Re: [time-nuts] Frequency doubler 5/10 and distribution amplifier for Lucent KS-24361
Gerhard - I would like to make the board if you could make the layout available. I don't have Altium, so would need the artwork to be able to toner transfer the board. Is it available? Thanks -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Gerhard Hoffmann Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2015 7:19 AM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Frequency doubler 5/10 and distribution amplifier for Lucent KS-24361 Am 03.04.2015 um 04:04 schrieb Philip Gladstone: I'm coming late to this thread from January -- but did anybody ever make the PCBs for Gerhard's 10MHz output board? I'm interested. I just got my pair of RFTG's. Congratulations! There isn't a lot of news.. The interest on the net quickly boiled down, my sample works and so there was not a great incentive to follow that with much energy. And getting boards out does not mean that those are really built or that there is any feedback at all, as I saw with my 220pV/sqrtHz preamp. The Altium Designer files are available, maybe the regulators should be changed to sth. bigger (TO220 with small heat sink or so) regards, Gerhard (who will spend this rainycold Easter weekend on a 1pps generator whose outputs can be skewed in ps-steps to check the linearity of T2D converters or time stretchers.) ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Racal Dana 1992 universal counter
There is a 4 pin header, SK4, on the edge of the board. The standard setting is to short the top two pins. See also https://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2009-August/040381.html -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Larry McDavid Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2015 11:58 PM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Racal Dana 1992 universal counter I presume this jumper is located on the separate GPIB circuit board. How is the jumper identified and what are the positions for the options? Larry On 1/22/2015 11:13 AM, Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX wrote: I forgot to mention -- the 1992 has a jumper that selects between vanilla GPIB and a special Air Force ATE standard. Mine came with the Air Force setting. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Which First GPSDO to buy?
I'm in the same beginners' category as you. I'd do more but have other projects on the go and have found I would need more equipment (GPIB interfaces, a spectrum analyzer etc) to get much further. That said, I like the Lucent KS24361 and have a few bits and pieces on order to tap into J8 on the board of REF-1 and double the 5MHz for use in the lab. I picked up a decent antenna on eBay, it's probably not in an ideal spot but that was a tradeoff between aesthetics on the house / access to pull a coax down to the basement / height of my ladder, and it seems to work fine. Power supply was also auction-sourced for less than $20 and runs nicely. I think eventually I'll make a panel and install the unit in my basement rack. I have no need for the time-nuts accuracy, but I have to say I've found this whole area fascinating and have learned a ton over the past couple of months toying around with this stuff and absorbing the expertise from the group here. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Hal Murray Sent: Friday, December 12, 2014 6:49 PM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Cc: hmur...@megapathdsl.net Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Which First GPSDO to buy? kc0...@gmail.com said: For a newcomer to this field, which GPSDO would be better to purchase as a first-time acquisition: ... I'd suggest the Lucent KS24361. Lots of people here have them so it will be easy to get advice. Aside from the GPSDO, you also need a power supply and antenna, and coax to get to the antenna. It will work a lot better if the antenna is in a good location. GPS is 1.5 GHz, so you have to pay attention to loss in the coax. -- These are my opinions. I hate spam. ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 10 Mhz out success.
Paul - could you elaborate on where you made the connections? A few photos perhaps? Nice work, Anthony -Original Message- On Dec 3, 2014, at 6:04 PM, paul swed paulsw...@gmail.com wrote: Have successfully tapped into the clean 10 MHz of the the Lucent and using a EL2020 50 Mhz current opamp have a very nice 10 Mhz sine wave out. Any spurs are down at least 43 db. Close in at 4Khz total span or 500 Hz/div I don't see anything down to at least 65 db. Thats the best detail the HP 8568B will allow. To get the signal out of the Lucent I sliced the 15 Mhz trace and injected the 10 Mhz into the SMA output connector. I am sure there are many other amplifiers and methods that could be used but this ones working well and can drive some real coax lengths. Now the really hard part. Mounting it and the power supply into a rack panel. 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. ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 RS-422 interface pinout
I sent you my posting earlier today, so hopefully you saw it. The Lucent unit seems liberal in its interpretation of the pinouts, but once you've deciphered it and got the +ve and -ve pins connected, it works reliably. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Graham Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2014 5:36 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 RS-422 interface pinout Thanks all for answering my question. I looked through old posting but obviously didn't stumble upon Anthony's posting otherwise I would have had my answer. I made up a short cable to connect the Startech ICUSB422 to the KS-24361 J8 Diagnostic port and I can now connect. This is the final pinout: Startech KS-24361 ICUSB422 J8 - Diagnostic = 1 TXD- -- RXD- 8 2 TXD+ -- RXD+ 4 3 RXD+ -- TXD+ 5 4 RXD- -- TXD- 9 5 GND --- GND 7 6 NC 7 NC 8 NC 9 NC Seems RS-422 is a standard but pinouts vary. Live and learn. cheers, Graham ve3gtc On 2014-12-01 21:10, Bob Camp wrote: Hi If you dig back a month or so, there is a post with all the pinouts on all the connectors. 4 RX+ 8 RX- 5 TX+ 6 TX- 3 and 7 ground It ??s serial so TX on one goes to RX on the other. + goes to + and - to -. The pins are numbered on the connector in *very* small print. Bob ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 24V DC power requirements
I have been using a Universal 24V 5A DC Switching Power Supply from eBay. I have not seen my units draw more than 2A each - steady state is about 1.1A. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of planoph...@aei.ca Sent: Friday, November 21, 2014 11:25 AM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 24V DC power requirements Good day all, I have been following the discussions as best as I could. I recell seeing the question asked or at least theorized as to what is the power requirements of these units - either individually or together. I have reviewed all messages or at least all that I can find in these threads but I couldn't find a definitive answer unless of course the answer is in one of the responses hiding where I haven't looked. I purchased a set of these modules and they are currently in transit but I don't have a 24V DC supply at the moment. So, in order to try and get ahead before the arrival of these modules I would like to at least plan out if not get a suitable power supply ready. I don't want to over specify by too much and worse yet, under specify. Has anyone actually made any power used measurements of these modules? 2A average, 4A peak? Somewhere inbetween or more? cheers, Graham ve3gtc ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 Ref1 burnin after 1.8 weeks
I'll fire up my lab PC and take a more recent screenshot of my data - when I last looked the EFC was a straight line and PPS TI / s had settled down but was still noisy. -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of paul swed Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2014 10:24 AM To: Time-nuts Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 Ref1 burnin after 1.8 weeks As suggested by Bob and others the REF1 new out of the box needs time to burn in. At 1.8 weeks now I can see the EFC settling down towards a straight line. To start I was about 800 counts per day rising. Today 150 and rising. So it is slowly shifting towards what a z3801 as an example will do. Also ultimately it will look like an example Antony sent me. Simply noisy. The 3801 is fairly smooth. So I sense my earlier concern of a Bad box is wrong. Pretty happy about that. 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 Ref1 burnin after 1.8 weeks
Bob - what data are you capturing / measuring? I was thinking of just writing a simple capture program from the unit and analyzing it in Excel. When you say the status screen correspons to the data you've measured, what is it that you are comparing? Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Bob Camp Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2014 5:05 PM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 Ref1 burnin after 1.8 weeks Hi Based on what I ??ve seen on multiple boxes, I believe that the graph you have been looking at for TI is messed up due to a software bug. Checking things with a terminal program, the status screen corresponds pretty well to the data I ??ve measured. Bob On Nov 20, 2014, at 4:40 PM, paul swed paulsw...@gmail.com wrote: I have been snapping pix so can compare now. Getting better. Regards Paul On Thu, Nov 20, 2014 at 12:14 PM, Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com wrote: I'll fire up my lab PC and take a more recent screenshot of my data - when I last looked the EFC was a straight line and PPS TI / s had settled down but was still noisy. -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of paul swed Sent: Thursday, November 20, 2014 10:24 AM To: Time-nuts Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 Ref1 burnin after 1.8 weeks As suggested by Bob and others the REF1 new out of the box needs time to burn in. At 1.8 weeks now I can see the EFC settling down towards a straight line. To start I was about 800 counts per day rising. Today 150 and rising. So it is slowly shifting towards what a z3801 as an example will do. Also ultimately it will look like an example Antony sent me. Simply noisy. The 3801 is fairly smooth. So I sense my earlier concern of a Bad box is wrong. Pretty happy about that. 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. ___ 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. ___ 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. ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] STUPID QUESTION: Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812
If you search through the recent messages, you'll see a link to a set of photos I posted. This one https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5tlecUITRBLc3JyMElTdUwzMHM shows the front of the units. J7 provides the GPS power. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Don Murray via time-nuts Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 10:30 AM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] STUPID QUESTION: Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812 Hello all... Just getting up to speed on the KS-24361... My stupid question (s)... Where does the GPS antenna connect?? Does the GPS antenna port power the antenna? Need a replacement for my dead HP Z3816A... ;-( TIA... 73 Don W4WJ In a message dated 11/18/2014 3:26:52 A.M. Central Standard Time, m...@alignedsolutions.com writes: One of my Z3805's (with the double oven 10811 ocxo iirc) also performs similarly at times to the 58503A mentioned by Said. From an adev perspective it's close to my BVA at some tau's (around a hundred seconds or so iirc.) At times though the output seems to jump in frequency. My other Z3805 from the same source doesn't work as well. None of the 10811's in my various pieces of test gear (some of which I basically purchased to get the 10811's) worked all that well from an Adev perspective. I used to buy HP5328 counters on the usual auction site with 10811's and the 500MHz C channel for quite low prices. At least I still have a nice collection of frequency counters. Sent from my iPad On 2014-11-17, at 1:23 PM, Said Jackson via time-nuts time-nuts@febo.com wrote: Correct on all counts Bob. My two 58503A units from China are great for both ADEV and PN measurements, better than anything else I have as a combo (I have Wenzel ULNs for even lower PN testing but they don't have any usable ADEV). I also have a costly BVA and it can't compete against the HP unit. Those 10811s just rule. In fact my only complaint about the 58503A are the 60Hz related small spurs you can see in the plots... Bye, Said Sent From iPhone On Nov 17, 2014, at 12:28, Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org wrote: Hi The 58503 is a Z3801 with a pretty instrument style package put around it - right? If so, it might / should have a 10811 in it rather than an MTI OCXO. The 10811 is rated for -155 dbc at 100 Hz. That is much better than the noise floor that the MTI ??s seem to produce at 100 Hz. About the only other GPSDO OCXO that gets to that level is the one in the original TBolts . There you very much have to deal with spurs. That make the noise floor of limited use in a practical system. Bob On Nov 17, 2014, at 2:26 PM, saidj...@aol.com wrote: Hi Bob, yes, the 10MHz plot is rotten, no doubt. The 15MHz plot is quite good till about 40Hz offset, then it becomes pretty rotten too. Here is one of my 58503A units (using the 10811 OCXO) as a comparison.. measured against our DROR-IIA (this plot was actually done to show the DROR-IIA PN, but since that unit actually has less noise and spurs than the 58503A we can simply use it as the reference for this purpose). The good news is that getting the close-in phase noise to be good is very hard to do and the unit delivers that out-of-the box already. Filtering out the noise and spurs above 40Hz offset is pretty easy to do. It should be fairly straight forward to cobble up a small PN filter for those units to get rid of the noise and spurs above 40Hz offset. bye, Said In a message dated 11/17/2014 09:31:46 Pacific Standard Time, kb...@n1k.org writes: Hi Here ??s the phase noise on the 15 MHz. There are a few spurs, and an very real hump out at the likely frequency of the Lucent switcher. The 15 MHz is pretty clean compared to most /all of the other units I ??ve seen on the surplus market. I would not multiply this up to 40 GHz with a broadband multiplier. I would be quite happy to run it into a PLL with a rational bandwidth. You will beat the noise on the output with a fairly simple VHF VCXO past 100 Hz. No reason to have a bandwidth outside the 20 to 80 Hz range. Math: 15 MHz to 150 MHz - 20 log (N) - 20 db. -140 dbc / Hz shown below at 100 Hz offset - -120 dbc/Hz You can get numbers better than -120 dbc/Hz at 100 Hz offset out of a number of pretty simple VHF VCXO circuits. Bert has one that seems to work fine for him. Bob DROR-IIA_Phase_Noise.png ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] STUPID QUESTION: Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z381...
Don - rather than repeat info that has been posted over the course of the past 3-4 weeks, suggest you start here https://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2014-October/087274.html Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Don Murray via time-nuts Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 2:10 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] STUPID QUESTION: Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z381... TNX Paul and Anthony... More questions... ;-) I see that the REF1 type unit outputs 15MHz... The REF0 unit has both 15MHz and 10MHz... So, if I am going to use GPS, I need REF1, but it only does 15MHz out, and I need 10MHz for my stuff... so how do REF1 and REF0 interface?? Or does it work that way?? TNX guys!! 73 Don W4WJ In a message dated 11/18/2014 12:28:06 P.M. Central Standard Time, paulsw...@gmail.com writes: In the picture its the top unit ref1 and its the left hand TNC and it does power the antenna. If no antenna you need to tie a resistor to ground on the tnc to fake it out. Regards Paul WB8TSL On Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 11:49 AM, Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com wrote: If you search through the recent messages, you'll see a link to a set of photos I posted. This one https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5tlecUITRBLc3JyMElTdUwzMHM shows the front of the units. J7 provides the GPS power. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Don Murray via time-nuts Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2014 10:30 AM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] STUPID QUESTION: Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812 Hello all... Just getting up to speed on the KS-24361... My stupid question (s)... Where does the GPS antenna connect?? Does the GPS antenna port power the antenna? Need a replacement for my dead HP Z3816A... ;-( TIA... 73 Don W4WJ In a message dated 11/18/2014 3:26:52 A.M. Central Standard Time, m...@alignedsolutions.com writes: One of my Z3805's (with the double oven 10811 ocxo iirc) also performs similarly at times to the 58503A mentioned by Said. From an adev perspective it's close to my BVA at some tau's (around a hundred seconds or so iirc.) At times though the output seems to jump in frequency. My other Z3805 from the same source doesn't work as well. None of the 10811's in my various pieces of test gear (some of which I basically purchased to get the 10811's) worked all that well from an Adev perspective. I used to buy HP5328 counters on the usual auction site with 10811's and the 500MHz C channel for quite low prices. At least I still have a nice collection of frequency counters. Sent from my iPad On 2014-11-17, at 1:23 PM, Said Jackson via time-nuts time-nuts@febo.com wrote: Correct on all counts Bob. My two 58503A units from China are great for both ADEV and PN measurements, better than anything else I have as a combo (I have Wenzel ULNs for even lower PN testing but they don't have any usable ADEV). I also have a costly BVA and it can't compete against the HP unit. Those 10811s just rule. In fact my only complaint about the 58503A are the 60Hz related small spurs you can see in the plots... Bye, Said Sent From iPhone On Nov 17, 2014, at 12:28, Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org wrote: Hi The 58503 is a Z3801 with a pretty instrument style package put around it - right? If so, it might / should have a 10811 in it rather than an MTI OCXO. The 10811 is rated for -155 dbc at 100 Hz. That is much better than the noise floor that the MTI ??s seem to produce at 100 Hz. About the only other GPSDO OCXO that gets to that level is the one in the original TBolts . There you very much have to deal with spurs. That make the noise floor of limited use in a practical system. Bob On Nov 17, 2014, at 2:26 PM, saidj...@aol.com wrote: Hi Bob, yes, the 10MHz plot is rotten, no doubt. The 15MHz plot is quite good till about 40Hz offset, then it becomes pretty rotten too. Here is one of my 58503A units (using the 10811 OCXO) as a comparison.. measured against our DROR-IIA (this plot was actually done to show the DROR-IIA PN, but since that unit actually has less noise and spurs than the 58503A we can simply use it as the reference for this purpose). The good news is that getting the close-in phase noise to be good is very hard to do and the unit delivers that out-of-the box already. Filtering out the noise and spurs above 40Hz offset is pretty easy to do. It should be fairly straight forward to cobble up a small PN filter for those units to get rid of the noise and spurs above 40Hz offset. bye, Said In a message dated 11/17/2014 09:31:46 Pacific Standard
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent GPSDO comments
My unit has been on for just over a week. I captured the data overnight - the PPS TI plot is here https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5tlecUITRBLMVV4NzFTMnlNaDA/. I see a similar PPS TI graph to yours, but my EFC is much different. Trouble is with that, I'm not sure what I'm looking at and what normal should look like! I also snapped the Time Measures graph - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5tlecUITRBLdjdPRWpITGpmeDQ/. I don't yet have any other method of measuring ADEV, but what is captured here looks similar to many other ADEV charts. Again, any advice on what I should be looking for would be helpful. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of paul swed Sent: Friday, November 14, 2014 8:18 AM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent GPSDO comments Thanks everyone. My concern is did I need to reach out and get an exchange before the 30 days is up. I sense ASI the vendor is actually a pretty good company and will do the right thing. Regards Paul WB8TSL On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 7:35 AM, Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org wrote: Hi That OCXO is doing very well. If you look at the plot, it ??s doing a few LSB ??s on the DAC over the time period. That ??s good performance. Bob On Nov 13, 2014, at 9:17 PM, paul swed paulsw...@gmail.com wrote: Bob the actual pictures and files are large so here is the left screen and right screen from the z3811 program. Pretty easy to guess whats in the middle. Lots of noise on the ti/pps and you can see EFC is rising all the time. I will say in the past it had been a steady rise now there is a wave that might mean its slowing down a bit. But this all looks rattier then I would believe. Regards Paul WB8TSL On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 5:43 PM, Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org wrote: Hi How much is your unit moving? Bob On Nov 13, 2014, at 1:50 PM, paul swed paulsw...@gmail.com wrote: On the older units that used a RB to control an Xtal. They created a mix of 5 Mhz +10 Mhz and that produced 15 out that hit an amplifier to drive a 12 way splitter. I think I reverse engineered the circuit. Its on paper and filed. Oh that ends this discussion. Anyhow it was not hard to figure out. I am still baking my Lucent in so want to see if it settles. There is just the barest of hints it may be. So do not want to power down to explore. Happy to dig in if I don't have to return the unit. Regards Paul WB8TSL On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 7:21 PM, Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org wrote: Hi The chain in the Z3810 / 3811 / 3812 Lucent boxes is *much* different than the setup in the earlier parts. The phase noise and ADEV on the Z3810 ??s is better than what you got on the earlier versions. That makes keeping the noise down in whatever mod you do more important. The existing 10 MHz output on the Z3810 setup is a real good example of how a seemingly simple thing can add a lot of phase noise and even mess up ADEV. I don ??t think the 15 MHz is used for much of anything in the Z3810. That could be wrong, but I can ??t see where it is needed based on poking around a little. The 15 MHz buffer appears to be quiet and puts out a lot of power. Using it for 10 MHz would give you a *lot* of 10 MHz signal to play with. IF the mods are simple it ??s an attractive solution. If it involves swapping out 30 parts - not so much. Bob On Nov 12, 2014, at 5:50 PM, Perry Sandeen via time-nuts time-nuts@febo.com wrote: Wrote: At some point we will get into hacking the main board to switch from 15 MHz to 10 MHz. One doesn ??t have to that if one uses the two IC divide by 1.5 circuit I offered the list. I specifically found it so I didn ??t have to hack the innards. Wrote: The great news is the oscillator is 5 Mhz. Don ??t bet the rent on that. My early units have 10 MHZ Datum oscillators. Bob ??s point about getting the GPSDO ??s if all cost the same is a good point. Another point. At least on the older units I have: GPSDO, Rubidium, and Crystal oscillator, the output circuitry after the 15 MHz conversion takes place is the same. So if one hacks the 10 Mhz into the chain, all one has to do is remove or bypass the 15 MHz filter before the output. Even if you don ??t have the rubidium unit but have either/or GPDO or Crystal oscillator email me off list for the rubidium schematic as after the logic chips they use the same circuit. Regards, Perrier ___ 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. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To
[time-nuts] Communicating with the Lucent KS-24361
I had been unsuccessful communicating with these units using the RS232 to RS422 cable hack that Stewart Cobb described in his original post (https://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2014-October/087274.html). I was able to see, via a scope, the data coming out of the REF 1 unit, but it was never picked up on the PC. I finally bought a USB to RS422/RS485 cable. That didn't work out of the box - I needed to use the supplied breakout board to remap the pins to a DB9-M connector as follows (Tx- to pin 8, Tx+ to pin 4, Rx- to pin 9, Rx+ to pin 5, Gnd to pin 7). All 4 wires were needed for this to work. Thanks to Bob Camp and Tom Van Baak for their help on this Anthony ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 GPSDO arrived today several questions
My frustration with getting anything out of the Diag port onto a PC continues. I received an RS422 to USB cable and also an RS422 to RS232 convertor but neither of them has given me any success, on either box. I can see data coming out of the port on my scope, on top of a noisy 1.2V line, but cannot get a terminal program, SatStat or Z38XX to display anything. It's crazy. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Bob Camp Sent: Friday, November 07, 2014 6:42 AM To: gandal...@aol.com; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 GPSDO arrived today several questions Hi Well, it took me a *long* time to get around to the command line on these boxes. For what ever reason (yes one could guess ? ) I stayed focused on finding a 3810/11/12 manual rather than dropping back to the 3801 manual. Now the question becomes that magic 10 pin header on the board. If it ??s jumpers (might not be) one of them could enable bi-directional communication. Thanks for checking this to see that it works on at least one other box. Bob On Nov 7, 2014, at 4:03 AM, GandalfG8--- via time-nuts time-nuts@febo.com wrote: Hi Bob Very many thanks for the prod re the Diagnostic port. Considering the other GPS kit I talk to using Hyperterminal and the like, often because there's no other option, I don't know why it's never occurred to me to do the same with the Z3801As and now these.. and any rude suggestions as to why will just be politely ignored:-) It's not that I don't have access to the command set, but I suspect that twelve years or so ago, totally green when it came to GPSDOs and with my first Z3801A to play with, I was just grateful to find SatStat, and eventually some nice commercial options, and never gave it a thought after that, silly me. Anyway, I've just switched my Z3811A comms over to Hyperterminal and tried the :SYST:STAT? command for starters. That's obviously what SatStat uses to generate it's front page, although it is continuously updated with SatStat, and we do have contact, and something else to play with:-) Regards Nigel GM8PZR In a message dated 07/11/2014 00:07:56 GMT Standard Time, kb...@n1k.org writes: Hi Ok, I got to spend a little quality time with my pair today. I mostly poked at the Diag port with a terminal program. Both of the units seem talk over the Diag port regardless of the mode they are in (master / slave / fault ). Both respond to a sub-set of the Z3801 SCPI commands (= not all commands work). There are a few enhancements where a query to a ??node ?? gives a reply (which it should not if it ??s ??node only ?? ). All of it works ok at 9600 baud 8N1. All of it comes back with an error message (E-xxx) after a valid command response. It may not like the terminal program sending cr/lf or something like that. By far the most useful thing to type is :SYST:STAT? That executes the system:status request and gives you a nice full screen of information. It shows you about 95% of the useful information all on one page. About the only major thing missing is the DAC value. That ??s available with another command out of the Z3801 list. It does take a while to compose and transmit the screen, so it ??s not the best way to to this forever and ever. The data from the request is the same on both boxes. Same everything except one shows as standby etc. The interesting details are things like elevation mask and cable delay. Why interesting? You can set them with discrete commands. You can also query the data with the same commands to make sure the box ??took ?? what you sent. This allows experimentation with changing the elevation mask on each box (or just simply doing a discrete query for the mask on each box). The Ref-0 / slave will happily change things around with discrete commands. None of them are reflected in the :SYST:STAT? listing on the Ref-0 or Ref-1. When you look at the Ref-1 / gps box, it ??s discrete query information matches the :SYST:STAT? screen on both boxes. When you change things on the Ref-1 box both screens follow that data. ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? When you pull the antenna on the gps box, it immediately (almost) goes into gps fault led flashing mode. The slave box happily sits there for a while (say a minute) with it ??s gps led saying all is well. When you plug the antenna back in, the process is reversed. The gps box goes out of flash mode right away. The led goes out in a bit. The led on the slave box does not follow for a minute or so. ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? All of this suggests to me that the Ref-0 / slave does not talk back to the other box via serial. It also suggests to me that all it ??sees ?? from the Ref-1/gps box are the duplicates of the serial string out of the Motorola
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 GPSDO arrived today several questions
Yes, all of that is the same as my setup and what I see. As I said, I can send data to the boxes from a terminal program and see it coming back by scoping the line. I may return the units and get a different pair. It just seems odd that both units behave in this way. -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of GandalfG8--- via time-nuts Sent: Friday, November 07, 2014 11:39 AM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 GPSDO arrived today several questions Hi Anthony, Are you sure you've got the COM port set up correctly? Should be 9600 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, No parity, No flow control In SatStat, for example, you should get a message on startup that says To Start: Select port Open on the CommPort Menu... If you do this, assuming the correct settings, it should bring up a message Communication Established, Please Wait Then the SatStat Info page should open. This is with the Symmetricom Windows version of SatStat, version 5, do you see any of this when you try to start it? Regards Nigel GM8PZR In a message dated 07/11/2014 17:14:54 GMT Standard Time, ar...@antamy.com writes: My frustration with getting anything out of the Diag port onto a PC continues. I received an RS422 to USB cable and also an RS422 to RS232 convertor but neither of them has given me any success, on either box. I can see data coming out of the port on my scope, on top of a noisy 1.2V line, but cannot get a terminal program, SatStat or Z38XX to display anything. It's crazy. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Bob Camp Sent: Friday, November 07, 2014 6:42 AM To: gandal...@aol.com; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 GPSDO arrived today several questions Hi Well, it took me a *long* time to get around to the command line on these boxes. For what ever reason (yes one could guess ? ) I stayed focused on finding a 3810/11/12 manual rather than dropping back to the 3801 manual. Now the question becomes that magic 10 pin header on the board. If it ??s jumpers (might not be) one of them could enable bi-directional communication. Thanks for checking this to see that it works on at least one other box. Bob On Nov 7, 2014, at 4:03 AM, GandalfG8--- via time-nuts time-nuts@febo.com wrote: Hi Bob Very many thanks for the prod re the Diagnostic port. Considering the other GPS kit I talk to using Hyperterminal and the like, often because there's no other option, I don't know why it's never occurred to me to do the same with the Z3801As and now these.. and any rude suggestions as to why will just be politely ignored:-) It's not that I don't have access to the command set, but I suspect that twelve years or so ago, totally green when it came to GPSDOs and with my first Z3801A to play with, I was just grateful to find SatStat, and eventually some nice commercial options, and never gave it a thought after that, silly me. Anyway, I've just switched my Z3811A comms over to Hyperterminal and tried the :SYST:STAT? command for starters. That's obviously what SatStat uses to generate it's front page, although it is continuously updated with SatStat, and we do have contact, and something else to play with:-) Regards Nigel GM8PZR In a message dated 07/11/2014 00:07:56 GMT Standard Time, kb...@n1k.org writes: Hi Ok, I got to spend a little quality time with my pair today. I mostly poked at the Diag port with a terminal program. Both of the units seem talk over the Diag port regardless of the mode they are in (master / slave / fault ). Both respond to a sub-set of the Z3801 SCPI commands (= not all commands work). There are a few enhancements where a query to a ??node ?? gives a reply (which it should not if it ??s ??node only ?? ). All of it works ok at 9600 baud 8N1. All of it comes back with an error message (E-xxx) after a valid command response. It may not like the terminal program sending cr/lf or something like that. By far the most useful thing to type is :SYST:STAT? That executes the system:status request and gives you a nice full screen of information. It shows you about 95% of the useful information all on one page. About the only major thing missing is the DAC value. That ??s available with another command out of the Z3801 list. It does take a while to compose and transmit the screen, so it ??s not the best way to to this forever and ever. The data from the request is the same on both boxes. Same everything except one shows as standby etc. The interesting details are things like elevation mask and cable delay. Why interesting? You can set them with discrete commands. You can also query the data with the
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 GPSDO arrived today several questions
I have both versions of SatStat (the HP and the Symmetricon). Both are set for COM1 9660, 8, n, 1. Both are running in an XP VM. I have tested the virtualized to physical COM1 connection using a terminal program and a scope, so I know that works. When I select Port Open, I just get Trying to establish communication. I never see the SatStat info page. If I use the terminal program under XP or on the Win7 host, I can send *IDN? , :SYST:STAT? etc. but never get a response. Although I can see a response by scoping the cable - it peaks around 4.5v, and is quite noisy. My suspicion is that it's the noise that is causing the trouble. AECI are sending me replacement units, but if you have any ideas of other things to try, let me know Thanks ANthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of GandalfG8--- via time-nuts Sent: Friday, November 07, 2014 2:11 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 GPSDO arrived today several questions When you say, all of that is what you see... Do you mean you go through the SatStat start sequence and you see the SatStat info page? If so what happens then, or does it in fact stop earlier than that? Regards Nigel GM8PZR In a message dated 07/11/2014 19:55:16 GMT Standard Time, ar...@antamy.com writes: Yes, all of that is the same as my setup and what I see. As I said, I can send data to the boxes from a terminal program and see it coming back by scoping the line. I may return the units and get a different pair. It just seems odd that both units behave in this way. -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of GandalfG8--- via time-nuts Sent: Friday, November 07, 2014 11:39 AM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 GPSDO arrived today several questions Hi Anthony, Are you sure you've got the COM port set up correctly? Should be 9600 baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, No parity, No flow control In SatStat, for example, you should get a message on startup that says To Start: Select port Open on the CommPort Menu... If you do this, assuming the correct settings, it should bring up a message Communication Established, Please Wait Then the SatStat Info page should open. This is with the Symmetricom Windows version of SatStat, version 5, do you see any of this when you try to start it? Regards Nigel GM8PZR In a message dated 07/11/2014 17:14:54 GMT Standard Time, ar...@antamy.com writes: My frustration with getting anything out of the Diag port onto a PC continues. I received an RS422 to USB cable and also an RS422 to RS232 convertor but neither of them has given me any success, on either box. I can see data coming out of the port on my scope, on top of a noisy 1.2V line, but cannot get a terminal program, SatStat or Z38XX to display anything. It's crazy. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Bob Camp Sent: Friday, November 07, 2014 6:42 AM To: gandal...@aol.com; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361 GPSDO arrived today several questions Hi Well, it took me a *long* time to get around to the command line on these boxes. For what ever reason (yes one could guess ? ) I stayed focused on finding a 3810/11/12 manual rather than dropping back to the 3801 manual. Now the question becomes that magic 10 pin header on the board. If it ??s jumpers (might not be) one of them could enable bi-directional communication. Thanks for checking this to see that it works on at least one other box. Bob On Nov 7, 2014, at 4:03 AM, GandalfG8--- via time-nuts time-nuts@febo.com wrote: Hi Bob Very many thanks for the prod re the Diagnostic port. Considering the other GPS kit I talk to using Hyperterminal and the like, often because there's no other option, I don't know why it's never occurred to me to do the same with the Z3801As and now these.. and any rude suggestions as to why will just be politely ignored:-) It's not that I don't have access to the command set, but I suspect that twelve years or so ago, totally green when it came to GPSDOs and with my first Z3801A to play with, I was just grateful to find SatStat, and eventually some nice commercial options, and never gave it a thought after that, silly me. Anyway, I've just switched my Z3811A comms over to Hyperterminal and tried the :SYST:STAT? command for starters. That's obviously what SatStat uses to generate it's front page, although it is continuously updated with SatStat, and we do have contact, and something else to play with:-) Regards Nigel GM8PZR In a message dated 07/11/2014 00:07:56 GMT Standard Time, kb...@n1k.org writes: Hi
Re: [time-nuts] Z3812 Diag port data? RE: time-nuts Digest, Vol 124, Issue 26
I have them running in a VirtualBox VM (Windows XP) on Windows 7. They seem to work fine. -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Bob Camp Sent: Monday, November 03, 2014 8:33 PM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Z3812 Diag port data? RE: time-nuts Digest, Vol 124, Issue 26 Hi I ??ve been trying to get ahold of some / any of the sources for these programs. Several of them need to be re-compiled (and possibly re-written) for the modern world of 64 bits and Net (what ever it ??s up to).(the rev coming out tomorrow). The whole structure of accessing com ports changed a lot from the early XP days to the way they do it now. As support drops off, the old stuff will get harder and harder to keep running. Much easier (hopefully) to move the software forward. Even Windows 7 is getting into the ??old ?? category. Windows 8 will be superseded next year. I know this is a bit traumatic in the PC world. If you are on a Mac, it all seems pretty slow :) Bob On Nov 3, 2014, at 2:23 PM, Bill Riches bill.ric...@verizon.net wrote: Just loaded Satstat and found that it would not work with windoze 7 64 bit. Is there a 64 bit version around or do I dig out an old xp machine - or what program has been found to work? Bill, WA2DVU Cape May --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com ___ 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. ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I've been able to get the GPS unit running standalone by attaching J5-P2 to J5-P8 with a 470 ohm resistor and J5-P3 directly to J5-P8. I am still completely stumped getting any data out of J6 or J8 into a PC serial port. With a scope on the Rx and Tx lines of the RS232 to RS422 cable, I can see commands being sent and can capture the data coming back, but can't get the PC to pick up any of the signals, so I know the unit is not at fault. Hopefully I'll have success with the RS422 to RS232 convertor I've ordered. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Anthony Roby Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 9:12 PM To: Bob Stewart; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Yes I did, with XP running in VirtualBox on Win7 with COM1 mapped to the hardware port and a serial cable connected to another cable that does the pin conversion. I also tried it via a USB cable connected to an FTDI serial to USB convertor. I'll play around with it some more this weekend. Anthony Original message From: Bob Stewart b...@evoria.net Date: 2014/10/30 21:04 (GMT-06:00) To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi Anthony, When you ran Satstat, did you open the serial port? Click Commport-Settings and set it 9600,8,N,1. Then click Commport-Port open. Works OK under XP for me. I haven't tried it under Wine as I'm out of serial ports on the server and have the laptop to use. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 8:17 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I was finally able to get my units to lock and behave as described below. I am still unable to get any data into the PC, either via the RS422 to RS232 hack or through Götz Romahn's modification of the RS422 output. This issue must be to do with the voltage levels. I did connect my scope up to the RS422/1PPS output and was able to capture the serial data coming out of that (see the screenshot at http://goo.gl/87e8GG). I could see two of the numbers incrementing every second, so that must be a timestamp. I have ordered a USB to RS422 cable, so hopefully that will resolve the issue of communicating via J8. Thanks Bob for letting me know that the active J8 is on the unit with the green ON light illuminated. Anthony ___ 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. ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812...
The photos I posted at http://goo.gl/87e8GG show the differences between the two boards - there is more to it than just adding a GPS board. The underside has a bunch of additional components beneath the antenna connector. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of GandalfG8--- via time-nuts Sent: Monday, November 03, 2014 12:00 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812... Hi Arthur Thanks for your further comments, and certainly no need for the sorry. It was your pioneering work that inspired recent efforts to start with, and the confusion over the pin numbers that led Gotz to the, just grounding pins 2 and 3, 2 link solution we have now. Overall, I'd say, not a bad result:-) Good luck with the 10 MHz conversion, I'll probably do that soon as well, after bringing out the 5 Mhz, but for now I'm just letting them cook whilst monitoring the 15MHz. As has been previously commented, aside from the GPS module, there seems to be very little difference between the Ref-0 and Ref-1 modules, and I'm quite tempted to make up my own patch lead, whip out the GPS module from one of my Ref-1 units, and then couple the two Ref-1s together to see how they cope with that:-) Regards Nigel GM8PZR In a message dated 03/11/2014 17:13:15 GMT Standard Time, golgarfrinc...@gmail.com writes: GandalfG8 at aol.com GandalfG8 at aol.com Sun Nov 2 09:08:30 EST 2014 wrote: Ooh err, whoops, and oh dear !! Arthur, I've only just had a chance to look at your latest photos, and unless I've really got my wires crossed, if you'll pardon the expression:-), your links on J5 are not shown on pins 2, 10, 12, and 15, but on pins 4, 6, 11, and 13. + Darn-I'm glad someone was paying more attention than I was when I wrote that years ago. Apparently when I was documenting what modifications I had made I just picked up a 15 pin D plug shell to get the numbers instead of looking at the obvious numbers on the RFTG socket connector and those connectors being mirror images have the numbers reversed. I was out geocaching yesterday and didn't catch up on the new posts until this morning so I'm a little late in responding. I also checked to see if I had any other scribbles on the changes I made and found this: If pin 2 is held low the 'ON' LED will flash. A pulse low will turn it on. The RC timer holds pin 2 low to flash for about 6 seconds so you can see it actually happens then pin 2 returns high and the 'ON' LED stays on solid. So apparently some of the parts I added were to just make the light look like they were working correctly (can you spell OCD?) and may not be necessary. As I originally said, this was a hack and I wanted others to duplicate what I had done to see if any of it made sense to them. At least it appears that by adding the circuit I came up with and/or adding jumpers you can get the RFTG-u REF 1 unit to work without the slave unit. I just ordered another RFTG-u REF 1 and will see if I can modify that and get it to output 10Mhz instead of 5Mhz like my original unit. Sorry about the screw up on the numbers. -Arthur ___ 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. ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I've been able to get the GPS unit running standalone by attaching J5-P2 to J5-P8 with a 470 ohm resistor and J5-P3 directly to J5-P8. I am still completely stumped getting any data out of J6 or J8 into a PC serial port. With a scope on the Rx and Tx lines of the RS232 to RS422 cable, I can see commands being sent and can capture the data coming back, but can't get the PC to pick up any of the signals, so I know the unit is not at fault. Hopefully I'll have success with the RS422 to RS232 convertor I've ordered. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Anthony Roby Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 9:12 PM To: Bob Stewart; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Yes I did, with XP running in VirtualBox on Win7 with COM1 mapped to the hardware port and a serial cable connected to another cable that does the pin conversion. I also tried it via a USB cable connected to an FTDI serial to USB convertor. I'll play around with it some more this weekend. Anthony Original message From: Bob Stewart b...@evoria.net Date: 2014/10/30 21:04 (GMT-06:00) To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi Anthony, When you ran Satstat, did you open the serial port? Click Commport-Settings and set it 9600,8,N,1. Then click Commport-Port open. Works OK under XP for me. I haven't tried it under Wine as I'm out of serial ports on the server and have the laptop to use. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 8:17 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I was finally able to get my units to lock and behave as described below. I am still unable to get any data into the PC, either via the RS422 to RS232 hack or through Götz Romahn's modification of the RS422 output. This issue must be to do with the voltage levels. I did connect my scope up to the RS422/1PPS output and was able to capture the serial data coming out of that (see the screenshot at http://goo.gl/87e8GG). I could see two of the numbers incrementing every second, so that must be a timestamp. I have ordered a USB to RS422 cable, so hopefully that will resolve the issue of communicating via J8. Thanks Bob for letting me know that the active J8 is on the unit with the green ON light illuminated. Anthony ___ 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. ___ 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. ___ 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.
[time-nuts] Measuring ADEV for a beginner
I've been reading a lot about ADEV and following the threads on the list, particularly Karen's in-flight thread. What I haven't come across is a simple explanation of the basic setup required to go about collecting the data. John Miles referenced this page http://www.ke5fx.com/tpll.htm, and the simple setup at the bottom of the page looks like a reasonable place to start. Seems that I'd need to acquire a phase detector and build or buy some filters and the amp. I can probably figure that out, but how do I get the data into a PC? Is there a basic hardware and software setup that someone could point me to or recommend? Thanks Anthony ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
For those who missed it, Arthur's post is at https://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2010-June/047825.html and the photo is at http://i906.photobucket.com/albums/ac262/rjb1998/RFTG-uREF1photo1_zps87c505ca.jpg Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Dent Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 9:20 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Bob Stewart bob at evoria.net ?? ? I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby ? . ?? Bob Camp kb8tq at n1k.org ??I suspect that somebody will have to figure out what the 15 pin connector / jumper is doing. On previous RFTG units there was a way to re-wire the crossover interface to fake out the slave detect process. That would let you run a single GPS equipped box and have it behave correctly. Without the fake wires trick none of them played nice without the slave being present ? . ?? ++ Reposting what I had posted over a week ago, in case you missed it ? . Arthur Dent golgarfrincham at gmail.com Wed Oct 22 13:59:48 EDT 2014 ?? ? Way back on Fri Jun 11 16:48:43 UTC 2010 I posted about using one of these units I had modified but at the time there wasn't a single person who was interested. I have been using the RFTG-u REF1 since then and it is a nice unit. The modifications I added (including a power supply -see photo) allows the lights to cycle through their normal sequence on warm-up and the second unit isn't needed at all ? . ?? -Arthur ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Measuring ADEV for a beginner
or perfect way to do it? Certainly not. It is one of many simple ways it can be done. Even this simple way has two forks in it (TimeLab or not). It also has a few features like a know good OCXO and the undocumented circuit on the output of the RPD-1. Quick, simple and pretty much useless to you. It ??s my favorite way to do it, but that really should not make it your favorite. What to do? It ??s really a multi part process. Break each section down and address it separately. You *do* have a goal in mind, but get each chunk running by it ??s self. Do simple verifications each step of the way. Tie it all together at the end. Accept that you *will* spend some money on this. If you have a $10 budget, do not expect $10,000 or $100,000 results. If time spent matters, factor that in as well (is 4 months worth $300?). How long should it all take? Well, I ??ve been poking at this and that part of the list above for 50 years or so. I ??d say I ??m still in the ??working on it ?? phase as far as the basement is concerned. There are a number of people on the list who have a *much* better setup than I do downstairs. I doubt that there is anybody who has exactly the same piles of this and that lying around that I have. Bob On Nov 1, 2014, at 9:29 AM, Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com wrote: I've been reading a lot about ADEV and following the threads on the list, particularly Karen's in-flight thread. What I haven't come across is a simple explanation of the basic setup required to go about collecting the data. John Miles referenced this page http://www.ke5fx.com/tpll.htm, and the simple setup at the bottom of the page looks like a reasonable place to start. Seems that I'd need to acquire a phase detector and build or buy some filters and the amp. I can probably figure that out, but how do I get the data into a PC? Is there a basic hardware and software setup that someone could point me to or recommend? Thanks Anthony ___ 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. ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Measuring ADEV for a beginner
Thanks - seems that I should be able to do this with my Racal-Dana 1992 counter. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Magnus Danielson Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2014 1:29 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Cc: mag...@rubidium.se Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Measuring ADEV for a beginner Anthony, On 11/01/2014 02:29 PM, Anthony Roby wrote: I've been reading a lot about ADEV and following the threads on the list, particularly Karen's in-flight thread. What I haven't come across is a simple explanation of the basic setup required to go about collecting the data. John Miles referenced this page http://www.ke5fx.com/tpll.htm, and the simple setup at the bottom of the page looks like a reasonable place to start. Seems that I'd need to acquire a phase detector and build or buy some filters and the amp. I can probably figure that out, but how do I get the data into a PC? Is there a basic hardware and software setup that someone could point me to or recommend? The time-interval counter, such as HP5370 or SR620, get started (channel 1) by a reference clock, such as 1 PPS and is then stopped (channel 2) by signal under test. The counter is typically read out through GPIB, even if some counters have serial interface and maybe even USB or Ethernet for really new (or retro-fitted), and the recommended path is to get a GPIB to USB interface for instance. Then use John Miles TimeLab. Cheers, Magnus ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812...
I wasn't clear from the photo whether the circuit was a representation of what is on the board, and you just had to connect the pins listed together, or whether this was a new circuit that had to be inserted. Sounds like the latter? Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of GandalfG8--- via time-nuts Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2014 4:04 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812... Well, I'm happy to report that Arthur's modification does do the trick, although I don't know why as I don't have any data for the interface as yet. I daren't disturb the 15 pin connector right now as this Z3811A PCB is still out of its case and connected to a breadboard with wires just pushed into the sockets, and for the same reason I don't have any computer connection at the moment either. My implementation isn't quite as described, in that I've not made a connection to the fault LED but am just manually pulling that input high and low on the breadboard with another wire link as required. Whether or not this is part or all of the reason that my green on light is flashing rather than steady I don't know, but I am seeing the 1PPS and 15MHz outputs and the 15MHz looks to be conditioning ok. Aside from the 5 volt supply, which I'm picking off from pin 5 of the header between u33 and U34, and the aforementioned fault LED connection, all the other connections can be made to J5 externally and could be housed in a 15 way shell along with the switching circuits. I'm still hopeful that some cross linking of the right pairs might achieve the same result without the extra circuitry, so all that needs to be done now is just to identify the right pairs:-) At least with it up and running it should be easier to check out some of the inter-unit signalling. Thanks Arthur, your efforts are much appreciated. regards Nigel GM8PZR In a message dated 01/11/2014 15:25:02 GMT Standard Time, ar...@antamy.com writes: For those who missed it, Arthur's post is at https://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2010-June/047825.html and the photo is at http://i906.photobucket.com/albums/ac262/rjb1998/RFTG-uREF1photo1_zps87c505ca.jpg Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Dent Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 9:20 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Bob Stewart bob at evoria.net ?? ? I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby ? . ?? Bob Camp kb8tq at n1k.org ??I suspect that somebody will have to figure out what the 15 pin connector / jumper is doing. On previous RFTG units there was a way to re-wire the crossover interface to fake out the slave detect process. That would let you run a single GPS equipped box and have it behave correctly. Without the fake wires trick none of them played nice without the slave being present ? . ?? ++ Reposting what I had posted over a week ago, in case you missed it ? . Arthur Dent golgarfrincham at gmail.com Wed Oct 22 13:59:48 EDT 2014 ?? ? Way back on Fri Jun 11 16:48:43 UTC 2010 I posted about using one of these units I had modified but at the time there wasn't a single person who was interested. I have been using the RFTG-u REF1 since then and it is a nice unit. The modifications I added (including a power supply -see photo) allows the lights to cycle through their normal sequence on warm-up and the second unit isn't needed at all ? . ?? -Arthur ___ 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. ___ 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. ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Bill Riches Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 4:10 PM To: 'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement' Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system My system arrived today in original unopened boxes. Hooked up 24 volts and a gps antenna and it locked in about an hour and 10 MHZ output as compared with thunderbolt GPS seems to be working just great. No trace movement on scope using thunderbolt as trigger and looking at Lucent 10 MHZ output. Strange output pulse! Looking forward to 10 MHZ sine wave output mod that the gurus on the list will discover. Wonder what these units cost new when they were built? 73, Bill, WA2DVU Cape May, NJ ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I was finally able to get my units to lock and behave as described below. I am still unable to get any data into the PC, either via the RS422 to RS232 hack or through Götz Romahn's modification of the RS422 output. This issue must be to do with the voltage levels. I did connect my scope up to the RS422/1PPS output and was able to capture the serial data coming out of that (see the screenshot at http://goo.gl/87e8GG). I could see two of the numbers incrementing every second, so that must be a timestamp. I have ordered a USB to RS422 cable, so hopefully that will resolve the issue of communicating via J8. Thanks Bob for letting me know that the active J8 is on the unit with the green ON light illuminated. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Bob Stewart Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:59 PM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi Anthony, Did you power cycle both units as part of connecting them together at J5 to J5? And can you remind me whether you are using the supplied interface cable, or are you using something else? After warmup, the ON light is on for the REF-0 unit and the STBY light is on for the REF-1 unit. While running, there is no output from J8 on the unit marked STBY. J8 works on the unit marked ON. There is a timestamp coming from J6, and I think a 1PPS signal on some pin or other. Bob ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Yes I did, with XP running in VirtualBox on Win7 with COM1 mapped to the hardware port and a serial cable connected to another cable that does the pin conversion. I also tried it via a USB cable connected to an FTDI serial to USB convertor. I'll play around with it some more this weekend. Anthony Original message From: Bob Stewart b...@evoria.net Date: 2014/10/30 21:04 (GMT-06:00) To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi Anthony, When you ran Satstat, did you open the serial port? Click Commport-Settings and set it 9600,8,N,1. Then click Commport-Port open. Works OK under XP for me. I haven't tried it under Wine as I'm out of serial ports on the server and have the laptop to use. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 8:17 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I was finally able to get my units to lock and behave as described below. I am still unable to get any data into the PC, either via the RS422 to RS232 hack or through Götz Romahn's modification of the RS422 output. This issue must be to do with the voltage levels. I did connect my scope up to the RS422/1PPS output and was able to capture the serial data coming out of that (see the screenshot at http://goo.gl/87e8GG). I could see two of the numbers incrementing every second, so that must be a timestamp. I have ordered a USB to RS422 cable, so hopefully that will resolve the issue of communicating via J8. Thanks Bob for letting me know that the active J8 is on the unit with the green ON light illuminated. Anthony ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I'll keep plugging away and see if I can get anything out of the DB9 connectors. My adapter for the GPS input should arrive today. Thanks for the info on the 10MHz points. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Tom Miller Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 10:42 PM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Until you have the two units tied together and GPS ok and the Fault light out, you won't see the 15 MHz signal. You should see a 5 volt pp square wave of sorts coming out of the 10 MHz port. I found a clean 10 MHz signal on the collector of Q208 and several other points. These are on the back side of the board, near the 15 MHz connector. I am trying to find out how they triple the 5 MHz to get 15 MHz. Maybe it can be changed to just double to 10 MHz. There are a few inductors on the board and that may make for a filter. I don't yet have a computer connected. Does the SatStat program run under windows? Regards, Tom - Original Message - From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 10:52 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I played around today with these interfaces and couldn't get anything out of them. I still don't have my GPS connected, but I would have thought I'd see something out of one of the ports. I tested the serial port on my PC and that is working, but I don't see anything of note coming off the RFTGs. I have not connected both together through J5 - maybe that's the next thing to try. Any particular reason why the -ve side of the RS422 signal is used vs. the +ve? I was able also to get SatStat and the RFTG software running on Windows XP under VirtualBox. Hopefully once I get a signal out of the units, that software will be stable. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Stewart Cobb Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2014 11:53 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Once you have applied power, connect the Z3809A cable between the jacks labeled INTERFACE J5 on each unit. The earlier RFTG units used a special cable between two DE-9 connectors, and it mattered which end of the cable connected to which unit. The interconnect for these units is a high-density DE-15 connector (like a VGA plug). The Z3809A cable is so short that the two units need to be stacked one above the other, or the cable won't reach. It doesn't seem to matter which end of the cable goes to which unit. I don't know whether it's a straight-through cable, or whether you could use a VGA cable as a substitute. When you apply power, all the LEDs on the front panel will flash. The NO GPS light will continue flashing until you connect a GPS antenna. Once it sees a satellite, the light will stop flashing and remain on. The unit will conduct a self-survey for several hours. Eventually, if all is well, the Z3812A (REF 0 on its front panel) will show one green ON light and the Z3811A (REF 1) will show one yellow STBY light. This means that the Z3812A is actually transmitting its 15MHz output, and the other one is silently waiting to take over if it fails. Most time-nuts want to see more than a pretty green light. The old RFTG series allowed you to hook up a PC to the RS422/PPS port and peek under the hood with a diagnostic program. The program is available on the KO4BB website. It is written for an old version of Windows, and I had no luck getting it to run under Windows 7. It does run under WINE (the Windows emulator for Linux) on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. To use it, you need to make an adapter cable to connect the oddball RS-422 pinout to a conventional PC RS-232 pinout. The adapter cable looks like this: RFTG PC DE-9P DE-9S 7 -- 5 8 -- 3 9 -- 2 (According to the official specs, this is cheating, because you're connecting the negative side of the differential RS-422 signals to the RS-232, and ignoring the positive side of the differential signals. However, it's a standard hack, and it's worked every time I've tried it.) With that adapter, you can see the periodic timetag reports from the unit. The RFTG program will interpret these timetags when it starts up in normal mode. However, when I try to use any of the diagnostic features built into the program, it crashes WINE. The timetag output was required for compatibility, but I suspect that HP didn't bother to implement the Lucent diagnostics. Instead, they added a connector which is not on the previous RFTG series. That connector
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I played around today with these interfaces and couldn't get anything out of them. I still don't have my GPS connected, but I would have thought I'd see something out of one of the ports. I tested the serial port on my PC and that is working, but I don't see anything of note coming off the RFTGs. I have not connected both together through J5 - maybe that's the next thing to try. Any particular reason why the -ve side of the RS422 signal is used vs. the +ve? I was able also to get SatStat and the RFTG software running on Windows XP under VirtualBox. Hopefully once I get a signal out of the units, that software will be stable. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Stewart Cobb Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2014 11:53 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Once you have applied power, connect the Z3809A cable between the jacks labeled INTERFACE J5 on each unit. The earlier RFTG units used a special cable between two DE-9 connectors, and it mattered which end of the cable connected to which unit. The interconnect for these units is a high-density DE-15 connector (like a VGA plug). The Z3809A cable is so short that the two units need to be stacked one above the other, or the cable won't reach. It doesn't seem to matter which end of the cable goes to which unit. I don't know whether it's a straight-through cable, or whether you could use a VGA cable as a substitute. When you apply power, all the LEDs on the front panel will flash. The NO GPS light will continue flashing until you connect a GPS antenna. Once it sees a satellite, the light will stop flashing and remain on. The unit will conduct a self-survey for several hours. Eventually, if all is well, the Z3812A (REF 0 on its front panel) will show one green ON light and the Z3811A (REF 1) will show one yellow STBY light. This means that the Z3812A is actually transmitting its 15MHz output, and the other one is silently waiting to take over if it fails. Most time-nuts want to see more than a pretty green light. The old RFTG series allowed you to hook up a PC to the RS422/PPS port and peek under the hood with a diagnostic program. The program is available on the KO4BB website. It is written for an old version of Windows, and I had no luck getting it to run under Windows 7. It does run under WINE (the Windows emulator for Linux) on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. To use it, you need to make an adapter cable to connect the oddball RS-422 pinout to a conventional PC RS-232 pinout. The adapter cable looks like this: RFTG PC DE-9P DE-9S 7 -- 5 8 -- 3 9 -- 2 (According to the official specs, this is cheating, because you're connecting the negative side of the differential RS-422 signals to the RS-232, and ignoring the positive side of the differential signals. However, it's a standard hack, and it's worked every time I've tried it.) With that adapter, you can see the periodic timetag reports from the unit. The RFTG program will interpret these timetags when it starts up in normal mode. However, when I try to use any of the diagnostic features built into the program, it crashes WINE. The timetag output was required for compatibility, but I suspect that HP didn't bother to implement the Lucent diagnostics. Instead, they added a connector which is not on the previous RFTG series. That connector is labeled, logically enough, J8-DIAGNOSTIC. It too is wired with RS-422, so you need to use the same adapter cable as before. Once you do, you'll find that this connector speaks the usual HP SCPI command set (Hooray!). I used the official SATSTAT program (again under WINE on 12.04 LTS), but I'm sure that other programs written for this command set will work as well. The default SATSTAT serial port settings of 9600-8-N-1 worked for me. ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812...
I pulled both boards out of the cases and have uploaded some shots of the undersides of the boards (http://goo.gl/87e8GG). With the GPS-equipped board powered on (but no GPS attached), there was no single coming out of the pads for the 10MHz SMA adapter. The only part missing that I see compared to the other unit is U207, which connects directly to the alarm output. J8 does give a 5MHz sine wave. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Dent Sent: Friday, October 24, 2014 2:52 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812... Anthony Roby aroby at antamy.com wrote: My curiosity got the better of me so I ordered these earlier this week and received them today. I've powered both up and quickly measured the 10MHz output. I don't yet have a GPS antenna feed that I can connect, so couldn't check that out. And I need to look into why both of the units have the Fault and StdBy lights illuminated. I was surprised how compact they are and they weight next to nothing. And they are very nicely made. I took the tops off both and took some photos (see http://goo.gl/87e8GG), but have not ventured into unscrewing everything to get to the bottom of the boards. From the top, I didn't immediately spot anything extra on the board for the 10MHz out. All the extras appear to be for the GPS, but the underside of the boards may tell a different story. Without an antenna the units will not operate properly and the ON light will stay off. Near the front of the oscillator on the edge of the board is a hole marked J8. This is the 5Mhz sine wave from the oscillator and I fed this through a capacitor to my buffer amp to get 5Mhz out. -Arthur ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812...
I have not yet investigated further, but I didn't see any obvious traces. I need to get a bright light behind the board and see if there is an internal layer that I can trace. I'll let you know what I find. -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Bob Stewart Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 1:29 PM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812... Hi Anthony, Thanks for more pics. Was there any indication of where the 10MHz gets its signal? Could you see a trace, or did I miss that in the pics? I'm a bit too ham-fisted to go prodding around in mine, so I've left it closed after an initial urge to see the top of the board. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 12:30 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812... I pulled both boards out of the cases and have uploaded some shots of the undersides of the boards (http://goo.gl/87e8GG). With the GPS-equipped board powered on (but no GPS attached), there was no single coming out of the pads for the 10MHz SMA adapter. The only part missing that I see compared to the other unit is U207, which connects directly to the alarm output. J8 does give a 5MHz sine wave. Anthony ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812...
Hal - there's nothing coming out of those connectors. I'll explore again once I can get my GPS connected to the unit and see if that changes anything. -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Hal Murray Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 4:11 PM To: Bob Stewart; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Cc: hmur...@megapathdsl.net Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812... b...@evoria.net said: Thanks for more pics. Was there any indication of where the 10MHz gets its signal? Could you see a trace, or did I miss that in the pics? I'm a bit too ham-fisted to go prodding around in mine, so I've left it closed after an initial urge to see the top of the board. If you look carefully at the pictures showing the bottom of the connector area on the 10 MHz and Antenna connectors you can see that the connectors don't share any mounting/connecting holes on the PCB. If you want 10 MHz out of the unit with the GPS module, you can get it from the center pin of the unused connector. (You may have to add other parts to get 10 MHz over there.) An alternative migh be to move the antenna connector on the GPS module from the bottom to the top, then use a pigtail lead to the panel. That may not work. From the pictures, it looks like power to the antenna is added to the trace on the bottom of the board. -- These are my opinions. I hate spam. ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361/Z3812A GPSDO initial setup
Let us know how this is progressing. I am waiting on a TNC connector, so can't get mine up and running this weekend as planned. I'll get my power supply sorted out and see if I can get SatStat connected. Do you know if the GPS input provides a 5v bias to drive an antenna? Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Bob Stewart Sent: Friday, October 24, 2014 8:47 PM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361/Z3812A GPSDO initial setup Sorry if these comments are a bit naive, but this is my first exposure to a Z38xx. I've got mine powered on and connected to the antenna. After referring to Stewart's original post (once again) I've managed to download HP's SATSTAT and get it running. When I connected to the REF-1 unit (with the receiver) all I get is comms errors. But when I connect to REF-0, Satstat seems quite happy. It's reporting the unit as a Z3812A. Is REF-0 the only one you can connect to, or is REF-1 mute till it's happy with the GPS receiver? The mode says Power-Up: GPS Acquisition, so I guess that's OK. I think things are progressing. It's attempting to survey, but reporting Suspended: poor geometry. I suppose with a little more time this will work itself out? It seems to be slowly tracking more sats, as it's now up to 5. I wonder if there's a way to shortcut the survey process using Satstat? I've got a 48 hour survey done on this antenna with the LEA-6T, so I should be able to input those figures, right? I'll see if I can find anything in a Satstat manual I found. Bob - AE6RV ___ 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. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812...
My curiosity got the better of me so I ordered these earlier this week and received them today. I've powered both up and quickly measured the 10MHz output. I don't yet have a GPS antenna feed that I can connect, so couldn't check that out. And I need to look into why both of the units have the Fault and StdBy lights illuminated. I was surprised how compact they are and they weight next to nothing. And they are very nicely made. I took the tops off both and took some photos (see http://goo.gl/87e8GG), but have not ventured into unscrewing everything to get to the bottom of the boards. From the top, I didn't immediately spot anything extra on the board for the 10MHz out. All the extras appear to be for the GPS, but the underside of the boards may tell a different story. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Bob Stewart Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2014 12:20 PM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812... My units came in today. What I got appears to be new-in-box. It's probably the only thing I'll ever get with a blue Agilent sticker on the box. =) It has a yellow Symmetricom notice inside the box. The circuit board appears to be the same on both units, but that says nothing about the firmware, of course. The REF-1 has an Oncore receiver labeled TM-AB - whichever one that is, small parts to support it, and a TNC connector for the GPS receiver. The REF-0 is missing everything related to the receiver, and has an SMA for the 10MHz output in the space where the REF-1 has the TNC along with a few extra small parts. This is a shared space with both SMA and TNC pads, though they don't seem to share the same electrical path. Since the SMA and TNC share the same physical space, even if the 10MHz is available somewhere, you'd have to do some surgery on the case before you could bring it out. Probably by adding a hole in the case for the GPS antenna and using the pad space for the SMA. It will be a day or two before I have the bits to apply power and connect an antenna. So, that's what I know. I'd probably just break something if I tried to find and bring out the 10MHz, so I'll have to leave that to someone else. But, the appropriate signals need to get between the boards, so I wonder what's on the Interface pins? Maybe just arbitration, 1PPS, and sawtooth comms? In my case, I do need the 10MHz, so I'm just as happy to have bought both units at this point. Maybe, down the road, someone will come up with the mods to convert a REF-1 into a REF-0, and vice versa, unless the firmware prevents that. Bob From: GandalfG8--- via time-nuts time-nuts@febo.com To: time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2014 5:59 AM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812... It seems from the auction revision table that this seller has been offering these for some time, so perhaps another hidden gem:-), but it's perhaps also worth noting that if this system functions on similar principles to earlier RFTG kit then the GPS conditioning is only applied to the unit actually containing the GPS module, with the other unit intended as a standby should the first one fail. In other words, unless the system redundancy is really required most users would probably only need the GPS based unit, or would at least be better off buying two of those for the same money that the matched pair would cost. The only advantage, as far as I'm aware anyway, of the non-GPS unit is that it contains a 10MHz output. However, Skip Withrow published modification details in January 2013 showing how straightforward it was to add the the 10MHz output, to the RFTGm-II-XO module, the PCB location for the socket was already available, so I would suspect it wouldn't be too difficult on these either. Regards Nigel GM8PZR In a message dated 20/10/2014 05:53:29 GMT Daylight Time, stewart.c...@gmail.com writes: Fellow time-nuts, This (long) post is a review of the HP/Symmetricom Z3810A (or Z3810AS) GPSDO system built for Lucent circa 2000. I wrote it because I looked for more information before I bought one, and couldn't find much. It's relevant because (as of this writing), you can buy a full system on the usual auction site for about $150 plus shipping. For those of you lamenting the dearth of cheap Thunderbolts, this looks like one of the best deals going. The description of these objects does not include GPSDO, so time-nuts may have missed it. Search for one of the part numbers in the subject line and you should find it. So what is it? It's a dual GPSDO built by HP as a reference (Redundant Frequency and Time Generator, or RFTG) for a Lucent cell-phone base station, built to Lucent's spec KS-24361. Internally, it's a close cousin of a
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
In the link below there's a photo of one of the units with a ruler against it - 11 wide. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Dave M Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 10:22 AM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Stu, Many thanks for the heads-up on htese units. Great deals. Can you advise the size of these units? Are they full-size 19 rack mount or the half-size units like the Z3801A? Can the REF-1 unit (the one with the GPS receiver) be operated separately from the REF-0 unit? There is a mod on Didier's site to add the 10 MHz output to the RFTGm unit at http://www.ko4bb.com/manuals/download.php?file=05)_GPS_Timing/Lucent_RFTGm_RFTGm-II-XO_GPSDO_modification_to_add_10MHz.pdf. I don't know if the mod will apply to the units on Ebay right now, but it's quite possible that it does. Cheers, Dave M Stewart Cobb wrote: Fellow time-nuts, This (long) post is a review of the HP/Symmetricom Z3810A (or Z3810AS) GPSDO system built for Lucent circa 2000. I wrote it because I looked for more information before I bought one, and couldn't find much. It's relevant because (as of this writing), you can buy a full system on the usual auction site for about $150 plus shipping. For those of you lamenting the dearth of cheap Thunderbolts, this looks like one of the best deals going. The description of these objects does not include GPSDO, so time-nuts may have missed it. Search for one of the part numbers in the subject line and you should find it. So what is it? It's a dual GPSDO built by HP as a reference (Redundant Frequency and Time Generator, or RFTG) for a Lucent cell-phone base station, built to Lucent's spec KS-24361. Internally, it's a close cousin of a later-model Z3805A. Externally, it looks to be almost a drop-in replacement for the earlier RFTG system built to Lucent's spec KS-24019. That was a redundant system containing one rubidium (LPRO, in the one I have) and one OCXO in two almost-identical boxes. That spec went through several revisions with slightly different nameplates and presumably slightly different internals. You can generally find one or two examples on the auction site (search for RFTG or KS-24019). ___ 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. ___ 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.
