Flood of old meters

From: Mike Ford <mikeford_at_socal.rr.com>
Date: Tue Sep 30 02:13:25 2003

I am really disturbed by the number of old meters I am seeing going into
the breakage (junk) bins at surplus places. Most of these are the big old
black Simpson 360 type things, and they are in a condition that reflects 30
to 50 years of use, but until this moment of being tossed, treated
carefully and with respect. Personally I have all the antique meters I
think I will ever need, a 360, a 3601 VTVM, but I couldn't see not picking
out one more from the batch getting tossed today a Bell System KS 14510 L1
VOM with a really clean new looking leather case, and a handheld sized
clamp on meter that just says General Electric. Weird thing on the GE meter
is that the range knob on the bottom extends through the meter face with
the scale marks on a cylinder so as the range changes the meter scale also
changes.

Worst thing is that often a flood of some item shows up like this, then
pretty soon you never see them anymore. Feels like the end of the era of
"instruments", crafted items that needed carefull handling, but lasted decades.
Received on Tue Sep 30 2003 - 02:13:25 BST