The ware for March 2021 is shown below.

This is an interesting ware that made its way to my inbox via a person who wishes to be credited as simply “Lih”.

I definitely had a bit of trouble guessing its purpose, but certain strange things started to make more sense once I found out. I wonder how quickly others will pick up on the oddities, and piece it together!

The ware is a sampling mixer from an HP 8508A vector voltmeter – foreground is a VCO and step generator that sends trigger pulses to samplers on both of the 2 input channels. The wiper is used to equalize the delay between the two channels. I found Cody’s analysis to be interesting and thought-provoking, so I’ll give him the prize for this month. Congrats, email me for your prize! I was also wondering if anyone was going to squint really hard and see the HP logo, and sure enough Name That Ware regular willmore saw it!

The Ware for February 2021 is shown below.

This one’s a bit tougher, since it’s just a small section of the complete circuit board; but I think there’s enough visible to have a stab at what the core function might be of the circuits highlighted here! Should be an interesting stumper.

Thanks again to Don Straney for contributing these wonderful wares!

The Ware for January 2021 is a LogiMetrics 921A RF signal generator. Or at least, that’s what the caption says on the picture that was sent to me; the insides don’t quite match up with other photos on the Internet, but it also seems there were a few revisions of the equipment over time, plus various enthusiasts have taken it upon themselves to overhaul their devices before passing them on to a new owner.

I’ll give the prize to Allen Smith for being the first to roughly identify the gear category and vintage. Congrats, email me for your prize!

I really love the classic, air-gap variable capacitor on this device. It’s exactly what I would want on hand to illustrate how capacitors work in an entry-level electronics class…if I had an infinite budget.

The Ware for January 2021 is shown below.

My call for guest wares was answered, and Don Straney has graciously donated a photoset of various wares that I’ll be pulling from over the coming months.

I thought we’d get warmed up with one of the more vintage, easier-to-guess items from the collection, shown above, and then move to some more challenging items over the coming months!