In fact, the value of old test gear varies tremendously.. Vacuum tube testers of certain makes & models are near the top of the food chain, with clean, working examples pulling $1500+ (USD) on a very regular basis. There's also a strong following for much 'classic' audio analysis gear (HD meters, ID meters, spectrum analyzers, etc.) some very fine multi-meters and anything really hi-end like General Radio, Breull & Kejjr, HP, and so forth. Some very early examples from the 1910s to 30's also pull good value simply for visual appeal. Much of this gear is resplendent with embossed, enameled panels, sculpted Bakelite knobs, large meter movements and an overall Art Deco styling. Seen a nice Supreme Diagnometer recently? Or any of the 40s-70s era English made tube testers, like the AVO? Hickok also made a series of bench VTVMs with massive chromed meters, designed to be large enough that they can be read from many feet away.. those are beautiful for display, and guess what - they work great, too! On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 5:24 PM, Dale H. Cook <radiotest at juno.com> wrote: cheap my

I've been restoring a HeathKit capacitor checker. I also have a couple HP counters with Nixies. I even have a 10 channel printer ( need to repair the roller ). I've found that one doesn't need the expensive ink roller ( though I'd love to have one, used or not ). I use the two layer impact paper. Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Ian S. King < isking at uw.edu> Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2016 3:46:13 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: the value of old test and repair equipment I really like my old test gear and yes, it just seems right to be restoring vintage computers with vintage instruments. HP scopes, logic analyzers, DVMs; function generator; Tek scope, frequency counter; as well as just 'sundry'. But I did break down and buy a DDS frequency generator to work on my VHF/UHF ham gear. On Sat, Jul 30, 2016 at 6:07 PM, drlegendre . <drlegendre at gmail.com> wrote: food regular (HD simply enameled English what wrote: -- Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate The Information School <http://ischool.uw.edu> Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a Sociotechnical Narrative Through a Design Lens Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal <http://tribunalvoices.org> Value Sensitive Design Research Lab <http://vsdesign.org> University of Washington There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."

so had to check it out. Here are a couple of take-away quotes from a thread at: http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/showthread.php?p=866814

It must be a IT-28. It has a 500V leakage check. It is not a high precision device but it will be useful. I do have a precision LRC bridge made by Marconi that I can use for those purposes. It has a quick check type large range scales. It is more useful for quick checking. My main issue right now is to glue a broken switch wafer. I tried some super glue but it didn't hold. I'm going to try JB weld next. Dwight ________________________________ From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of drlegendre . < drlegendre at gmail.com> Sent: Friday, August 5, 2016 9:55:27 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: the value of old test and repair equipment "I've been restoring a HeathKit capacitor checker." Which one, the IT-28? Those are really handy for finding leakage in high-voltage caps, as they have a crazy-high (like 600V ?) power supply. Unlike modern SS units, the IT-28 can test at practical working voltages. There's data out there on how to finely calibrate those units, but I don't see much point in it.. It's a lot of fiddly work and for what - to have the best 40-year-old LCR meter? If you want a better than ballpark measure of L or C, get one of the cheap uC-based swiss knife testers. A set of 1% metal film resistors are cheap, though, and will improve stability. If you ever feel the need to do semi-precision work with a device like the IT-28, you're best off running it as a comparator and keeping a set of precision value caps for reference. In that case, you only need to make sure you have well matched resistor pairs in the bridge circuit. On Fri, Aug 5, 2016 at 10:47 PM, dwight <dkelvey at hotmail.com> wrote: restoring multi-meters so Art VTVMs be have a bring Sociotechnical

I also collect old/classic test gear. Some I use (my main 'scope is a Tekky 555, I think that's old enough to be a classic :-)). Some I just collect because it's a beautiful piece of electronics. My latest find was an HP3770B telephone line analyser -- an instrument to measure the freqeuncy response, etc of a telephone line. I have no real use for it, but it's classic HP, built like a brick outhouse, designed to be repaired (fixing screws are labelled, there are testpoints for everything, there's even an extender board stored inside). I had to add it to the collection. Ditto. Mine have those HP counter boards with 8 transistors as the counters, 8 neons as the latch and a thick film CdS photoresistor array to drive the nixie tubes. 5243 and 5245 I think. Is that the HP5055. I've rebuilt one. Be warned the printer motor runs off the mains, and that therefore there's mains on some PCB traces where you might not expect it. Interestingly the HP59301 HPIB-> 64 bit parallel interface can be connected directly to the HP5055 printer. There are 2 conenctors on the interface, one carries 40 bits the other 24. The 40 bit one links to the 5055 with a straight-wired 50 pin microribbon cable. The alternative character set for the HP59301 was clearly designed for this, it decodes ASCII V,A,O into the V, A, Ohms symbols on the 5055. Mine had an ink roller in it _and_ the impact paper. The fomer was doing a good job of gunging everything up, so I removed it and stored it in a plastic bag. -tony

Since a Bell modem would cause a lot of problems on an old UK phone line,

The problem is that one of the 300 baud Bell tones is effectively the same as (I think) the long-distance clearing signal. Something like that anyway. If you connect your 300 baud US modem over here it will effectively cause the exchange to hang up.