same response across varying frequencies.? The 3335A is not the simplest or easiest animal to troubleshoot so I am asking here in the hopes that someone else has experience that might narrow down the problem area before I start.

Thanks to all!

Hal

On Sat, Dec 9, 2023 at 10:04 AM, Dave McGuire wrote:

But you "question" a piece of software because of the color of the buttons?
Seriously?

I have dry macular degeneration. Contrast is a *MAJOR* issue. I am quite certain I'm not alone. Glaucoma doesn't make it any easier. Not being able to find the edit box is a daily experience. So yes, I do take it very seriously.

All I wanted to do is hire some people in Argentina who are dealing with inflation greater than Zimbabwe make some money by uploading HPAK manuals and datasheets to HPwiki.org. As I had proposed spending several thousand USD paying to have the files archived on Dave's server I had expected a bit more cooperation.

Oh, well. I'll find another project for the money.

Reg

You're welcome Barry, and I'm glad you like it. These sorts of things are always a slow process.

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA

According to this compatibility matrix:

? https://www.keysight.com/us/en/assets/9018-06749/reference-guides/9018-06749.pdf

it's just the 16500C.? The 16500A and 16500B don't support the 16534A module.

-mark

Now the predictable stone-throwing begins. Perhaps someday I'll learn that no good deed goes unpunished.

For others here, I'll note that Reg, privately, wanted to start a funded effort to do this, then sought to make wholesale (and in my opinion unsustainable) changes to how it works. Our last communication was my rejecting some of those ideas. Now this.

On 12/9/23 10:32, Reginald Beardsley via groups.io wrote:

I'm the other half of the off-list discussion.

1/5th of it. You're not the only person involved here.

First of all, there is *very* little usable content at HPwiki.org (which is the more easily remembered address).

As far as "*very* little usable content", HPWiki is new. It is a community effort that has to start somewhere. I and about fifteen others have put effort into what's there. Because you didn't find your favorite instrument there does not mean it's useless to everyone.

You could contribute instead of complaining.

It's a Potemkin village littered with incorrect photos and most commonly no usable information. If you don't believe me search Duckduckgo for "hpwiki". Then do the same for "tekwiki". Take a page by page tour of hpwiki.org.

TekWiki was also new at one time; it did not magically warp into existence with a thousand pages. People (myself included) contributed to its development.

And yes, a few people made messes, you and I discussed that privately. You fixed a few, I fixed the rest. This is the nature of a community-based documentation effort.

Further, and to be very clear about this: This is not a popularity contest. It is a shared, community-driven information resource.

I've used MediaWiki, but never DocuWiki.

I've hosted dozens of MediaWiki sites over the years. It is a can of worms that requires lots of maintenance and is fraught with security problems. I made a conscious, informed decision to not use it.

DokuWiki is simpler, faster, safer, and requires much less maintenance. If you learned MediaWiki, you can learn DokuWiki. Read the documentation.

I can upload a file, but how to control where it goes or how I reference it on a page is opaque.

You could read the documentation.

It appears that the uploaded files all go in a single directory.

Wrong. Read the documentation.

That will collapse very fast if several thousand files are dumped in one directory.

Of course it would. I do know how to run a network, thanks. Read the documentation.

I seriously question using a wiki which uses grey on grey icons to communicate, e.g. the "edit pencil". especially when text says to click the edit buttons at the top and bottom of the page.

I understand that you don't like DokuWiki, but it seems as though your only reason is that it differs from MediaWiki. DokuWiki is not intended to be a clone of MediaWiki. As I explained above, I made a conscious, informed decision to use DokuWiki.

But you "question" a piece of software because of the color of the buttons? Seriously?

I've uploaded all the 3458A manuals and datasheet, but do not understand how to reference the files I uploaded in the wiki page which are named using HPAK numerical part numbers. That's good, but needs indexing.

You could read the documentation.

If someone who knows DocuWiki and the HPwiki.org instance well enough to fill out the 3458A page with sufficient comments so it's clear how to populate the wiki with all the documentation available from Keysight I'd like to ire a handful of Argentinians to work uploading manuals and datasheets to HPwiki.

As I stated privately, I think that would be a mistake. But how you contribute, should you choose to do so, is up to you.

Note, though, that there's more to this than uploading manuals and datasheets. Take a look at TekWiki; that's the model we're following. The manuals there are a small part of what's there. HPWiki is not intended to be a manual archive site. See KO4BB for that.

The only way to ensure preservation of all this vital data is to create multiple replications, both online and offline. At the moment we are in a precarious place dependent on a very few repositories. I want to populate HPwiki.org and make creating local clones simple. I have too much other stuff going on to do this myself. But I'm willing to throw some money at making it happen. If it takes a new site, so be it. I hope that is not the case.

HPWiki itself, while being new, is far from precarious. The network it lives on predates the existence of ALL commercial hosting services; and predates the existence of Google and even Yahoo.

Other repositories, KO4BB for example, have been around for a very long time.

Funding such a site is a non-issue. Sell links to T&M dealers on a per instrument basis.

That will not happen.

This vintage of equipment is the end of user repairable T&M gear.

To be clear, HPWiki is not for "vintage" equipment. It's for HP/Agilent/Keysight equipment, of any age.

VLSI has made repair of modern instruments increasingly impossible. It's all on 4 chips which may not be available. And the packaging just makes it worse. HPAK equipment made of primarily discrete components are a shrinking resource which will shrink faste without documentation.

I repair it all the time. It's different, yes, and in many cases a unit is a lot less repairable at the component level. But I guess you're in the mood to throw stones at both HPWiki AND modern test equipment.

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA

Dave,

Good deal. I like the looks of the new site. Clean. Should be fun to watch the various instruments being added and filled out.

Thanks for doing this.

Barry - N4BUQ

On 12/9/23 10:44, n4buq wrote:

I notice the 5005A is listed twice (under different categories). Is that intentional?

I don't know, I wasn't the one who added it. But it does fit into both of those categories.

-Dave

--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA