Notebook of Time and Frequency Experiments
I couldn't find a nice graph showing the timing performance of a single-frequency, sawtooth-corrected, pulse-per-second output from a GPS. So I measured a CNS-II GPS Clock and a surplus telecom HP Z3805A GPS Disciplined Oscillator (GPSDO) against a high-performance Cesium…
Each year at the Dayton Hamvention, the folks at Mini-Circuits have a bunch of odds and ends they sell very inexpensively. Over the years I've gotten tons of SMA attenuators and jumper cables, and a few amplifier blocks. I'd never…
It's well known that just about all oscillators drift, or "age", in frequency with time. In crystal oscillators, the most drift occurs when the oscillator is young, and over time the aging rate decreases. Power-cycling the oscillator results in a…
One of my Gnuradio projects is a tool that records IQ data covering 375 kHz -- which is enough to capture an entire HF ham band (except for 80/75M). A neat trick is to retransmit such a recording to allow…
My faithful HP 5065A Rubidium standard, which had been converted to a "Super" model, developed an intermittent sickness and back it went to Corby Dawson for him to perform his magic. After a realignment and fixing an intermittent connector ground,…
I've noticed that my SDR setup, an Apache Labs Anan-7000DLE transceiver used with the PowerSDR software, seems to rest the S-Meter at a quite high level when there is no signal present. This is unnerving when I try to compare…
I was lucky enough to find an HP 5061B cesium standard with what I think is a virtually new high performance (option 004) tube. These are rare because the high performance tubes burn up their cesium supply much more quickly…
I set my HP 5065A Rubidium standard to the 5071A. Unlike a Cesium clock, the Rubidium system does have some drift so it needs to be tweaked occasionally. I plan to come back to this post every few months to…
I compared my old HP 5061A cesium standard against a much newer HP 5071A with high performance tube. Cesium standards are tweaked by adjust an electromagnet in the tube; this adjustment is called the "C Field." In the 5061A you…
This is the first of several boring posts where I'm documenting the offset of a couple of my frequency standards so that I can come back later and determine aging rate. This is my Oscilloquartz 8607-008 BVA quartz oscillator. I…