John Miles wrote...

I'm looking to clear out some clean, working equipment at the end
of a couple of long-term personal projects. This shortened URL
will take you to eBay's "View Seller's Items" page for my account:
http://snipurl.com/ls89

Highlights include the nicest HP 8566B spectrum analyzer out of several
that I've owned; an HP 8662A with OEM manuals and brand-new PS filter
caps; and an HP 5345A counter with enough spares and accessories to
satisfy any ECL computing buff.

Most of these items include manuals, and all of them will be sold with
3-day buyer inspection periods. Local pickup in Seattle OK. Even
if you're not in the market, several of the listings include some
interesting HP Journal .PDFs and other literature. Check 'em out!
http://www.qsl.net/ke5fx

****, John, you're selling your stuff!??!! What's going on?


--
Thanks,
- Win

"Winfield Hill" wrote in message
...
John Miles wrote...

I'm looking to clear out some clean, working equipment at the end
of a couple of long-term personal projects. This shortened URL
will take you to eBay's "View Seller's Items" page for my account:
http://snipurl.com/ls89

Highlights include the nicest HP 8566B spectrum analyzer out of several
that I've owned; an HP 8662A with OEM manuals and brand-new PS filter
caps; and an HP 5345A counter with enough spares and accessories to
satisfy any ECL computing buff.

Most of these items include manuals, and all of them will be sold with
3-day buyer inspection periods. Local pickup in Seattle OK. Even
if you're not in the market, several of the listings include some
interesting HP Journal .PDFs and other literature. Check 'em out!
http://www.qsl.net/ke5fx

****, John, you're selling your stuff!??!! What's going on?


--
Thanks,
- Win

There can only be one answer....a new girl friend!
Harry

In article ,
says...
****, John, you're selling your stuff!??!! What's going on?

Short answer: I treat eBay like a giant storage locker, where they pay
to keep my stuff while I'm not using it. :-)

Long answer: my usual M.O. is to undertake long-term personal projects
in batches of two or three, which often take years at a time. I've
recently reached a point in one of those cycles where I'm happy with the
results and content to call it all "done" for the time being.

My next big thing is purely software-based, in an entirely-unrelated
field. I've already put a lot of work into this project, and it's
become apparent that I'm going to have to focus on it to the exclusion
of pretty much everything else if I'm ever going to finish it. Because
I've got at least another year of software work ahead, it doesn't make
sense for me to pay to store a lot of hardware that someone else could
be using towards productive/fun ends.

I'm not the least bit happy about giving up some of that gear,
particularly the 8566B. But if I keep it around, I will play with it.
Historically, that's been a fairly-serious (almost addiction-level)
personal problem. It gets in the way of other long-term goals, so I
have to take positive, hard-to-undo steps to move ahead.

Watch Gandalf trying to convince Bilbo to give up his favorite toy, and
you'll get the idea...

-- jm

------------------------------------------------------
http://www.qsl.net/ke5fx
Note: My E-mail address has been altered to avoid spam
------------------------------------------------------

John Miles wrote...

My next big thing is purely software-based, in an
entirely-unrelated field.

We were afraid of that: the dark side, you know.

I'm not the least bit happy about giving up some of that
gear, particularly the 8566B.

A real jewel, already up to $3700, with six days to go.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=7583597242


--
Thanks,
- Win

In article ,
says...

A real jewel, already up to $3700, with six days to go.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=7583597242

Look on the bright side... maybe all of the other bidders will cancel
their bids or get tossed by eBay for various reasons, and you'll get it
for $1.00.

-- jm

------------------------------------------------------
http://www.qsl.net/ke5fx
Note: My E-mail address has been altered to avoid spam
------------------------------------------------------

John Miles wrote...

Winfield Hill says...

A real jewel, already up to $3700, with six days to go.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=7583597242

Look on the bright side... maybe all of the other bidders will cancel
their bids or get tossed by eBay for various reasons, and you'll get
it for $1.00.

That would be the day. What's the right price for your 8566B with
manuals, etc.? I see Nick at Ridge Equipment has one up for $9k,
but I doubt he'll sell it. Looking at the last 30 days, I see one
fellow who had two "untested" units, accepting $3100 "best offers"
for each, and another guy who got a $2700 "buy-it-now" sale for his
"untested" unit with a "dim screen". All three "untested" units had
photos indicating reasonable physical condition and some kind of
apparently-proper display operation. There's another one, "as is"
with a dark-screen photo, starting at $6499, with no bidders.


--
Thanks,
- Win

In article ,
says...
That would be the day. What's the right price for your 8566B with
manuals, etc.? I see Nick at Ridge Equipment has one up for $9k,
but I doubt he'll sell it. Looking at the last 30 days, I see one
fellow who had two "untested" units, accepting $3100 "best offers"
for each, and another guy who got a $2700 "buy-it-now" sale for his
"untested" unit with a "dim screen". All three "untested" units had
photos indicating reasonable physical condition and some kind of
apparently-proper display operation. There's another one, "as is"
with a dark-screen photo, starting at $6499, with no bidders.

It's tough to say. At the end of the day it's worth whatever the
second-highest bidder thinks it's worth. Ordinarily, I'd wait for all
those others to sell or otherwise disappear from the field before
putting one up for sale, but I think this one will out-compete the
others without any trouble... at least among buyers who know what
they're looking for. A dim CRT is not a good thing on these units,
because the focus is the first thing to go. By the time the emission is
down, you don't get a very clean image.

At any rate, a $9K starting bid on an 8566B with a DOA-only guarantee is
just a waste of a listing fee, and everybody's time to boot. Much
better to start low and encourage people to look at the item on its
merits. I'd be surprised if mine doesn't land in the $6K-$7K
neighborhood. $8K-$9K is a high but still-fair price, if someone has
the cash on hand and has been waiting for the right one.

That particular 8566B from Ridge does look clean, but it has some
serious phase-noise peaking going on. (Compare his CRT image with the
same shot in my auction, particularly taking the different reference
levels into account.) Even if you paid $9K for his, you'd still want to
open it up and poke around the first-LO synthesizer with an ESR meter.
Something -- probably something cheap but difficult to find -- is
packing up and getting ready to go out to lunch in that one.

-- jm

------------------------------------------------------
http://www.qsl.net/ke5fx
Note: My E-mail address has been altered to avoid spam
------------------------------------------------------

I can't vouchesafe John's decision to give up his treasured gear,
but I can say John's loss is my gain. John's 8566B is a beautiful
machine and several of us are having lots of fun with it. My tech
is making a new rack for it (and several other machines, together
far too big to fit on a bench), then I'll add an ethernet-to-GPIB
network connection, software, and it'll be ready for prime time.

Glad to hear it's working well. Agreed, its size and weight is a real
problem, and not just for shipping. I'll definitely own another of
those beasts at some point, when I have more room than I do now. The
important thing is that it's in appreciative hands. :-)

If you plan to use my GPIB software with it, be sure to download a
recent copy. I hosed the phase-noise app pretty badly in my last
"slipstream" update a few weeks ago, and only heard about it last week.
The version that's up there now is fine.

Would you be so kind as to post the url for your website? I would like to
get a copy of your software.

Thanks, K

wrote in message
ups.com...
Glad to hear it's working well. Agreed, its size and weight is a real
problem, and not just for shipping. I'll definitely own another of
those beasts at some point, when I have more room than I do now. The
important thing is that it's in appreciative hands. :-)

If you plan to use my GPIB software with it, be sure to download a
recent copy. I hosed the phase-noise app pretty badly in my last
"slipstream" update a few weeks ago, and only heard about it last week.
The version that's up there now is fine.