[time-nuts] eBay saga re: Test Equipment Surplus, eBay id jtsele, aka [EMAIL PROTECTED] aka Joon Kyong.

[Christopher Hoover]

Hey 'nuts --
 
I got my money back today less a few dollars (!?!?!) and a ~$20 PayPal
fee.   I neglected to say when I related the sordid tale that I had
initiated an eBay dispute on the item.  It had absolutely no effect.
The kicker seemingly was declaring that I would proceed with criminal
and civil remedies.   Anything over $400 is grand theft in California.
 
I got messages off list from several others who had similar experiences
with this seller.  One used the eBay dispute process to get his money
back; the other had to resort to the threat of involving the police.
So, again, please be warned.
 
Final lesson: if you pay someone through PayPal and you have an issue,
watch the clock carefully.  File a dispute preemptively, if you are
close to the cut off.
 
 
So, anyone got a *working* 5065A for sale?  :-)
 
 
Cheers,
-- Christopher.
 
p.s.  I am certain that eBay item #330009365677 is the 5065A I returned.
It is in great shape cosmetically, but it has no physics package.
 
 
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[time-nuts] manual 5370A

[Dr. Frank Stellmach]

Hola Jose,
 
Well, I have uploaded the 5370A manual of 42MB last October to David's site, 
and it seems to be still there:
http://www.g8wrb.org/data/HP/
(circuit diagrams are stitched for plotting on A1/A0 plotter.)

There's a picture on p. 252 (8-93) of this 'A' unit, 3 PCB spares can be 
seen, plus one additional space without a socket.

Frank Stellmach


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Re: [time-nuts] caveat emptor: eBay t&m seller warning

[Robert Crawford]

Christopher,

Back in January of this year I purchased a 5061A from Test Equipment 
Surplus (Mr. Joon Kyong).  It was defective and I sent it back, 
expecting a prompt refund.  However, no amount of begging and pleading 
had any effect until I left negative feedback.  He responded that very 
day!  I did eventually get most of my money back except for return 
shipping, which was very expensive.  I lost about $80.00 on the entire 
transaction and ended up with nothing.  I, too, will never purchase 
anything from him again.

Bob Crawford


Christopher Hoover wrote:

>Folks,
> 
>Heads up on this eBay seller: Test Equipment Surplus, eBay id
>
>d=7614062550&frm=284&ssPageName=VIP:feedback:1:us> jtsele, aka
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] aka Joon Kyong.
> 
>Although I have satisfactorily done business with him on eBay several
>times, I got ripped off in my last transaction.
> 
>I recommend you do not do business with him.  To substantiate this
>recommendation, here's the story.
> 
>I bought an  HP 5065A RUBIDIUM VAPOR FREQUENCY STANDARD, item
>#7614062550, from the seller for $555 + s/h.The unit arrived in
>great cosmetic shape but with a  suspicious rattle.   I popped the top
>to find the physics package missing.  The rattle was the bracket for the
>package.
> 
>I was annoyed but unworried.   The item was advertised with the
>following guarantee:
> 
>"This item is in good working condition and is guaranteed to work. If
>you receive the item and it does not function, please let us know and we
>will give you a full refund including shipping."
> 
>No physics package == not good working condition, right?
> 
>I contacted the seller, and he agreed to take the item back.  He gave me
>his FedEx number.   Great, I'm thinking, I don't have a working 5065A,
>but at least I'll get my money back and I don't even have to spot him
>the return shipping.
> 
>It took me a few weeks to get the package back to him -- we had a baby
>at that point -- but I sent it the week after we got back from the
>hospital.  I have confirmation that the item was received and signed
>for.
> 
>I have yet to see my refund, even after many messages asking him to pay.
>It's been long enough that PayPal won't do squat about it.   Short of a
>small claims action, which I am seriously considering, I am out > $500.
>('though I understand I may be able to get $200 back from eBay ...
>haven't looked into this in detail yet.)
> 
>-ch
> 
>
>  
>
>
>
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Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?

[jayh6]

In addition to the other points made, there is also theoretical calculations. 
The cesium fountain travels at a known dispersion of speeds (source of error) 
as well as known potential error in the tuning methods, so it's possible to 
estimate that the new design will have a lower error without actually having 
something to compare it to.




>From: Hal Murray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Date: 2006/07/16 Sun PM 12:28:19 CDT
>To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement 
>Subject: Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?

>From the horses mouth:
>
>  http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/mercury_atomic_clock.htm
>
>
>This brings up a question I've been meaning to ask for a while.
>
>How do you tell how good your best clock is?  I can figure out how good a 
>not-great clock is by comparing it to a better one.  But what if there isn't 
>a better one?
>
>
>-- 
>The suespammers.org mail server is located in California.  So are all my
>other mailboxes.  Please do not send unsolicited bulk e-mail or unsolicited
>commercial e-mail to my suespammers.org address or any of my other addresses.
>These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.
>
>
>
>
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Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?

[jayh6]

The trick is to use a tuna can instead of a soup can and coopt one of the 
leftover mercury atoms from the tuna  ;)

jay

>From: Poul-Henning Kamp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Date: 2006/07/17 Mon PM 05:30:30 CDT
>To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement 
>Subject: Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?

>In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Normand Martel
> writes:
>
>>They should be able the standard uses a single
>>mercury atom!! ;-)
>
>Which interestingly enough might make them incompatible
>with the RoHS (Reduction of Harmfull Substances) regulation
>here in EU.
>
>As far as I've understood RoHS, you can get away with trace amounts
>of heavy metals on the banned list, under a theory of environmental
>contamination, but if you include them deliberately, you're in
>violation.
>
>Fortunately metrological equipment is easy to get an excemption for :-)
>
>-- 
>Poul-Henning Kamp   | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] | TCP/IP since RFC 956
>FreeBSD committer   | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
>Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
>
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Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?

[John Ackermann N8UR]

Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> 
>> How much test equipment ends in a land fill?
> 
> RoHS also addresses this, the manufacturers have to take back
> old equipment and dispose of it properly.
> 

Actually, this is covered by a different set of rules in the EU called 
WEEE which requires manufacturers to take back either gear that they've 
sold, or sometimes other people's equipment that they're replacing.  It 
actually went into effect last year (ahead of RoHS).

And, lots of other countries and several US states are getting on the 
WEEE/RoHS bandwagon, so it's going to be a pretty universal set of 
requirements before too long.

John

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Re: [time-nuts] Hello and HP-5370A question

[Dr. David Kirkby]

Jose V. Gavila wrote:
> Hello Dave,
> 
> 
>>The manual I scanned was for the 5370B, not the A.
>>Are you sure you are looking at the correct manual?
> 
> 
> Yes, I know it is a 5370B manual... but I think there is not 'big'(*) 
> difference
> among units


I believe there is an online manual for the 5370A, but may be mistaken.

Having scanned the one for the B, it is not something I would recommend 
to anyone unless they have professional facilities. Doing that on an 
cheap A4 scanner was no fun!

PS, sorry about the slight odd formatting and "[Message truncated. Tap 
Edit->Mark for Download to get remaining portion.]" on my original post. 
I did this from a PDA, so don't like typing too much on that.

-- 
Dr. David Kirkby

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Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?

[Hal Murray]

> Both cesium and rubidium is harder to come by, but ebay being what it
> is, it is no longer that hard if I really wanted to. I have always
> wondered where one actually get these things on a commerical basis.

There are companies in the business of supplying that sort of thing.  You 
just have to find them.

It took me a few minutes with google to find Fisher Scientific.

https://www1.fishersci.com/Coupon;jsessionid=E8gHglzLzW1nLscKcCAg1axhtmV2a7zfj
47fHzNtEPdHNCtzaM2x!-994379636?cid=1334&gid=222808

$57 for 1g of Cesium.

If you feed cesium to their search box, you get 100s of hits.  (Many are 
different quantities of the same thing.)

Or look at the ads along the right side of a google search.  (Lots of snake 
oil.)



-- 
The suespammers.org mail server is located in California.  So are all my
other mailboxes.  Please do not send unsolicited bulk e-mail or unsolicited
commercial e-mail to my suespammers.org address or any of my other addresses.
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's.  I hate spam.




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Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?

[Magnus Danielson]

From: "Poul-Henning Kamp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 22:30:30 +
Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Normand Martel
>  writes:
> 
> >They should be able the standard uses a single
> >mercury atom!! ;-)
> 
> Which interestingly enough might make them incompatible
> with the RoHS (Reduction of Harmfull Substances) regulation
> here in EU.
> 
> As far as I've understood RoHS, you can get away with trace amounts
> of heavy metals on the banned list, under a theory of environmental
> contamination, but if you include them deliberately, you're in
> violation.
> 
> Fortunately metrological equipment is easy to get an excemption for :-)

Especially since the devices we are talking about is fairly bulky and costly,
so the expectation of going in 10s is not very high. Thus, excemption from
the rule does not really hurt the environment as consumer goods are.

Then again, we might be able to squeeze it into a (nonleaded) tincan, but a
label with pickled herring on it and it may pass relatively unnoted. :-)

I have a real Hg barometer at home in the hallway, so I check how many mm Hg I
have each morning. I feel quite tempted to steal a little Hg from the reservour
to make a Hg ion standard, but there is a lot more work than getting the atoms.
Both cesium and rubidium is harder to come by, but ebay being what it is, it is
no longer that hard if I really wanted to. I have always wondered where one
actually get these things on a commerical basis. Surely Ebay isn't a good
source. Anybody to share some light? Sources in EC is better naturally, the
closer home the better.

The list of explicit excemptions is a quite interesting reading BTW.

Cheers,
Magnus

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Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?

[Robert Atkinson]

Hi all,
Yes some T&E is exempt. Not all batteries are, mercury cells were banned
about 10 years ago. This was a great pity as they make great voltage
references!
Hg is allowed in lamps, lead in ceramics and Cd in light dependant
resistors.
I don't know who will enforce it, I can't see trading standards
wandering around with an X-ray fluorescence tester! EMC has been around
for a while and there are lots of non-compliant items for sale. Some are
obviously non-compliant others fail under test. We make laboratory
automation equipment that uses PC's for control, We take a unit for
testing and it fails because of the PC. One failed with the PC running
with just the power lead connected, no keyboard, mouse or monitor. The
supplier said it was compliant because all the parts we CE marked!

Sorry for the rant, but I feel better now.

Robert G8RPI.


-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 18 July 2006 01:16
To: time-nuts@febo.com
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than
Cesium?

Hi Chuck,
 
yes, all test equipment is excempt from RoHS, until between 2009 -
2011. 
Europe is not sure how long they will keep this exemption in  effect.
 
There are so many legacy products that are vital to the industry and
that  
will not be re-designed that I think the exemptions will continue beyond
that.
 
Doing Lead-free has many reliability issues, let me just mention shorts

caused by tin-whiskers, and the problems of visually identifying a
cold-solder  
joint... The assembly houses I have talked to hate doing lead free work
for  
critical, expensive items.
 
How much test equipment ends in a land fill? Probably not too much due
to  
all of the gold used in it, the collectors' value etc.
 
Also, who is going to test all the products for compliance? It's
probably  
very easy to get away with not complying. I would guess this will happen
to a  
lot of products made in China...
 
bye,
Said
 
 
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Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Brooke Clarke writes:
>Hi Chuck:
>
>I think it will take 4 to 6 years for the tin whiskers to grow to the 
>point of shorting out IC packages, relays, etc.

That's already well past the lifetime of most consumer electronics.

RoHS has various excemptions and T&M is indeed one of them.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp   | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | TCP/IP since RFC 956
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Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

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Re: [time-nuts] New frequency standard, Mercury better than Cesium?

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>How much test equipment ends in a land fill?

RoHS also addresses this, the manufacturers have to take back
old equipment and dispose of it properly.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp   | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer   | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

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