[time-nuts] Downsizing dilemma, HP 3335A

Bill Hawkins bill at iaxs.net
Thu Nov 12 01:07:55 UTC 2015


MIT had a reasonably famous EE professor there circa 1950 - Harold
Edgerton, known for his strobe lights and stop-motion photography. He
also designed sonar pingers. Both depended on triggered capacitor
discharge energy.

There is now an Edgerton Center at MIT that teaches the practical art of
soldering using simple circuits. The class size was about 25 when I
visited about 10 years ago. Not enough MIT students attended, so they
opened it to area high schools.

Today's EE students can be productive if they know how to direct
technicians. That's a skill that is learned on the job. I expect most of
us know what happens when the boss doesn't know what the techs are
doing. In my experience, you don't get good designs if you don't know
how they are built. But then, there are people who think the Universe is
based on mathematics rather than the other way around.

Bill Hawkins

P.S. My thanks to those who took my time instruments (3335A). I won't
have junking them on my conscience.


-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On Behalf Of Rob
Sherwood.
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 5:26 PM
To: 'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Downsizing dilemma, HP 3335A

The EE department at the University of Colorado has an enlightened
professor.  

http://ecee.colorado.edu/faculty/popovic.html

Zoya required her students to not only get a ham license, but to build a
Norcal 40A.  

http://ecee.colorado.edu/~ecen2420/Files/NorCal40A_Manual.pdf


Most of the EE students had no idea what a resistor really was, let
alone have any experience in soldering a resistor or capacitor on a PC
board. One student stuffed the PC board, bent all the leads 90 degrees
without cutting any of them off, and then in effect flow soldered the
whole bottom of the PC board!

One wonders how EE grads today can actually get a job and be productive
with so little hands-on experience.

Zoya belongs to the Boulder (Colorado) Amateur Radio Club, and our
monthly meetings are in the EE department. It is too bad this is likely
an unusual example of what happens on campuses today.  

Rob
NC0B  


-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On Behalf Of Pete
Lancashire
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 10:01 AM
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Downsizing dilemma, HP 3335A



I can understand the downsizing, someday it will happen to me. And where
I live there is pretty much zero interest in anything electronic. The
two local schools Portland State and Reed both have EE but the students
done seem to have any interest in anything physical. they believe
everything they need or have interest in can be simulated on a computer.
I helped one of the PSU EE's one day, just finished his 2nd year, had an
old Kenwood stereo distorted left output. He pretty much had no idea
what to do, and when 'we' found the bad transistor, he didn't really
know how to replace it.

BTW I know a Comp Sci graduate from PSU that can not write a program in
any language that outputs "Hello World"

-pete Sad

On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 5:08 AM, paul swed <paulswedb at gmail.com> wrote:

> Bill
> It is unfortunate when the time comes to downsize. Even worse as time 
> goes by at least for me each piece of test equipment from HP seems to 
> get heavier. Must be dust building up inside. So as Ed says if you 
> need that fine grain resolution you need them.
> But you are also running into the age thing in the gear and that there

> are failures that creep in that are really a big problem to figure
out.
> Especially if some form of programmable logics involved.
> Lastly sending them to the dumpster is the worst thing. But then the 
> ole reality really sets in selling packing and shipping the stuff.
> I guess the good news is that today there is a lot of replacement gear

> that will do reasonably well thats cheap respectively consumes little 
> power and can easily be controlled by usb so you don't have to 
> actually stop experimenting.
> Regards
> Paul
> WB8TSL
>
>
> On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 2:32 AM, ed breya <eb at telight.com> wrote:
>
> > You don't save these kinds of synthesizers for high frequency 
> > coverage, but for their 10 to 11 digit frequency resolution. If you 
> > anticipate needing that, then of course they should be kept and 
> > fixed. The long-obsolete telecom standard connectors and ranges are 
> > pretty much useless - sacrifice that one first if you need parts for
the others.
> >
> > If you need to justify keeping them, you can use them for practical 
> > everyday applications. For example, each one can store a telephone
> number -
> > as long as the power doesn't go out.
> >
> > Ed
> >
> >
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