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Working on a Pioneer receiver I found some intermittent/non-functional push-button switches. I gave them some DeoxIT and exercised them several million times. No real improvement. I've had this happen before. What worked before and worked instantly this time was an injection of isopropyl...

With the expected rotted woofer surrounds. If the tweets and mids are still good, are these worth doing the surrounds on the woofers? Also, I think the tweets and mids are ferrofluid. How do those hold up? Was "free" a really bad deal by the time I get them tuned up? These got good reviews at...

Contemplating getting an LG (red) mini-split for heat. Our arthritis has gotten bad enough that carrying wood to the stove has got to stop. 28 years is enough! We live in upstate NY, but with climate change the winters aren't as cold as they used to be. We can also add some heat with the wood...

This is behind a paywall but the abstract sums it up. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/135626?reload=true&arnumber=135626&isnumber=3696&punumber=15&k2dockey=135626@ieeejrns&query=((effectiveness%20of%20multiple%20decoupling%20capacitors)%3Cin%3Emetadata)&pos=0 I've probably talked about...

No idea if this is of interest to anybody, but needed to set up some measurements so did a page on it- https://www.conradhoffman.com//Audacity%20SPL.htm Could have errors, so lemme know.

A fellow asked if he could have colored alignment templates so I added that to the code. Also carried it over to the strobe discs because I've never seen colored strobe discs. Read the read-me file; you add RGB numbers as command line values in your shortcut. Plain paper will give low contrast...

I make a lot of test cables because it's best to have the cable you need, rather than a bunch of adapters strung together to mate up the various BNCs, GR, SMA, DIN, RCA and other connectors found on lab equipment, not to mention the things being serviced/tested. So the other day I needed to put...

It occurs to me that I rarely pull out a record with any significant warp. All my albums were either purchased new back in the '70s-'80s, or are from the used record stores or garage sales. They get stored vertically on shelves. I just remember more problems with warp when they were new. Are...

My water developed a bad (garlic) taste that changing the filter didn't cure. It finally dawned on me that there's a 20' run from near the sink, to a garden hose outlet on the other side of the house. A hose outlet I very rarely use. Never heard the term "dead leg" until I started looking into...

I was having a problem with a well known shipper who shall remain nameless. I wanted to talk to a customer service person, but there's no way to do that via the infinite loop of menus and useless recorded messages when you call them. Would someone explain why, when I yelled into the phone, "shut...

Ahoy-hoy! The telephone was invented in 1876. There was a steady stream of progress for the next 125 years in terms of sound quality and reliability of connection. Full duplex communication was the norm- both parties could talk at the same time. Only ham radio operators had to key the mic and...

Luis Triguez shot this and posted it over at Photonet. I've never seen one and thought it was pretty cool. He kindly allowed me to post it here. 1939 GE HM-21.

We have a little WWVB LCD clock in front of the TV. Very handy thing and have had it for years. I got it when one of the big box electronic stores closed and was blowing them out for a few dollars each. Anyway, it's had more and more trouble picking up the WWVB signal, until it wouldn't really...

When you measure sound level, the question of calibration comes up. How do you know that 90 dB is really 90 dB? One way is to just trust the people that made the sound level meter. But how do they know? They might use a small tone-type calibrator like a pistonphone, but how do you know that's...

https://www.bloombergquint.com/politics/historic-space-launch-day-includes-troubled-lockheed-satellite?fbclid=IwAR0OH8qF-D7--PZtlpcNGC9w9rAWjqCvEelrz42Du6SnBKEo1jNN6DwGrYg#gs._iEH1YE At least our stuff is close by and easier to fix!

and why I own a lathe. So there's this Sadsui amplifier that probably had a misfortune in shipping. One of the low profile and irreplaceable tone control pots was smashed. I'm talking run over by a Peterbilt smashed into tiny bits smashed. Few controls will fit in the space of the original and...

Not a good thing as most every clock in my house is synced to WWVB. More here- https://www.eham.net/articles/41806

Found a nice 7175PE in the trash. For good reason- the power amp section is dead. Tuner and preamp seem OK. The lower voltage supply (40-something volts) looks good on the positive, but the negative is high, around 70 VDC, and has no ripple at all. Probably something that should be loading it...

Helping someone with this, I thought it was an interesting topic. Not sure it matters in most applications, but if you worry about such things... How do you find the outside foil connection if it isn't marked? Get a piece of foil, aluminum, copper or whatever. Make a wrap around the capacitor...

I did this years ago in a prototype shop. We used permanent waterproof black ink or (I think) sometimes enamel on light colored rack panels. I'm presently refurbishing a switch box and wanted to try it with white lettering on black. After testing a handful of inks and acrylics, the winner for...

For many years I've used a Tek 545B space heater, er, scope for most everything. It's got big knobs that fit my fat fingers and I've pretty much bonded to the thing. In the decades I've had it, its needed almost no repairs. I check the calibration now and then and it rarely needs even a touch...

Yahoo is now owned by Oath and recently updated their privacy policy. There are various good groups there like LTSpice, Genrad, FM Tuners, Logan lathes and a dozen others I used periodically. The platform is (IMHO) pretty lousy compared to any modern site (like this one), but having free groups...

This could go bad in a flash, so no politics or religion! Anyway, I thought it gave a good insight into the guy. I never saw the science guy shows but always liked him.

This is for lessons you've learned, or are still trying to learn. Two tough ones for me are, 1) Other people really don't want the same things I do. That's why their actions are often inexplicable to me. 2) It's nearly impossible to convince anybody of anything using facts and data. We're all...

Back in the '70s or about, hifi was a big thing to a certain demographic, and people did care about SQ with just as much obsession as audiophiles today. Almost all audio stores were set up to listen and to compare everything, and usually carried several major brands. I'm wondering, do you think...