On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 10:38:04 -0600, Palinurus
Gave us:

MassiveProng wrote:
On Thu, 8 Mar 2007 07:24:18 -0600, "Anthony Fremont"
Gave us:

Wasn't it you that said that certs
were often just a check not necessarily turning screws?

NO! I said that when you get your gear calibrated, it is typically
ONLY a verification of a good instrument.

Being off cal usually means something is awry.

What you are paying for is a VERY nice standard and a comparison
check against it. Of the hundreds of calibration sessions that we
have had done IN our lab, as opposed to sending the gear out, it was
done without them ever opening a single instrument.
-
Odd, I've been working in a cal lab for the last few years, and I'd say
a good 10% of what we get has something wrong with it. Some of it is
designed-in problems, but most of the rest is due to impact damage or
contamination. Our customers are largely the petrochemical industries
along the Gulf Coast, and they apparently believe that if a piece of
gear can't survive a 1 meter fall onto concrete, or being rained on and
rattling around in the back of a pickup truck for a few weeks, than
there's obviously something wrong with it anyway. It makes for a good
business in replacing switching, connectors and cracked LCDs.


Which distinctly falls under the category of REPAIR, NOT
calibration.