Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home

[Charles Steinmetz]

Jim wrote:


Charles wrote:



[blob over wire bond construction]
is also extremely unreliable, particularly WRT environmental effects
such as temperature changes, humidity, and atmospheric pollutants.
In my view, it is unsuitable for use in anything but dirt cheap, purely
disposable devices like greeting-card audio players and disposable
cameras.



Interestingly enough it *is* used in space flight hardware.  It is much
less expensive, lighter weight and easier to inspect than thick film
hybrids and similar schemes.


Very interesting.


I suspect that there is a wide variation in the material you blob on
there and so forth.


No doubt.  I suspect also that space flight hardware doesn't use blobs 
on plain FR4.  While one problem with the blob technique is the 
permeability of the blob material, another is the permeability of the 
substrate -- and FR4 is pretty bad in this regard.


It would not surprise me to find that space-qualified blob material is 
very different from consumer-grade blob material, and is actually *more* 
expensive than using consumer-grade packaged die would be (which would, 
of course, defeat the purpose of using it for consumer circuits).


I suppose in the vacuum of space permeability to gasses and humidity may 
be less of a problem than it is in Earth's atmosphere, so the blob may 
need to be the primary means to prevent ingress of gasses and humidity 
only from the time of construction until launch.


Makers of space flight hardware can also afford to spend more for 
materials with similar coefficients of thermal expansion than makers of 
consumer devices can.


Best regards,

Charles


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Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home

[Mike Seguin]

Does anyone know of a clock with digital readout that uses the CME-8000?

Tnx,
Mike

On 2017-04-07 13:03, Tom Van Baak wrote:
Very good catch it is *not* the cme8000 chip. Thats a classic am 
receiver.

It is the everset chip. Sorry for mis-leading.


Hi Paul,

I can confirm (from talking with the guys backing it) that, yes, it's
the EverSet ES100, in die form (CoB). I believe you and I have both
used the early Xtendwave dev kits with the ES100 as SMT part. It's
nice to see the chip still lives and finally made it to a product!


I uploaded more ultrAtomic info and tear-down photos:

http://leapsecond.com/pages/ultratomic/

I encourage those of you who just bought these clocks to do some
experiments. The obvious ones are:

1) See how long it takes to acquire the correct time, at all sorts of
different and difficult environments, compared to the traditional WWVB
clocks. Check for off-by-one second, or minute, or hour errors.

2) See how accurate they really are. For clocks like this I use a
variety of piezo sensors (feel the tick), acoustic sensors (hear the
tick), optical sensors (see the tick), and mostly electrical sensors.
Some of these are passive (non-destructive) timings and good enough.
Others require some level of disassembly but are more precise. For a
stepper motor clock it's easy to tap onto the coil connections and get
a sharp pulse every second or two. Then use a time interval counter,
or picPET, or TICC, or PC-based PPS-capture to collect readings. Note
the signal level is usually low power and below typical TTL levels,
and they do NOT drive 50R!


If all goes well, we can soon talk about a time-nuts special where we
get someone to make a timing board or disciplined timing board based
on the ES100 chip. The bad news is that at the same price it would be
like a million times worse than GPS. The good news is that lots of
applications need only ms level timing; there are places where WWVB is
receivable and GNSS is not; and then there's the redundancy and
low-power factor.

/tvb

- Original Message -
From: "paul swed" 
To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement" 


Sent: Friday, April 07, 2017 5:08 AM
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home


Tom
Very good catch it is *not* the cme8000 chip. Thats a classic am 
receiver.

It is the everset chip. Sorry for mis-leading.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL


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---
73,
Mike, N1JEZ
"A closed mouth gathers no feet"

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Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home

[Bob kb8tq]

Hi

> On Apr 7, 2017, at 7:19 PM, jimlux  wrote:
> 
> On 4/7/17 3:45 PM, Charles Steinmetz wrote:
>> Bob wrote:
>> 
>>> The epoxy over wire bond construction approach
>>> is low cost, and not very experimenter friendly.
>> 
>> It is also extremely unreliable, particularly WRT environmental effects
>> such as temperature changes, humidity, and atmospheric pollutants.  In
>> my view, it is unsuitable for use in anything but dirt cheap, purely
>> disposable devices like greeting-card audio players and disposable cameras.
>> 
> 
> Interestingly enough it *is* used in space flight hardware.

Humidity does not tend to be a big issue once you get in space :)

Bob

>  It is much less expensive, lighter weight and easier to inspect than thick 
> film hybrids and similar schemes.
> 
> You can can do a pre-cap inspection, then apply the potting material, and 
> then you could even xray it to see if the bond wires moved or something.
> 
> A flipchip with a blob is even better.
> 
> It's even reworkable (e.g. you can soften the blob & solder and scrape the 
> die off and bond a new one down).
> 
> I suspect that there is a wide variation in the material you blob on there 
> and so forth.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home

[Charles Steinmetz]

Bob wrote:


The epoxy over wire bond construction approach
is low cost, and not very experimenter friendly.


It is also extremely unreliable, particularly WRT environmental effects 
such as temperature changes, humidity, and atmospheric pollutants.  In 
my view, it is unsuitable for use in anything but dirt cheap, purely 
disposable devices like greeting-card audio players and disposable cameras.


Best regards.

Charles


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Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home

[jimlux]

On 4/7/17 3:45 PM, Charles Steinmetz wrote:

Bob wrote:


The epoxy over wire bond construction approach
is low cost, and not very experimenter friendly.


It is also extremely unreliable, particularly WRT environmental effects
such as temperature changes, humidity, and atmospheric pollutants.  In
my view, it is unsuitable for use in anything but dirt cheap, purely
disposable devices like greeting-card audio players and disposable cameras.



Interestingly enough it *is* used in space flight hardware.  It is much 
less expensive, lighter weight and easier to inspect than thick film 
hybrids and similar schemes.


You can can do a pre-cap inspection, then apply the potting material, 
and then you could even xray it to see if the bond wires moved or something.


A flipchip with a blob is even better.

It's even reworkable (e.g. you can soften the blob & solder and scrape 
the die off and bond a new one down).


I suspect that there is a wide variation in the material you blob on 
there and so forth.







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Re: [time-nuts] HP5061B High Ion Current/Tubes Out of Cesium

[Bob kb8tq]

Hi

> On Apr 7, 2017, at 4:33 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp  wrote:
> 
> 
> In message 
> 

Re: [time-nuts] Fwd: HP5061B High Ion Current/Tubes Out of Cesium

[paul swed]

Don't forget Skips great hi-res pixs. Those pictures actually triggered a
complete re-thinking for me about how C tubes actually work. Further
digging and reading that set me straight. I think Poul-Henning helped me
also.
I doubt there are fumes in a 004. But a low flux tube there may be hope.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL

On Fri, Apr 7, 2017 at 4:33 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp 
wrote:

> 
> In message 

Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home

[paul swed]

Hello to the group. No there is not a way to bring that information out.
In fact it samples things much like other Time nuts threads have been
discussing on GPS.

It then stores the samples and figures out the data. So every 1.5 minutes
you get a complete sentence. Its actually a bit more tricky then that
because there are several modes to operate with. After getting a sentence
you can operate in a short mode that allows the system to figure out the
start of a minute and the tick.

So that all sounds very bad. But actually its not.
The sentence is quite complex especially with the error coding. Then there
are also bits you simply can't easily determine because they can be
changed. (Not that I have actually seen this) Obtaining the sentence allows
you to fabricate the next sentences and then flip the incoming carrier one
way or the other to remove the BPSK.

That is exactly how the cheat'n-d-psk-r works though I just grab GPS time
and fabricate the message straight out. This all requires 64 bit variables
and math.
Yes I could indeed use this wwvb signal. Just lazy and the cheatn d-psk-r
GPS works very well so have not been motivated to change.
Tom thanks for Orens email.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL

On Fri, Apr 7, 2017 at 3:20 PM, Bob kb8tq  wrote:

> Hi
>
> > On Apr 7, 2017, at 1:16 PM, John Ackermann N8UR  wrote:
> >
> > Is there any way to derive carrier phase from these chips?  Or to get
> raw modulation data that might make it usable as the front end to one of
> PaulS's de-PSKers?
>
> Unless it shows up on one of the test points on the photo’s, I suspect
> not. The epoxy over wire bond construction
> approach is low cost, and not very experimenter friendly.
>
> The good news is that they do prove the new modulation works pretty darn
> well in a number of locations. That at least
> adds to the justification to do up some sort of receiver that works with
> it.
>
> Bob
>
> >
> > On Apr 7, 2017, 1:04 PM, at 1:04 PM, Tom Van Baak 
> wrote:
> >>> Very good catch it is *not* the cme8000 chip. Thats a classic am
> >> receiver.
> >>> It is the everset chip. Sorry for mis-leading.
> >>
> >> Hi Paul,
> >>
> >> I can confirm (from talking with the guys backing it) that, yes, it's
> >> the EverSet ES100, in die form (CoB). I believe you and I have both
> >> used the early Xtendwave dev kits with the ES100 as SMT part. It's nice
> >> to see the chip still lives and finally made it to a product!
> >>
> >>
> >> I uploaded more ultrAtomic info and tear-down photos:
> >>
> >> http://leapsecond.com/pages/ultratomic/
> >>
> >> I encourage those of you who just bought these clocks to do some
> >> experiments. The obvious ones are:
> >>
> >> 1) See how long it takes to acquire the correct time, at all sorts of
> >> different and difficult environments, compared to the traditional WWVB
> >> clocks. Check for off-by-one second, or minute, or hour errors.
> >>
> >> 2) See how accurate they really are. For clocks like this I use a
> >> variety of piezo sensors (feel the tick), acoustic sensors (hear the
> >> tick), optical sensors (see the tick), and mostly electrical sensors.
> >> Some of these are passive (non-destructive) timings and good enough.
> >> Others require some level of disassembly but are more precise. For a
> >> stepper motor clock it's easy to tap onto the coil connections and get
> >> a sharp pulse every second or two. Then use a time interval counter, or
> >> picPET, or TICC, or PC-based PPS-capture to collect readings. Note the
> >> signal level is usually low power and below typical TTL levels, and
> >> they do NOT drive 50R!
> >>
> >>
> >> If all goes well, we can soon talk about a time-nuts special where we
> >> get someone to make a timing board or disciplined timing board based on
> >> the ES100 chip. The bad news is that at the same price it would be like
> >> a million times worse than GPS. The good news is that lots of
> >> applications need only ms level timing; there are places where WWVB is
> >> receivable and GNSS is not; and then there's the redundancy and
> >> low-power factor.
> >>
> >> /tvb
> >>
> >> - Original Message -
> >> From: "paul swed" 
> >> To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement"
> >> 
> >> Sent: Friday, April 07, 2017 5:08 AM
> >> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home
> >>
> >>
> >> Tom
> >> Very good catch it is *not* the cme8000 chip. Thats a classic am
> >> receiver.
> >> It is the everset chip. Sorry for mis-leading.
> >> Regards
> >> Paul
> >> WB8TSL
> >>
> >>
> >> ___
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> >> To unsubscribe, go to
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> >> and follow the instructions there.
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> 

Re: [time-nuts] Fwd: HP5061B High Ion Current/Tubes Out of Cesium

[Poul-Henning Kamp]

In message 

Re: [time-nuts] Looking for Gen Rad 1101A oscillator/parts

[Scott McGrath]

The Harvard collection of scientific instruments has one BTW 

http://waywiser.rc.fas.harvard.edu/view/objects/asitem/People@5686/57/displayDate-asc?t:state:flow=028d1ae2-7ea9-4238-9161-a1bf858d81d8

You might to contact them and see if they have any documentation and or photos 
they can share

Content by Scott
Typos by Siri

> On Apr 6, 2017, at 9:04 PM,   wrote:
> 
> Yes, I have the 1190 crystal and the socket. That is one of the driving 
> factors for me to get the oscillator functional again. I am hoping someone 
> has parts of another 1101A that is missing the crystal bar.
> 
> John
> 
> 
>  Bob kb8tq  wrote: 
>> Hi
>> 
>> I have seen only one of them that still had the 100 KHz bar in it in good 
>> shape. That
>> was back in 1973 and I have no idea at all what happened to that one. It was 
>> at a 
>> surplus outfit in Indiana that is long since gone out of business. 
>> 
>> Bob
>> 
>>> On Apr 6, 2017, at 6:04 PM, Pete Lancashire  wrote:
>>> 
>>> I took a gamble at a swap meet a few years ago $5 but did not have time etc
>>> to look inside get home no rock but nice wooden box :-)
>>> 
 On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 2:21 PM, Bob kb8tq  wrote:
 
 Hi
 
 Does your unit have the 1190 100 Kc quartz bar still in it? If so does the
 mount appear to be intact?
 
 At this late date, replacing that resonator is not going to be easy.
 
 Bob
 
> On Apr 6, 2017, at 3:58 PM, jmfra...@cox.net wrote:
> 
> I am trying to restore a clunker  General Radio 1101A crystal
 oscillator. The unit I have is missing several parts including the mercury
 thermostat switch and parts of the oven box, and maybe more. I am looking
 to buying one or more other clunkers to get at least one of these historic
 devices operational again. Any help appreciated.
> 
> John Franke WA4WDL
> 4500 Ibis Ct
> Portsmouth, VA 23703
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>> 
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Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home

[Bob kb8tq]

Hi

> On Apr 7, 2017, at 1:16 PM, John Ackermann N8UR  wrote:
> 
> Is there any way to derive carrier phase from these chips?  Or to get raw 
> modulation data that might make it usable as the front end to one of PaulS's 
> de-PSKers?

Unless it shows up on one of the test points on the photo’s, I suspect not. The 
epoxy over wire bond construction 
approach is low cost, and not very experimenter friendly. 

The good news is that they do prove the new modulation works pretty darn well 
in a number of locations. That at least 
adds to the justification to do up some sort of receiver that works with it. 

Bob

> 
> On Apr 7, 2017, 1:04 PM, at 1:04 PM, Tom Van Baak  wrote:
>>> Very good catch it is *not* the cme8000 chip. Thats a classic am
>> receiver.
>>> It is the everset chip. Sorry for mis-leading.
>> 
>> Hi Paul,
>> 
>> I can confirm (from talking with the guys backing it) that, yes, it's
>> the EverSet ES100, in die form (CoB). I believe you and I have both
>> used the early Xtendwave dev kits with the ES100 as SMT part. It's nice
>> to see the chip still lives and finally made it to a product!
>> 
>> 
>> I uploaded more ultrAtomic info and tear-down photos:
>> 
>> http://leapsecond.com/pages/ultratomic/
>> 
>> I encourage those of you who just bought these clocks to do some
>> experiments. The obvious ones are:
>> 
>> 1) See how long it takes to acquire the correct time, at all sorts of
>> different and difficult environments, compared to the traditional WWVB
>> clocks. Check for off-by-one second, or minute, or hour errors.
>> 
>> 2) See how accurate they really are. For clocks like this I use a
>> variety of piezo sensors (feel the tick), acoustic sensors (hear the
>> tick), optical sensors (see the tick), and mostly electrical sensors.
>> Some of these are passive (non-destructive) timings and good enough.
>> Others require some level of disassembly but are more precise. For a
>> stepper motor clock it's easy to tap onto the coil connections and get
>> a sharp pulse every second or two. Then use a time interval counter, or
>> picPET, or TICC, or PC-based PPS-capture to collect readings. Note the
>> signal level is usually low power and below typical TTL levels, and
>> they do NOT drive 50R!
>> 
>> 
>> If all goes well, we can soon talk about a time-nuts special where we
>> get someone to make a timing board or disciplined timing board based on
>> the ES100 chip. The bad news is that at the same price it would be like
>> a million times worse than GPS. The good news is that lots of
>> applications need only ms level timing; there are places where WWVB is
>> receivable and GNSS is not; and then there's the redundancy and
>> low-power factor.
>> 
>> /tvb
>> 
>> - Original Message - 
>> From: "paul swed" 
>> To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement"
>> 
>> Sent: Friday, April 07, 2017 5:08 AM
>> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home
>> 
>> 
>> Tom
>> Very good catch it is *not* the cme8000 chip. Thats a classic am
>> receiver.
>> It is the everset chip. Sorry for mis-leading.
>> Regards
>> Paul
>> WB8TSL
>> 
>> 
>> ___
>> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com
>> To unsubscribe, go to
>> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
>> and follow the instructions there.
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[time-nuts] Fwd: HP5061B High Ion Current/Tubes Out of Cesium

[Donald E. Pauly]

https://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2017-April/thread.html

We did not attempt to achieve lock because we saw absolutely no beam
current with the beam adjust all the way up.  We were running the oven
above 150° C which is more than 65° above normal oven temperatures.
Cesium pressure should have been about 30 times normal.

A photo of the A11 Cesium controller board is posted at
http://gonascent.com/papers/hp/hp5061/photos/cesiheat.jpg taken by
KB7APQ.  Note that there are no electrolytics but tantulums installed
instead.  They must have been very costly 30 years ago.  This also
prevents hard to find problems with high ESR electrolytics with age.
We have found open 47 μFd electrolytics inside two of our four HV
power supplies.  That is a place for tantalums if there ever was one.

We are working on our HP5061B's from 500 miles apart so photographs of
boards and waveforms help greatly.  The cesium oven servo is
underdamped.  It overshoots and rings down at a 10 second time
interval during temperature steps.  You can see the R12 that we
shorted out to get 150° oven temperatures for troubleshooting our
suspected bad tube.

I think that a website should be started with the collected wisdom of
this list.  I will host it if someone will maintain it. Corby's photo
graphs of dismantled beam tube parts should be on a nice web page.
If anyone has a high ion current 05061-6077 beam tube that they can
part with please contact me.  One of our beam tubes is completely out
of cesium.

πθ°μΩω±√·Γλ
WB0KVV

-- Forwarded message --
From: paul swed 
Date: Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 5:09 PM
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] HP5061B High Ion Current/Tubes Out of Cesium
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement 

Donald running higher temperatures on a a normal tube may indeed give you a
bit more life. Thats exactly how Frankenstein works. Its a hand me down
tube that normally showed as dead. Believe me it doesn't even move the
current meter and its working. My firm belief is that option 004 tubes do
not have anything left to give.

But yet with the higher temp (10-15 higher as I recall) it locks all on its
own after a good warmup period. Serious fumes.
Its been operating this way for some 4 years now. I don't run it all of the
time and I actually recently found what was wrong that always gave it a
slight offset.

So a very good conversation running here with everyone sharing really good
insights and pictures of detail I had only read about and generally without
any pictures. The entire thread should be gathered up, cleaned up, and
presented as the dummys guide to the care and feeding of old 5061s.

Regards
Paul.
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Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home

[Bob kb8tq]

Hi

Since it’s a magnetic stepper motor, how about a magnetic (coil) sensor? 

Based on past data, anything past 1us is massive overkill. A mag sensor 
with a ~100 KHz bandwidth should be a do-able sort of thing. A couple dozen 
turns of wire around a suitable ferrite rod might be enough. 

Bob

> On Apr 7, 2017, at 1:03 PM, Tom Van Baak  wrote:
> 
>> Very good catch it is *not* the cme8000 chip. Thats a classic am receiver.
>> It is the everset chip. Sorry for mis-leading.
> 
> Hi Paul,
> 
> I can confirm (from talking with the guys backing it) that, yes, it's the 
> EverSet ES100, in die form (CoB). I believe you and I have both used the 
> early Xtendwave dev kits with the ES100 as SMT part. It's nice to see the 
> chip still lives and finally made it to a product!
> 
> 
> I uploaded more ultrAtomic info and tear-down photos:
> 
> http://leapsecond.com/pages/ultratomic/
> 
> I encourage those of you who just bought these clocks to do some experiments. 
> The obvious ones are:
> 
> 1) See how long it takes to acquire the correct time, at all sorts of 
> different and difficult environments, compared to the traditional WWVB 
> clocks. Check for off-by-one second, or minute, or hour errors.
> 
> 2) See how accurate they really are. For clocks like this I use a variety of 
> piezo sensors (feel the tick), acoustic sensors (hear the tick), optical 
> sensors (see the tick), and mostly electrical sensors. Some of these are 
> passive (non-destructive) timings and good enough. Others require some level 
> of disassembly but are more precise. For a stepper motor clock it's easy to 
> tap onto the coil connections and get a sharp pulse every second or two. Then 
> use a time interval counter, or picPET, or TICC, or PC-based PPS-capture to 
> collect readings. Note the signal level is usually low power and below 
> typical TTL levels, and they do NOT drive 50R!
> 
> 
> If all goes well, we can soon talk about a time-nuts special where we get 
> someone to make a timing board or disciplined timing board based on the ES100 
> chip. The bad news is that at the same price it would be like a million times 
> worse than GPS. The good news is that lots of applications need only ms level 
> timing; there are places where WWVB is receivable and GNSS is not; and then 
> there's the redundancy and low-power factor.
> 
> /tvb
> 
> - Original Message - 
> From: "paul swed" 
> To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement" 
> 
> Sent: Friday, April 07, 2017 5:08 AM
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home
> 
> 
> Tom
> Very good catch it is *not* the cme8000 chip. Thats a classic am receiver.
> It is the everset chip. Sorry for mis-leading.
> Regards
> Paul
> WB8TSL
> 
> 
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Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home

[John Ackermann N8UR]

Is there any way to derive carrier phase from these chips?  Or to get raw 
modulation data that might make it usable as the front end to one of PaulS's 
de-PSKers?

On Apr 7, 2017, 1:04 PM, at 1:04 PM, Tom Van Baak  wrote:
>> Very good catch it is *not* the cme8000 chip. Thats a classic am
>receiver.
>> It is the everset chip. Sorry for mis-leading.
>
>Hi Paul,
>
>I can confirm (from talking with the guys backing it) that, yes, it's
>the EverSet ES100, in die form (CoB). I believe you and I have both
>used the early Xtendwave dev kits with the ES100 as SMT part. It's nice
>to see the chip still lives and finally made it to a product!
>
>
>I uploaded more ultrAtomic info and tear-down photos:
>
>http://leapsecond.com/pages/ultratomic/
>
>I encourage those of you who just bought these clocks to do some
>experiments. The obvious ones are:
>
>1) See how long it takes to acquire the correct time, at all sorts of
>different and difficult environments, compared to the traditional WWVB
>clocks. Check for off-by-one second, or minute, or hour errors.
>
>2) See how accurate they really are. For clocks like this I use a
>variety of piezo sensors (feel the tick), acoustic sensors (hear the
>tick), optical sensors (see the tick), and mostly electrical sensors.
>Some of these are passive (non-destructive) timings and good enough.
>Others require some level of disassembly but are more precise. For a
>stepper motor clock it's easy to tap onto the coil connections and get
>a sharp pulse every second or two. Then use a time interval counter, or
>picPET, or TICC, or PC-based PPS-capture to collect readings. Note the
>signal level is usually low power and below typical TTL levels, and
>they do NOT drive 50R!
>
>
>If all goes well, we can soon talk about a time-nuts special where we
>get someone to make a timing board or disciplined timing board based on
>the ES100 chip. The bad news is that at the same price it would be like
>a million times worse than GPS. The good news is that lots of
>applications need only ms level timing; there are places where WWVB is
>receivable and GNSS is not; and then there's the redundancy and
>low-power factor.
>
>/tvb
>
>- Original Message - 
>From: "paul swed" 
>To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement"
>
>Sent: Friday, April 07, 2017 5:08 AM
>Subject: Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home
>
>
>Tom
>Very good catch it is *not* the cme8000 chip. Thats a classic am
>receiver.
>It is the everset chip. Sorry for mis-leading.
>Regards
>Paul
>WB8TSL
>
>
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Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home

[Tom Van Baak]

> Very good catch it is *not* the cme8000 chip. Thats a classic am receiver.
> It is the everset chip. Sorry for mis-leading.

Hi Paul,

I can confirm (from talking with the guys backing it) that, yes, it's the 
EverSet ES100, in die form (CoB). I believe you and I have both used the early 
Xtendwave dev kits with the ES100 as SMT part. It's nice to see the chip still 
lives and finally made it to a product!


I uploaded more ultrAtomic info and tear-down photos:

http://leapsecond.com/pages/ultratomic/

I encourage those of you who just bought these clocks to do some experiments. 
The obvious ones are:

1) See how long it takes to acquire the correct time, at all sorts of different 
and difficult environments, compared to the traditional WWVB clocks. Check for 
off-by-one second, or minute, or hour errors.

2) See how accurate they really are. For clocks like this I use a variety of 
piezo sensors (feel the tick), acoustic sensors (hear the tick), optical 
sensors (see the tick), and mostly electrical sensors. Some of these are 
passive (non-destructive) timings and good enough. Others require some level of 
disassembly but are more precise. For a stepper motor clock it's easy to tap 
onto the coil connections and get a sharp pulse every second or two. Then use a 
time interval counter, or picPET, or TICC, or PC-based PPS-capture to collect 
readings. Note the signal level is usually low power and below typical TTL 
levels, and they do NOT drive 50R!


If all goes well, we can soon talk about a time-nuts special where we get 
someone to make a timing board or disciplined timing board based on the ES100 
chip. The bad news is that at the same price it would be like a million times 
worse than GPS. The good news is that lots of applications need only ms level 
timing; there are places where WWVB is receivable and GNSS is not; and then 
there's the redundancy and low-power factor.

/tvb

- Original Message - 
From: "paul swed" 
To: "Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement" 
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2017 5:08 AM
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home


Tom
Very good catch it is *not* the cme8000 chip. Thats a classic am receiver.
It is the everset chip. Sorry for mis-leading.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL


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Re: [time-nuts] Looking for Gen Rad 1101A oscillator/parts

[jmfranke]

Hi,

The GR 1101A thermometer thermostat is similar, but not the same dimensions. 
The GR 1101A has one bent thermometer that is visible from the front panel but 
does not have any contacts. The other thermometer/thermostat is deep within the 
crystal oven, is also bent, and does have the contacts. As you know, the 
thermostat switching temperature is fixed at manufacture. However, in the GR 
1101A, they provide a small variable heat source to bias the thermostat and 
thus allow for a small range of adjustment. 

Your oven system is quite interesting and a bit of engineering artistry. 
Depending on your intent, I would be tempted to try and replace the outer cover 
with a Plexiglas cylinder to reveal the inner details. But, the heaters may get 
in the way. As a project aside from the GR 1101A, I may make an oven similar to 
yours for a Bliley BG9D 100 kHz crystal and mount the heater resistors on the 
main central plate and housed within a clear outer cylinder. 

I am also restoring a couple battery powered GR Type 275 crystal oscillators. 
The 275 oscillators were the first commercially available crystal oscillators. 
I have two that are complete with the wooden boxes and one missing the box. I 
have spare parts to replace ones that were damaged but I am always looking for 
more of the plugin pancake tuning coils and crystals. 



 Dave Brown  wrote: 
> John
> Was the mercury device anything like one of these? This is an old  UK origin 
> dual xtal oven ex open wire carrier equipment. Still has one original glass 
> xtal but one has been replaced with a more 'modern' holder style.
> http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~tractorb/old%20xtal%20oven/
> DaveB, NZ
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of 
> jmfra...@cox.net
> Sent: Friday, April 07, 2017 7:59 AM
> To: time-nuts@febo.com
> Subject: [time-nuts] Looking for Gen Rad 1101A oscillator/parts
> 
> I am trying to restore a clunker  General Radio 1101A crystal oscillator. The 
> unit I have is missing several parts including the mercury thermostat switch 
> and parts of the oven box, and maybe more. I am looking to buying one or more 
> other clunkers to get at least one of these historic devices operational 
> again. Any help appreciated.
> 
> John Franke WA4WDL
> 4500 Ibis Ct
> Portsmouth, VA 23703
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Re: [time-nuts] The ultraAtomic clock for home

[paul swed]

Tom
Very good catch it is *not* the cme8000 chip. Thats a classic am receiver.
It is the everset chip. Sorry for mis-leading.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL

On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 9:25 PM, Bob kb8tq  wrote:

> Hi
>
> I’m sure it would have happily corrected for summer time in Europe two
> weeks later …. Provided (of course) it got the switch
> codes from DCF77 to tell it when to do so. My guess is that the tiny
> little watch antenna isn’t very good picking up time code
> from the other side of the Atlantic :) As I understand the beast it makes
> no attempt to work out when a shift should happen. It
> simply pulls data off of the RF signal to tell it what to do.
>
> Bob
>
> > On Apr 6, 2017, at 7:53 PM, Martin VE3OAT  wrote:
> >
> > Bob, if you had your watch set to European time, could the fact that
> Europe changes to daylight time about two weeks after we do in North
> America have anything to do with it?
> >
> > ... Martin   VE3OAT
> >
> > Bob (KB8TW) wrote :
> >>
> >> On a side note, my Citizen WWVB watch missed the change to DST this
> year.
> >> I still had it set to European time and it was not able to figure out
> which system
> >> to update to. I suppose it also may have been looking for DCF77 rather
> than WWVB.
> >>
> >
> >
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Re: [time-nuts] TAPR TICC boxed (input protection)

[Charles Steinmetz]

David wrote:


what doping is used for PNP RF transistors and saturated switches
if it is not gold?  Does it also increase leakage?


I replied:


Gold doping doesn't affect the speed of BJTs in the active region very
much -- its purpose is to reduce minority carrier lifetime and, thereby,
to reduce storage time when a transistor recovers from saturation.  I'm
not sure how manufacturers deal with this in the case of PNPs.


After I posted, I recalled learning in a long-ago device physics course 
that both Gold and Platinum doping were used to reduce minority carrier 
lifetime in PNP saturated switches.  According to Motorola, the 
MPS3639/3640, 2N4209, and 2N5771 were gold-doped PNP saturated switches 
(all are now obsolete, although SMD versions of the 3640 and 5771 appear 
to still be available).


And yes, doping PNPs with either Gold or Platinum does increase reverse 
leakage current (Platinum less so than Gold).


Best regards,

Charles


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Re: [time-nuts] CSAC vs NAC1

[Bob kb8tq]

Hi

If you set them both on the table, the CSAC’s I’ve seen are just slightly 
smaller than the NAC’s. It’s not by much. I never bothered to see if the 
mechanical specs on the parts reflected this or not. 

Bob

> On Apr 6, 2017, at 10:41 PM, jimlux  wrote:
> 
> On 4/6/17 5:11 PM, paul swed wrote:
>> Jim am I reading the casc power consumption correctly? .12 and .14 W.
>> Thats 10X lower.
> Yes..
>> Any idea on the $$
> 
> CSAC in the several kilobuck range, NAC in the 10-20k range, I think.
> 
> They're about the same size.. NAC is slightly smaller, I think.
> 
> 
>> Regards
>> Paul
>> WB8TSL
>> 
>> On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 6:11 PM, jimlux  wrote:
>> 
>>> Here's a quick summary of the datasheet performance between the
>>> Vectron/Accubeat NAC1 and the MicroSemi CSAC.  Bear in mind that Microsemi
>>> now has a wider temp range (i'm using the old rev J datasheet)
>>> 
>>> CSAC is 1/10th the power
>>> NAC1 has a better crystal, so the phase noise is better
>>> the "atomic" part is comparable in performane
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Parameter   NAC1CSAC
>>> Aging   3E-10/mo9E-10
>>>1E-9/yr 10E-9
>>> 
>>> ADEV2E-11 @ 100sec  2.5E-11
>>>8E-11 @ 10  8E-11
>>>2E-10 @ 1 sec   2.5E-10
>>> 
>>> phase noise
>>>-86 @ 10-70
>>>-120 @ 100  -113
>>>-138 @ 1000 -128
>>>-143 @ 10k  -135
>>>-148 @ 100k -140
>>>-150floor
>>> 
>>> max chg 1E-9 (-20 to 65) 5E-10  (-10 to 35)
>>> 
>>> pwr 1.2W op 0.12
>>>1.8W warm   0.14
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Re: [time-nuts] TAPR TICC boxed (input protection)

[Andy]

Another thing to watch out for if you need very low leakage, is if the
package is transparent.  All junctions are photodiodes.

Maybe it's less of a problem now with SMTs, than it was with glass body
diodes or translucent transistor packages.

Andy
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