New member Hello - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: AMR Labs
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 27, 2014, 01:28:27 am
content: Hello, I have been reading this forum for a couple of days now, and really found it very interesting and saw lots of good info within a very friendly atmosphere, so I finally decided to become a member. Last night I specially enjoyed reading all the pages of that thread related to the original designer of the Fluke 8060A multimeter. I've been into electronics since my teen years, so that was about almost 40 years ago now. Back in the 70's finally got my first DMM, it was a brand new HP3476A, and not a minute too soon, after burning up my share of disposable analog multimeters (check ohms on something, leave in ohms scale and put away, later pick up and forget to check function/scale selector, and measure AC from the outlet... bum). Back then my main source of information, and projects to build was (paper) electronics magazines. I would buy them every month, and I had a huge collection of Popular Electronics, some EEH, and of course also Radio Electronics magazines, but lost all of them during an overseas move some years back. Too bad nowadays one can no longer find any decent (or any at all) electronics oriented magazines at the magazine rack. Oh well there is always the web, and ebay, where once in a while I buy a couple of old PE or EEH, its kind of fun rereading them. I also build a good share of Heathkits, another nice thing to miss from the "old" days. More than once worked straight through the night putting together some kit, either my own, or for a friend. I also like very much building and restoring old audio gear (tubes and solid state), but really haven't had much time for that in the past few years. I hope soon...As a profession I have been active in commercial radio communications for about 35 years, starting with the obligatory CB radio scene (around 76-77) getting additional channels out of the gear, tune ups, and what not. That was actually one of my first commercial enterprises as at first I started doing it for my friends, and in no time I was getting radios from all over the place, mods, repairs, etc. In my area nobody else knew about getting the extra channels, well there was one guy that used a pair of scissors to jump traces on the PLL chip, but he burned out more radios than actually getting them to work out of band. Some years later I got a job at a very nice ham radio store and was in charge of their service department. That was for me a whole new level of sophisticated equipment (compared to CBs) and I learned a lot, specially because of the very detailed service manuals that where available for almost any model of the equipment carried at the store. Some years later I moved on my own, setting up repeaters, and eventually designing Motorola 2-way radio systems, wireless broadband links, etc. Now a days marine electronics is what keeps me busy.I have always been a fan of HP gear, and the 7x series Fluke, and after reading some of the comments here about the Fluke 8060A I am planning on adding one to my current line up with my HP974 handheld, and a recently purchased HP3478A. Yesterday evening there was a nice 8060A closing on ebay and it went low for only $30, but just having purchased this 3478A I decided to wait. Maybe get a blue IBM 8060AA... see I already learned something.In general I have always been a fan of technical forums, you can learn a lot by just reading behind the scenes. To mind comes AudioKarma, lots of technically oriented Yahoo groups, and countless other places. But once in a while it gets to a point where I feel inclined to become, in a small way, part of the community and be able to chip in with my 2 cents of hopefully useful advise and experience to help out someone, or at the very least have some good fun interacting with other users that after all share the very same interests.Alex