Re: [Amateur-repairs] Old test eqpt? Chuck it? Refurbish it?

Gareth,

    I sympathize with you.  What some of us locally are doing is to use this equipment as training pieces for restoration and use.  Simply, repurpose it for training.  Also, some of the components are valuable for other restorations.  Variable caps, IF cans, oscillator coils, x'tals, tubes/valves, etc... are all valuable to the restorer / homebrewer.  You can make an x'tal radio, Low Power AM transmitter, etc... and still have parts left over.

    Just some thoughts here.  Is there a vintage electronics club you could donate these to?

73.

Joe  AB1YO

On Thursday, June 26, 2025 at 10:37:14 AM EDT, Gareth Evans via groups.io <headstone255=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:

We seem to have been overtaken by the miniaturisation of Anno Domini

when VNAs and the TinySA give us almost everything we need in a size

not much bigger than a packet of cigarettes.

What then, to do with shelves full of the test eqpt slowly amassed

over 50 years but now worth almost nothing, perhaps only 5 or 10

shekels / dollars / pounds sterling at the various rallies and hamfests,

hardly worth the hassle of trying to sell it?

I'm thinking of my valve (tube to the Left Pondians :-)  ) RF sig genny,

AF sig genny, RF millivoltmeter, bench DVM, freq counter,

homebrew capacitance meter; all taking shelf space that is on

increasing scarcity of shelf space in the shack and all of which has been

superseded by miniaturisation.

There's even a W95 laptop in there somewhere purely to support

the ICOM PCR1000 RX, long made redundant by RTL-SDR

73 DE G4SDW (Was G8DXY) GQRP #3339 Gareth