开云体育

Update :

Changing the name was a breeze. Now the URL is :

/g/TestgearNotTekScopes/settings

See you there hopefully. Not that I want patronization, but when you have something, do it.

They don't do this unless you cross a certain threshold of sales. You have to BOTH sell more than $20,000.00 worth of goods AND have more than 200 sales transactions or they do not do this. If you don't hit both of these marks they send nothing.
--Eric
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S8.

The new group has been approved but it is named TestGearNTS. I'll have to look into changing the name to spell out "not tek scopes".

The URL for direct web access (which is what I use and is easy) is :

/g/TestgearNTS/topics

As a frequent user of eBay, just keep in mind that whoever administers that will get a tax document shortly after the year is over and it will be treated as income.

Nice idea, Stefan.

On Tue, May 1, 2018 at 1:29 AM, stefan_trethan <stefan_trethan@...>
wrote:

Maybe you can simply sell 150 "contributing memberships" on Ebay as $1
buy it now items and if someone wants to donate say $10 they can just
pick up 10 pcs? This would cap the funds coming in and almost
auto-generate a list.

Patreon or any of the countless gofundme type of sites would likely
work too, but I don't really want to singn up somewhere new. I expect
most members use Ebay already.

I don't think anyone is too concerned about fees or what happens to
excess money, the goal is to reimburse you with the least hassle for
you, but I understand why you do not want to be saddled with a large
sum that you don't know what to do with.

ST

On Tue, May 1, 2018 at 6:54 AM, Robert Simpson via Groups.Io
<go_boating_fast@...> wrote:

A. Donate extra to the Tektronix museum.

B. As mentioned, work out a deal with other moderators as like so many

of you, I am also a member of many technical forums.

Or anything like that.
And
Thank you for setting this up,
Bob

Stefan's eBay plan is brilliantly simple!
But I say it should be extended to $200, so there are ample funds for the eBay and PayPal fees and other administrative costs (such as a nice lunch for Dennis and his wife, etc).
Do not give any accounting of the funds other than to say the first year is paid for.
Forget the list of donors and forget giving credit to anyone who contributed.
If anyone requires a 'pat on the back', or any kind of accounting, then that person should not contribute anything, and just say he did if it makes him feel better.
Then when the time nears for the second year payment to Groups.IO do it again for double whatever the Groups.IO charges are at that time.
tom jobe...

I took the plunge. the group name will be TestGearNotTekScopes. the email address will be [email protected], pending approval of course. I see no reason they wouldn't approve it though.

I already emailed the site fro some clarification. I am going to need some help for sure. I use direct web access to get here and it works fine for me, however I guess many use an email client. I never learned how to set one up. I have Outlook Express and real Outlook, and I have used Thunderbird for Usenet access when Google was down. If I open one of these email programs it wants numbers which I don't have, so a walkthrough on that would be appreciated. I will also Google it of course but sometimes it is better to hear it fro people. I may know a little electronics but internet and all this, not so much. The PC itself, maybe. I have built a few and repaired some, and got rid of bugs etc. for people and myself. I am not afraid of the registry though I avoid it for obvious reasons if there is a better way to git er dun.

One question is say I want to include my guidelines for images, I see nowhere to put that. Do I have to put it right in the group description ? That is one mess I do not want to create so I think it should be nipped in the bud.

Hopefully this will work out and people can go there and discuss their HP, Sencore, Wavetek, Boonton, whatever. But it is right in the description on to refer here anything to do with Tektronix oscilloscopes.

Another thing I want to included is home brew test jigs etc. like my cap checker. I intend to post that as soon as I have a set of images that describe how to read it. Of course the discussion of unique test procedures would also be welcome.

I am going by the old axiom : Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

But then, what could be the worse ? Put me in a phone booth with angry bees ? Use electrodes on "sensitive" parts of my body ? Make me eat quiche ? (lol)

Hi to All,

Still looking for documentation/software for this now very obsolete Logic Analyzer System. Nearly located all free downloads, but do miss documentation on the earlier Modules. Of course I will pay a fair price for it.

Greetings to All,

Egge Siert

Hi to All,

As far as I know the TM504A is exclusively produced as part of the SG505 Mod WQ, SG505 Mod WR and AA501A Mod WQ Test Set (TS-4353-U). Sometime ago there was a free Operators Manual (see earlier Posts) for this set. But now it disappeared.

Greetings,

Egge Siert

Ditto!

Adrian

Maybe you can simply sell 150 "contributing memberships" on Ebay as $1
buy it now items and if someone wants to donate say $10 they can just
pick up 10 pcs? This would cap the funds coming in and almost
auto-generate a list.

Patreon or any of the countless gofundme type of sites would likely
work too, but I don't really want to singn up somewhere new. I expect
most members use Ebay already.

I don't think anyone is too concerned about fees or what happens to
excess money, the goal is to reimburse you with the least hassle for
you, but I understand why you do not want to be saddled with a large
sum that you don't know what to do with.

ST

On Tue, May 1, 2018 at 6:54 AM, Robert Simpson via Groups.Io
<go_boating_fast@...> wrote:

A. Donate extra to the Tektronix museum.

B. As mentioned, work out a deal with other moderators as like so many of you, I am also a member of many technical forums.

Or anything like that.
And
Thank you for setting this up,
Bob

Well I proved you guys are right.? I put mask (Circuit Works CW2500 epoxy) on the guard traces around U2530.? About half of them survived the hand soldering job.? Didn't need the msk any way because, as you say, lots of flux, careful work and a little braid keeps the solder on the pin and pad with the guard trace clean.? I guess I am learning how to work with tiny spacing on a huge board.

A. Donate extra to the Tektronix museum.

B. As mentioned, work out a deal with other moderators as like so many of you, I am also a member of many technical forums.

Or anything like that.
And
Thank you for setting this up,
Bob

Please re-send after the details have been ironed out.

Gary


On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 8:19 PM, Dennis Tillman W7PF <dennis@...>
wrote:

To Jack, and the many others who have gently reminded me I need to recover
the modest annual cost of hosting our data on Groups.io. Thank you. I think
it is time to explain my inaction.

The short explanation is I have been avoiding it. I'm probably
overthinking this but I just realized the TekScopes members can probably
firure out solutions to every one of my concerns. Below are my concerns in
no particular order. By writing them down here I am asking for your help.
When the replies dwindle to a trickle I will distill down the best ideas
and if necessary put them up for a vote.

The annual cost is ~$100. I paid for the first year to get us started
without further delay because it appeared Yahoo would shut us down at any
moment.

THIS IS GOING TO GENERATE A LOT OF MESSAGE TRAFFIC SO PLEASE ONLY REPLY
AFTER READING ALL OF THE PRIOR POSTS AND REPLY ONLY IF YOU HAVE A
CONTRIBUTION. I am concerned that there will be too much traffic so keep
your replies short and to the point, and avoid unnecessary back and forth
that might keep the thread going longer than necessary.

MY CONCERNS / QUESTIONS / ISSUES / RANDOM THOUGHTS:

* Any request for funds is going to result in more than $100 being sent to
me. For example if we have 7,000 members and 10% are active at any given
moment and they each sent in $1 that would be 7 years' worth of Groups.io
storage costs.
* Michael Dunn and I would both have control over the funds so in the
event something happens to one of us the other could carry on alone.
* What do we do with the excess donations? Where should they be kept?
Commercial banks charge too many fees. Perhaps a credit union is the
answer. What about the Tektronix Credit Union? Can I apply if I was not an
employee of Tek?
* Donating less than $1 is impractical.
* Fairness dictates that the cost be spread evenly so everybody
contributed equally. This is also impractical.
* Everyone should have access to the donation list of who contributed and
how much for total transparency. That way everyone can confirm their
donation contributed to the total.
* There needs to be an automated way to accept and post the donations to
the donation list because my wife and I do not have the time to do it. I
have no idea how to do that part of this, but maybe somebody has the
answer.
* I am hopeful whatever mechanism is chosen it accepts PayPal and checks.
It is impractical to send a money order for $1. It is also not a good idea
to send $1 in cash.
* How do foreign donations get handled? Maybe the automated system I
alluded to above has the answer to that.

Dennis Tillman W7PF

-----Original Message-----

Jack Reynolds wrote on Monday, April 30, 2018 4:36 PM
<snips>

Hello all and especially Dennis,

I remember reading for a while

before the switch to groups.io that there were going to be some modest
financial costs for the switch and for the maintenance of the groups.io
group which would be dealt with after the switchover.

Dennis, would you be so kind as to update us on the who, where and how

much, etc.?

Thanks,
Jack Reynolds

--
Dennis Tillman W7PF
TekScopes Moderator

--
Gary Robert Bosworth
grbosworth@...
Tel: 310-317-2247

On Mon, 30 Apr 2018, Dennis Tillman W7PF wrote:

I would happily shell out $10 or even more.

The solution might be simple but it would require cooperation and
organization (maybe contact groups.io guys?)

The thing is most of us are participants in several groups, not just one.
There is HP-Agilent, Lecroy and some others. If we could somehow split our
payments of, say, $10 between those all groups we are members of that would
solve the problem of excessive funds.

Maybe we should ask groups.io administrators if they could charge members,
not moderators something like $1 per group per year?

Just an idea...

To Jack, and the many others who have gently reminded me I need to recover
the modest annual cost of hosting our data on Groups.io. Thank you. I
think it is time to explain my inaction.

The short explanation is I have been avoiding it. I'm probably
overthinking this but I just realized the TekScopes members can probably
firure out solutions to every one of my concerns. Below are my concerns
in no particular order. By writing them down here I am asking for your
help. When the replies dwindle to a trickle I will distill down the best
ideas and if necessary put them up for a vote.

The annual cost is ~$100. I paid for the first year to get us started
without further delay because it appeared Yahoo would shut us down at any
moment.

THIS IS GOING TO GENERATE A LOT OF MESSAGE TRAFFIC SO PLEASE ONLY REPLY
AFTER READING ALL OF THE PRIOR POSTS AND REPLY ONLY IF YOU HAVE A
CONTRIBUTION. I am concerned that there will be too much traffic so keep
your replies short and to the point, and avoid unnecessary back and forth
that might keep the thread going longer than necessary.

MY CONCERNS / QUESTIONS / ISSUES / RANDOM THOUGHTS:

* Any request for funds is going to result in more than $100 being sent to
me. For example if we have 7,000 members and 10% are active at any given
moment and they each sent in $1 that would be 7 years' worth of Groups.io
storage costs. * Michael Dunn and I would both have control over the
funds so in the event something happens to one of us the other could carry
on alone. * What do we do with the excess donations? Where should they
be kept? Commercial banks charge too many fees. Perhaps a credit union
is the answer. What about the Tektronix Credit Union? Can I apply if I
was not an employee of Tek?
* Donating less than $1 is impractical.
* Fairness dictates that the cost be spread evenly so everybody
contributed equally. This is also impractical. * Everyone should have
access to the donation list of who contributed and how much for total
transparency. That way everyone can confirm their donation contributed to
the total. * There needs to be an automated way to accept and post the
donations to the donation list because my wife and I do not have the time
to do it. I have no idea how to do that part of this, but maybe somebody
has the answer. * I am hopeful whatever mechanism is chosen it accepts
PayPal and checks. It is impractical to send a money order for $1. It is
also not a good idea to send $1 in cash. * How do foreign donations get
handled? Maybe the automated system I alluded to above has the answer to
that.

Dennis Tillman W7PF

-----Original Message-----

Jack Reynolds wrote on Monday, April 30, 2018 4:36 PM
<snips>

Hello all and especially Dennis,

I remember reading for a while

before the switch to groups.io that there were going to be some modest
financial costs for the switch and for the maintenance of the groups.io
group which would be dealt with after the switchover.

Dennis, would you be so kind as to update us on the who, where and how much, etc.?
Thanks,
Jack Reynolds

--
Dennis Tillman W7PF

---
*
* KSI@home KOI8 Net < > The impossible we do immediately. *
* Las Vegas NV, USA < > Miracles require 24-hour notice. *
*

On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 02:35 pm, Fabio Trevisan wrote:

Hello Mlynch,
What you describe looks like a "geometry" or Y-AXIS misadjustment.
If I understood correctly what's the equipment you have it's a T922
oscilloscope.
Looking at the Manual that is available on the TekWiki website (here:
), the adjustments are Y AXIS, R474 and
"GEOMETRY", R473, both are on the CRT & VERTICAL AMPLIFIER diagram, located on
the A1 INTERFACE BOARD.
Manual probably describes the correct procedure to adjust both of them, and
this is usually done in the very beginning of the calibration procedure,
meaning that most of the other calibrations are impacted to some extent by
these 2, as they change the shape of what's being shown on the screen.
Steps usually cover the following:
1. First of all, adjust the trace rotation (adjustment accessible from the
side of the scope), for a horizontal baseline (just sweep, no vertical
signal).
2. Then, using the X-Y mode, apply a signal to the Y channel enough to span
about 6 divisions height, leave the X-channel with no signal (set X input to
to GND). This will draw a vertical line on screen... Adjust now R474 so that
the vertical line, aligned to the central vertical graticule is perfectly
vertical.
3. Finally, change the scope back to normal mode, and apply a square wave to
one of the vertical channels, that is big enough to span 6 divisions
vertically, and set a sweep speed that you see about 20 cycles horizontally
accross the screen.
This setup will pretty much "fill" the screen with a square wave, from bottom
to top, left to right. Now you can adjust the geometry adjustment (R473) to
correct any "Pillow" or cushion distortions of the screen, so that the overall
shape of the displayed waveform is all "squared"...
4. The geometry adjustment, if it requires too big re-adjustment, will have
some side-effects to the Trace rotation and the Y-axis adjustment... Repeat
then Trace rotation and Y-Axis again, to make sure that the screen remains
aligned on the horizontal and vertical directions.

All that, above, assuming that - overall - the scope doesn't present other
misbehavior... However, the procedures above cannot assure you that everything
else is or will remain correct.
Since re-adjusting the Y axis and Geometry may have some impact on the size of
the waveforms displayed, by touching those adjustments, be aware that you may
need to readjust Vertical Gain and Horizontal gain... and this will require
that you have means to adjust those, or accept that they may become "off" by
some amount.

Rgrds,
Fabio

Fabio,

FIXED! Followed your instructions and everything is exactly as it should be. The little scope performs well and has a beautiful bright trace. I am pleased with my $20 bargain. Even after buying the resistor array, I still only have $50 invested, The scope is worth twice that for parts.

THANKS AGAIN!

On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 06:46 pm, ykochcal wrote:

I would agree with the stuff below.

But would look closely at the screws around the CRT area, for ones that
don't have the right look, toand check to be sure you don't have a mini
magnet in the form of a screw that someone replaced that would be pulling
your picture.

John

John, Everything looks in order in that area. None of the screws look to be out of place on "non-Standard". But I will keep that in mind, since this may not be the last time I encounter this issue. I made the adjustments tonight and everything fell back into place. The Sine,Triangle and Square signals now reproduce. faithfully. Timing and amplitude measurements appear to be right on the money. Appreciate your advise.

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Fabio
Trevisan
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2018 2:36 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [TekScopes] 922 with "tilted" wave form.

Hello Mlynch,
What you describe looks like a "geometry" or Y-AXIS misadjustment.
If I understood correctly what's the equipment you have it's a T922
oscilloscope.
Looking at the Manual that is available on the TekWiki website (here:
), the adjustments are Y AXIS, R474 and
"GEOMETRY", R473, both are on the CRT & VERTICAL AMPLIFIER diagram, located
on the A1 INTERFACE BOARD.
Manual probably describes the correct procedure to adjust both of them, and
this is usually done in the very beginning of the calibration procedure,
meaning that most of the other calibrations are impacted to some extent by
these 2, as they change the shape of what's being shown on the screen.
Steps usually cover the following:
1. First of all, adjust the trace rotation (adjustment accessible from the
side of the scope), for a horizontal baseline (just sweep, no vertical
signal).
2. Then, using the X-Y mode, apply a signal to the Y channel enough to span
about 6 divisions height, leave the X-channel with no signal (set X input to
to GND). This will draw a vertical line on screen... Adjust now R474 so that
the vertical line, aligned to the central vertical graticule is perfectly
vertical.
3. Finally, change the scope back to normal mode, and apply a square wave to
one of the vertical channels, that is big enough to span 6 divisions
vertically, and set a sweep speed that you see about 20 cycles horizontally
accross the screen.
This setup will pretty much "fill" the screen with a square wave, from
bottom to top, left to right. Now you can adjust the geometry adjustment
(R473) to correct any "Pillow" or cushion distortions of the screen, so that
the overall shape of the displayed waveform is all "squared"...
4. The geometry adjustment, if it requires too big re-adjustment, will have
some side-effects to the Trace rotation and the Y-axis adjustment... Repeat
then Trace rotation and Y-Axis again, to make sure that the screen remains
aligned on the horizontal and vertical directions.

All that, above, assuming that - overall - the scope doesn't present other
misbehavior... However, the procedures above cannot assure you that
everything else is or will remain correct.
Since re-adjusting the Y axis and Geometry may have some impact on the size
of the waveforms displayed, by touching those adjustments, be aware that you
may need to readjust Vertical Gain and Horizontal gain... and this will
require that you have means to adjust those, or accept that they may become
"off" by some amount.

Rgrds,
Fabio

To Jack, and the many others who have gently reminded me I need to recover the modest annual cost of hosting our data on Groups.io. Thank you. I think it is time to explain my inaction.

The short explanation is I have been avoiding it. I'm probably overthinking this but I just realized the TekScopes members can probably firure out solutions to every one of my concerns. Below are my concerns in no particular order. By writing them down here I am asking for your help. When the replies dwindle to a trickle I will distill down the best ideas and if necessary put them up for a vote.

The annual cost is ~$100. I paid for the first year to get us started without further delay because it appeared Yahoo would shut us down at any moment.

THIS IS GOING TO GENERATE A LOT OF MESSAGE TRAFFIC SO PLEASE ONLY REPLY AFTER READING ALL OF THE PRIOR POSTS AND REPLY ONLY IF YOU HAVE A CONTRIBUTION. I am concerned that there will be too much traffic so keep your replies short and to the point, and avoid unnecessary back and forth that might keep the thread going longer than necessary.

MY CONCERNS / QUESTIONS / ISSUES / RANDOM THOUGHTS:

* Any request for funds is going to result in more than $100 being sent to me. For example if we have 7,000 members and 10% are active at any given moment and they each sent in $1 that would be 7 years' worth of Groups.io storage costs.
* Michael Dunn and I would both have control over the funds so in the event something happens to one of us the other could carry on alone.
* What do we do with the excess donations? Where should they be kept? Commercial banks charge too many fees. Perhaps a credit union is the answer. What about the Tektronix Credit Union? Can I apply if I was not an employee of Tek?
* Donating less than $1 is impractical.
* Fairness dictates that the cost be spread evenly so everybody contributed equally. This is also impractical.
* Everyone should have access to the donation list of who contributed and how much for total transparency. That way everyone can confirm their donation contributed to the total.
* There needs to be an automated way to accept and post the donations to the donation list because my wife and I do not have the time to do it. I have no idea how to do that part of this, but maybe somebody has the answer.
* I am hopeful whatever mechanism is chosen it accepts PayPal and checks. It is impractical to send a money order for $1. It is also not a good idea to send $1 in cash.
* How do foreign donations get handled? Maybe the automated system I alluded to above has the answer to that.

Dennis Tillman W7PF

It seems I've created a monster. Well, not all monsters are bad.

"...there is a very active HP/Agilent/Keysight group on Yahoo. There's also a test equipment group (although it's not quite as active as some others)."

"...there are "funwithtubes" and "funwithtransistors" groups on Yahoo"

Yahoo and other such organizations are in business to make money, and they sell information to get money. I don't know the "scope" of what they do. I'm sure Google is selling my information due to using their email, so using their Usenet access is no big thing. Still, I get very little spam.

When I updated a browser in the past all the sudden I got a "Yahoo" search window up in the top part. I chose Google as my search engine, this was something I did not want nor need and I didn't ask for it nor was I asked to allow it. I don't know about you, but I don't like that. This site asked even just to EMAIL me. That I like.

"Maybe we should have a group for each Tektronix instrument of interest
where users from the main TekScopes group can post their albums. This would
give some organization to the images allowing for a browsing capability
based on the instrument."

"One group per instrument seems way too much detail and separation."

"Shouldn't be much more than a couple hundred groups."

A group just for image albums ? Well, I guess it is an option but I doubt the best option. I suggest that we somehow come to an agreement on a naming convention for image albums and stick to it. Without getting too longwinded, I faced a similar problem when I was downloading massive amounts of music on P2P. I used to rename each file with the artist first and it went into an alphabetical directory. Later I found it much better to make subdirectories for each artist and not even bother renaming all the files. So here, one way would be to name your album by the model of the scope. To avoid duplicate names it would maybe start with the model and then the initials of your username. something like that, as long as we all agree. This would also help if and when they do have a search utility of some sort, because how would a search find something pertaining to i.e. a Tek 11543 in a directory called "Problem in town" ? I see people using the filenames assigned by their camera, there is no way in hell those could ever be searchable without some form of heuristic analysis of the images themselves, and I think that is too much to ask.

If I were to start a group for everything but Tek copes, logically then the albums should be named with the brand first, then model. It is not hard to rename the images to be descriptive on your own PC, resize and then upload them. I have a small standalone program that does it but it is 32 bit so some people can't use it, but I am sure there is something out there.

"Nobody is stopping you from implementing your "great" idea.

Go ahead and punt."

I am leaning toward that. I think it would be a good idea.

"I kind of like the idea of a service/repair group specifically dedicated to
"Other.""

"Yes, such a group SHOULD allow "pot-smoking hippies" as members as long as
they have half a clue about electronics repairs, or at least wish to obtain
said half-a-clue."

"Let's develop this idea and then put it out
in the world if it looks good enough."

Of course I agree being the one who mentioned it. And people's recreational drug use is irrelevant . I like pot. I don't do it because of the insane prices, well once in a while. I don't do anything else but beer but I know people who can do coke or smack and still function at a very high level. On the other hand there are those who are totally straight and sober but just idiots. Luckily they seem rare in this business, well except in management. My Uncle worked for Big Blue for 100 years and told me some cool horror stories. When he couldn't get along with one of their "strawbosses" the strawboss got transferred. Problem solved. And, for the record I believe the government has no right to tell you what you can do to your own body. that's why prohibition was a constitutional amendment, because with the Constitution being enforced back then (somewhat) they couldn't just legislate it and let the President sign it. HA, the Kennedys would have them in court ! Speaking of the Constuitution :

"...started the group specifically as a protest against limits on free speech that were
arguably in violation of the First Amendment but were put in place by the people who either owned or controlled the speech venue..."

The first amendment does not apply. It only forbids the government from legislating against public speech, and not even completely. But in a private venue, you could get thrown out legally for using the word "green" if the person in charge decides.

Nothing wrong with the protest, that was his prerogative. I have no problem with it.

"Splitting it up will just deny the resulting groups
that mass, and they will fizzle out."

I think with proper guidelines that won't happen. Tektronix is/was in a class by itself. Lately I have heard that Rigol is actually better, but have no personal knowledge of it. The other group would specifically not include Tek scopes. What I don't know is whether other Tek equipment should be excluded.

"and learning from other's mistakes is so last century"

Last century was good for learning. From the first cars to the moon. Now people can't balance a checkbook and heaven forbid they need a square root. Last century I learned how to do them longhand so if the batteries all die maybe I can clean up doing that...

"I'll tell you this for nothing. If this group fragments in the ways that are being discussed..."

That is not my intent, what is is to do whatever possible to prevent it. There is good reason too, Tektronix engineering is not only better, but different. How many manufacturers use tunnel diodes ? (their tunnel diode triggering can actually lock in on noise ! I've done it) How many use one Zener to regulate a half dozen sources ? (I think their intent was that all the source come up in unison at power up) How many other scopes ever had a separate blanking electrode in the CRT ? I am sure there are many things I missed.

"If you want to segment this group
into sub-groups, take a look at
this site:



Again, in no way do I wish to segment this group. Tek Scopes still belongs here. There are archives here and eventually that will get straightened out so things can be found. that amfone.net has a structure I wouldn't want. I can't even say exactly what I don't like about it but it just seems off in some way.

"Splitting up in to 200 or so groups..."
"Lets wait for Groups.io to get the search working."

I am not talking about 200 groups. One group for other test equipment. I think I have decided against brownwares altogether, most are junk and those few high end units could be tolerated because the wealth on knowledge here (and there I hope) would be a cut above. If that got out of hand, maybe a group for "Consumer" or something like that. But not 200.

"Pick a catalog and count the number of different products that are in it. Then go through all 70 years of catalogs and do the same thing."

I am talking about one group for all other test equipment, period. Only if one other brand, HP/Agilent/Keysight, B & K, Sencore or whatever becomes dominant in that group, then and only then should another group be considered.

"There were separate catalogs for Television products and military products and lots and lots of Mods."

If the topic is pertinent to test equipment for television products, military products, or mods to same, then it belongs.

"Dennis
Even if your off 2 or 3 orders of magnitude the elephant is too big to bar-b-que"

I only want an elephant ear sandwich. The problem is finding those big buns.

"The issue that I was addressing
has to do with the organization of the photos archive - which is
essentially non-existent."

Which is an important issue. If it would be possible for people to rename their albums and rearrange them here that would go a long way. but in the new group as well as in the future here I encourage people to name their albums and image in a descriptive way.

I see apparently there are 701 albums here. It would not take long to rename them, with cooperation. Since I see no option for a caption, the rest will have to be in the filename. We are not limited to the DOS 8+3 convention, so all we have to do is use that. Simple notices in text at the top of the pages where one creates an album and uploads images to it would go a long way. I believe people would comply voluntarily so there needs not be any forced routine built into the process. That could come later though once an actual search engine is established. Then, users could actually download their own images back, rename them and then create a whole new album or set of them that would work, and this would facilitate the function of a search anyway. eventually the old albums could be deleted to clean up the mess.

"There is only a two level structure - Albums > Photos. If
there was, for example, a three level or higher structure, e.g., 7000
Series Scopes > Albums > Photos, then that would resolve the browse photos
problem."

That would help greatly but I don't know how difficult it would be for the owners. And it still requires the cooperation of the members.

"One constraint to doing anything with albums is we don't want to do anything that would break the links to photos from old/existing messages."

Wow, that is a VERY valid point. Therefore I guess deleting the old albums would be out. but that doesn't stop the images from being copied into newer albums following new guideline. It is probably the only way to accomplish what we want without breaking things. Thanks for bringing that up. As such, in the creation of a new group I would include (and stress) such guidelines right in the beginning.

I think I am going to give it a whirl. You might want to wish me luck.

One constraint to doing anything with albums is we don't want to do anything that would break the links to photos from old/existing messages.? So I don't see a way to rename albums or move photos around to new/other albums to effect a more effective structure.

But, a photo database? with links to the albums/photos could be organized in whatever level(s) structure is desired by the group. You could find your target through a database search or by browsing to to a link to the album/photo.

Hopefully, this is what the groups.io developers are working toward because it would be best if the solution was part of the group.io menu scheme.

Bob.