Re: [time-nuts] Replacement A9 boards for the HP 5065A

[Orin Eman]

On Sun, Mar 4, 2018 at 1:04 PM, Charles Steinmetz 
wrote:

> So, no PTFE or PS for practical reasons.  That leaves us with PP, PPS, and
> perhaps PC.  These all have reasonably similar DA, so as long as one checks
> the particular capacitor's datasheet to verify, DA should not be much of a
> factor in choosing between them.
>


FWIW, WIMA are claiming 0.05% for their MKP 4 PP capacitors.  They
performed about the same as the original integration capacitor in my 3455A
DMM - and about the same as some Polystyrene I found online somewhere - at
the time intervals that the 3455A uses.
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Re: [time-nuts] Input filter for data logger

[Orin Eman]

Look at the falling edge of your square wave - I'd guess there is some
undershoot and it's triggering the extra counts.  With the back to back
limiting diodes in that circuit, I don't think the ringing shown in your
scope trace will matter, however, ringing around the 0V level will matter.

I've seen similar with HP 5335A and 5370A counters with inputs set to DC
and the level pots set to preset.  Change it to AC, or tweak the level pots
and the problem goes away.

You can probably see the effect on the scope by setting the trigger level
somewhere around 0V - sometimes it will trigger on the rising edge and
sometimes on the undershoot on the falling edge.


On Sun, Nov 19, 2017 at 8:40 AM, Vlad  wrote:

>
> Hello,
>
> I am doing another fun project. It is data logger at this time. The
> "heart" is MV89A OCXO and the "brain" is STM32.
> "The box" has 1PPS input to control DAC which will control OCXO. BTW, this
> M89A is pretty hot to touch. My other OCXO's not that much warmed. Is it
> normal for this Morion model ?
> I woul ask an advise regarding following issue. I have signal generator
> which produce the square wave. The freq. is 192Hz.
>
> http://www.patoka.org/OCXO/LOGGER/IMG_20171119_104659813.jpg
>
> However, the logger measure it TWICE ! I think its because of that signal
> form. Here is the output (in microseconds):
>
> http://www.patoka.org/OCXO/LOGGER/IMG_20171119_104838190.jpg
>
> In average delta is .0026041 s, which is almost equal to 384 Hz (192x2)
>
> For the input I am using the schema similar as HP was using in one of
> their counters:
>
> http://www.patoka.org/OCXO/LOGGER/IMG_20171110_123201987.jpg
>
>
> I tried another source (DDS sine generator, referenced from GPSDO) and
> that beast produce exact number of events:
>
> 26.5404621
> 26.5473008
> 26.5525067
> 26.5577297
> 26.5629260
> 26.5681280
> 26.5733305
> 26.5785262
> 26.5837255
> 26.23559295
> 26.5941842
> 26.5993546
> 26.6045699
> 26.6097716
> 26.6149911
> 26.6202076
> 26.6254149
> 26.6306244
> 26.6358103
> 26.6410386
> 26.6462491
>
>
> However, it is some "spikes" in the data flow (see above the number "
> 26.23559295", which suppose to be something as "26.58..."). I can't
> understand the reason for that.
> The "delta" is .0052 s, which is almost equal to 192 Hz. But data flow is
> not that "smooth" though.
>
> In square wave mode, "school grade" Wavetek generator produced exact 192
> events with no issues. (Except its output frequency is not that stable)
>
> 21.0578286
> 21.0630547
> 21.0682807
> 21.0735070
> 21.0787330
> 21.0839591
> 21.0891852
> 21.0944112
> 21.0996372
> 21.1048632
> 21.1100892
>
> However, if I switch Wavetek to sine, my logger detected twice number of
> event (384)
>
> 97.0185559
> 97.0214570
> 97.0237852
> 97.0266822
> 97.0290048
> 97.0319054
> 97.0342336
> 97.0371408
> 97.0394552
> 97.0423578
> 97.0446802
> 97.0475836
> 97.0499131
> 97.0527969
> 97.0551313
> 97.0580259
> 97.0603560
> 97.0632648
> 97.0655869
>
> I would assume, some improvement needs to be done for the data logger
> input. I am using 2N5485 and 74AC04 elements there. Any advises will be
> appreciated ! Thanks !
>
>
> --
> WBW,
>
> V.P.
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Re: [time-nuts] J06 HP-59992A time interval calibrator for HP-531xx counters

[Orin Eman]

FWIW Re: the relays.  I worked through the Omron discontinuation notices
for the first relay (I figure the original was a G5Y series, not GSY as in
the manual) and it looks like the G6K series, easily available at Mouser
and about $4 each would work, though you'd have to use a DPDT.

The other two relays are cute little TO5 relays from Teledyne - 412 or 712
series, 12V coil.  The 712-12 will cost $35 at Mouser.  Ouch.

>From reading the paper and the Basic program, the _critical_ part of the
circuit is getting the delays with the outputs swapped exactly the same as
the delays with the outputs unswapped.  A non-trivial task since the traces
are all 50 ohm stripline.  (Or so the manual says - a picture of both sides
of the original PCB would help immensely in determining how critical the
layout is.)

(Phase differences due to the splitters are eliminated by taking a reading
with the outputs unswapped, then with the outputs swapped.  Taking half the
sum of these two readings eliminates the phase error due to the splitter.
At least that's what the Basic program does; the description in the paper
is slightly different, but the equation simplifies to the same thing.)
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Re: [time-nuts] J06 HP-59992A time interval calibrator for HP-531xx counters

[Orin Eman]

$38 is for the wideband  100 - 600MHz PSCJ-2-1W - you'd want the PSCJ-2-1+
which is a little less... $29.20 and no price break until you get 10 of
them.

Looking at the PSCJ-2-1+ datasheet, the "phase imbalance" at the output
ports is about 180 degrees.  How they achieve that, they don't say.


On Sun, Jul 9, 2017 at 10:40 AM, Mark Sims  wrote:

> More like $18 for the simple splitter and $38 for the 180 phase shift
> splitter.
>
> Also, does anybody know if the phase shift splitter shifts the phase on
> both outputs or on only one output.   Different HP docs say different
> things.
>
> 
>
> > The original parts were nothing special!  PSC-2-1 is spec'd at 4 degrees
> max phase unbalance - though typical is a lot less - and seems to be about
> $14
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Re: [time-nuts] J06 HP-59992A time interval calibrator for HP-531xx counters

[Orin Eman]

On Sun, Jul 9, 2017 at 10:55 AM, jimlux  wrote:

> On 7/9/17 10:27 AM, Bob kb8tq wrote:
>
>> Hi
>>
>> People *have* been known to sort MiniCircuits parts and use the “extras”
>> in
>> something else. A certain major oscillator manufacturer once bought a
>> bunch
>> of RPD-1’s , sorted them for the “one in a hundred” examples, and then
>> returned
>> the rest for credit…… Somehow I doubt HP didi it quite that way.
>>
>>
> Some manufacturers will cherry pick for you.  Maybe the datasheet says
> gain is 14 to 18 dB, and you order a batch that you want to be 15.5-16.5
> dB.. They'll pick those out, but of course, now the remainder have a hole
> in the distribution.  Particularly when you're buying high-rel or space
> grade, where they have to 100% test anyway.



Right, but there is nothing to indicate there is anything special going on
in this case.  The theory of operation section of the manual states that
the splitters provide "nearly" in-phase and "nearly" out-of-phase signals
without defining "nearly".  It does not sound like it's critical and to me,
it sounds like they are acknowledging that there are phase mismatches
through the splitters.

Then going on to the other link I posted:

http://www.g8wrb.org/data///HP/Better_than_100_ps_Accuracy_in_HP_5370B_Time_Interval_Measurements_Through_Bias_Error_Reduction.pdf

It accounts for the individual delays through the splitters/cables and
shows how they are eliminated by doing multiple measurements and solving
the resulting simultaneous equations.

Indeed, the programs in the J06's manual mention that 'cable' mismatches
(presumable phase mismatches) are included in the calibration constants and
the same cables should be used for doing actual measurements: (the
formatting did not survive and I fixed some obvious OCR errors)

40 ! THIS PROGRAM EXECUTES THE CALIBRATION ALGORITHM DESCRIBED IN D. CHU'S
50 ! PAPER "CALIBRATION OF SYSTEMATIC ERRORS IN PRECISION TIME-INTERVAL
60 ! COUNTERS", INTERNATIONAL TEST CONFERENCE, PHILADELPHIA, 1985;
70 !
80 ! SET-UP PROCEDURE
90 ! 1) CONNECT A PULSE SOURCE TO THE INPUT OF CALIBRATOR, 3 DB LARGER
100 ! THAN THE DESIRED SIGNAL TO BE MEASURED AND APPROXIMATELY THE
110 ! THE SAME RISE/FALL TIMES, -50% DUTY-CYCLE, STABLE 1 TO 100 MHz.
120 ! 2) CONNECT A PAIR OF CABLES FROM CALIBRATOR OUTPUTS A & B
130 !  TO COUNTER START & STOP INPUTS RESPECTIVELY
140 ! (NOTE: CABLE MISMATCHES ARE INCLUDED IN THE CALIBRATION CONSTANTS,
150 ! AND SAME CABLES SHOULD BE USED LATER FOR DOING MEASUREMENTS;
160 ! ALSO "CABLES" INCLUDE LINEAR, PASSIVE OR ACTIVE PROBES)
170 ! 3) SET COUNTER TO SEPERATE: DC/50 ohms/Xl/PRESET to BOTH CHANNELS
180 ! 4) HPIB ADDRESSES: COUNTER-707, CALIBRATOR-705
190 ! 5) CONNECT A PRECISE OFFSET VOLTAGE SOURCE TO THE OFFSET INPUT: ENTER
200 ! THE EXACT SAME VALUE WHEN PROMPTED. DEFAULT IS 0.00 VOLT
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Re: [time-nuts] J06 HP-59992A time interval calibrator for HP-531xx counters

[Orin Eman]

On Sat, Jul 8, 2017 at 5:15 PM, Mark Sims  wrote:

> I think the way the fine cal works by checking the the intervals between
> four different edges that a lot of asymmetries in the signals are nulled
> out in the software.
>
> How good are 1:2 180 degree phase shifters at exactly shifting by 180
> degrees?   At what cost?
>


The original parts were nothing special!  PSC-2-1 is spec'd at 4 degrees
max phase unbalance - though typical is a lot less - and seems to be about
$14.

https://www.minicircuits.com/pdfs/PSC-2-1.pdf
https://www.minicircuits.com/pdfs/PSCJ-2-1+.pdf
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Re: [time-nuts] J06 HP-59992A time interval calibrator for HP-531xx counters

[Orin Eman]

FWIW, the "Theory" section here may help:

http://www.g8wrb.org/data///HP/Better_than_100_ps_Accuracy_in_HP_5370B_Time_Interval_Measurements_Through_Bias_Error_Reduction.pdf

Phase errors through the splitters seem to be taken into account.

The J06-59992A manual merely claims 100ps absolute accuracy is possible
with the 5370A/B.



On Sat, Jul 8, 2017 at 7:48 PM, Bob kb8tq  wrote:

> Hi
>
> Based on a quick read of the use of the device, they seem to be relying on
> it to be << 100 ps
> off from “ideal”.  How much it being non-ideal matters …. not clear. If
> you are correcting for various errors
> and eliminating both unknown source errors and destination errors it
> likely gets messy.
>
> Bob
>
> > On Jul 8, 2017, at 9:14 PM, Tom Van Baak  wrote:
> >
> > I knew we had talked about this before:
> > https://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2006-August/021649.html
> >
> > The J06-59992A manual, schematic, app note, and patent are here:
> > http://rubidium.dyndns.org/~magnus/instruments/hp/J06-59992A/
> >
> > It was designed for the hp 5370 (20 ps) so perhaps the tolerances are
> less stringent if only used for hp 53132 (150 ps). Maybe one of you RF guys
> can tell from the schematic?
> >
> > Mark writes:
> >> Yes, they do show up...  but usually for big-ish bucks.   I want to
> build a small affordable replacement that anybody with a 531xx can have.
> >
> > I don't recall them being expensive at all, just unusual. But making a
> modern one for time nuts is a great idea -- both 5370 and 53131/53132
> users. Also, when someone gets around to creating a smart analog front-end
> to John's TAPR TICC board, your 59992A clone will come in handy.
> >
> > Note also this recent document by Bill Riley:
> >
> > http://www.stable32.com/A%20High-Resolution%20Time%
> 20Interval%20Counter%20Using%20the%20TAPR%20TADD-2%20and%
> 20TICC%20Modules.pdf
> >
> > Hal writes:
> >> What does "good" mean?
> >> I'd expect the variations due to power or temperature would be easy to
> measure.
> >> Delay through classic CMOS is linear with absolute temperature and
> inverse linear with supply voltage.
> >
> > When John created the TAPR TADD-2-mini board I tested the jitter using a
> TimePod (integrated phase noise mode). I'm looking for the web page or
> email now, but I recall it was under 2 ps. This is partly due to the fact
> that the PIC 12F is a fully synchronous MCU; no tricks with double clock
> edges or PLL's.
> >
> > /tvb
> >
> >
> > - Original Message -
> > From: "Bruce Griffiths" 
> > To: "Mark Sims" ; "Discussion of precise time and
> frequency measurement" 
> > Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2017 4:48 PM
> > Subject: Re: [time-nuts] J06 HP-59992A time interval calibrator for
> HP-531xx counters
> >
> >
> >> A run of the mill 2 way power splitter has better than 10ps phase
> matching at 100MHz there are few digital devices that offer that degree of
> matching at best they are usually 10x worse.
> >>
> >> Bruce
> >>
> >>>
> >>>On 09 July 2017 at 06:58 Mark Sims  wrote:
> >>>
> >>>Yes, they do show up... but usually for big-ish bucks. I want to
> build a small affordable replacement that anybody with a 531xx can have.
> >>>
> >>>My design is currently leaning towards a board with the clock
> generator and a 5V reference for the gain calibration (they spec 5V +/-
> 1mV). I was going to use a couple of 2P4T slide switches to route open
> circuit, 5V, normal clock, and inverted clock to the two output connectors.
> >>>
> >>>I think the cost to build would be in the $20 range and fit on a
> 2x2" or so circuit board... certainly more attractive than a $500 big
> ancient box with unobtainium parts in it. The board should be able to
> perform all the calibration steps for the counter.
> >>>
> >>>I don't think the signal requirements are super critical. They are
> using 1:2 splitters and splitter/180 degree phase shifters and relays to
> generate the output signals passively from the inputs. I think a digital
> clock generator would be a LOT more accurate than those phase shifters.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >
> Actually, you can get J06 HP-59992A calibrators on eBay.
> 
> >
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Re: [time-nuts] Puget sound area - nice auction

[Orin Eman]

On Thu, Jul 6, 2017 at 8:33 PM, DaveH  wrote:

> There is a nice online auction in the Seattle area:
>
> http://murphyauction.hibid.com/catalog/105843/stratos-
> product-development--l
> lc-online-only/?ipp=100
>
> Murphy runs a very clean auction - no shilling. Preview is only on 8am-4pm,
> Wednesday, July 12
>


They also attract knowledgable buyers... that seem to be regulars.
Everything went for way over what I was prepared to bid last time I went,
but that was a live auction.

It will be interesting to see the online bids as the auction draws to a
close.

Maybe I'll go take a look at the preview - it's only a few miles out of my
way.
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Re: [time-nuts] GPScon running on Raspberry Pi 3b

[Orin Eman]

On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 5:36 PM, Mark Sims  wrote:

>
> The PI does have a couple of logic level serial ports on the expansion
> connector you can connect a level shifter two.  One port is normally the
> Linux serial console which you can configure to be a general purpose serial
> port (I've never used them, but others have).
>


Oh, that's fun on the Pi, especially the Pi3.  Here are my notes on the Pi3
from a different project.  If you're really lucky, they didn't change it
again.

QUOTE:

Well, they just couldn't make it backward compatible out of the box...

By default, ttyAMA0 is used for Bluetooth so there are more hoops to jump
through to wrest it away from the OS's grasp.  ttyS0 is now wired to the IO
pins which we could use if it worked correctly, but apparently its baud
rate depends on the cpu core frequency which is _variable_*.  Fortunately
there is a way of routing ttyAMA0 to the IO pins

As before, all references to ttyAMA0 need removing from /boot/cmdline.txt.

To disable bluetooth:

systemctl disable hciuart
Add "dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt" to /boot/config.txt

Finally, perhaps unnecessary, use raspi-config to disable login on the
serial port.  (Serial under Advanced Options.)

* https://frillip.com/raspberry-pi-3-uart-baud-rate-workaround/
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=107=138223
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Re: [time-nuts] Power connectors continued

[Orin Eman]

On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 1:06 PM, Chris Albertson 
wrote:

>
> A really dumb idea was this guy, I heard this story secondhand.  He used
> A/C extension cords for speaker cables because they work well for that
> purpose, but then someone plugged a speaker into a 120vac well outlet.   I
> assume it made a load 60 Hz tone for a few cycles.Best to follow
> industry conventions because that is what people expect.
>


 CQ magazine had an article where they did something similar and used a
120V extension cord for low voltage - 12V solar panels or some such
project.  Accidently plug the cord into 120V and you'd blow your panels and
radios up!  I didn't renew my subscription after that one.
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Re: [time-nuts] Frequency counter questions

[Orin Eman]

On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 5:16 PM, Bob kb8tq  wrote:

> Hi
>
>
> > On Apr 24, 2017, at 6:54 PM, Hal Murray  wrote:
> >
> >
> > kb...@n1k.org said:
> >> You have a “gate” from the GPSDO and a “signal” from somewhere else. If
> you
> >> want the STM to do the whole thing, the “gate” pin needs to get the job
> done
> >> in  X +/-  1 cycles of the “signal” pin. Delay X (if it’s consistent)
> isn’t
> >> a problem. Having a
> >> +/- 1 cycle delay *is* a problem. The interrupt servicing structure in
> the
> >> MCU may or may not be able to hit things +/- 10 ns or even +/- 100 ns.
> >> Sometimes a “lower power” MCU with simple code is better at this than a
> >> multi core gizmo running a high level operating system.
> >
> > Some of the counter/timer hardware has another register where the
> hardware
> > will save a copy of the main counter when another signal happens.  If
> your
> > gate time is the time between two pulses rather than the width of a
> single
> > pulse, then all the software has to do is read that copy-register before
> the
> > next pulse happens.
>
> Works a bit better if the input is edge sensing rather than level sensing
> ….
> (copy on positive edge vs keep copying the whole time the input is high)



They are in my experience.  You get the choice of positive edge, negative
edge and if you're lucky, both.  I used the capture feature on PIC timers
back in the late 90s to capture automotive engine timing signals and log
engine timing etc., but that's another story.

But the big gotcha is that the external signal is going to be synchronized
to an internal clock, often by a couple of D flip-flops.  This introduces a
delay of two to three internal clocks (it can be three if the D flip-flop
setup or hold time is violated and the first flip-flop goes metastable).
It was looking for where/how the synchronization was done on the STM32
timers that led me to the application note (AN4776) that I posted earlier.

FWIW, it's equally entertaining to work out when a write to a pin that's
designated as output actually appears on the pin.  Immediately (subject to
propagation delays) never seems to be the answer for the ARM based chips
I've asked about.  The answers tend to be of the form mumble mumble
pipelining mumble mumble...

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] Frequency counter questions

[Orin Eman]

Hi Jerry,

See AN4776 on st.com.  Section 2.6 looks particularly interesting.

Orin.

On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 12:06 PM, Jerry Hancock  wrote:

> This is an exercise more than anything.  It started when I noticed the
> counter in a 3586B I purchased was +1 count unless I dropped the input
> frequency .25hz.  I was using my GPSDO reference for it and the 3336 it was
> counting.  I then took my GPSDO and tried reading that directly and I see
> the same thing.  This is annoying more than anything and I assume there is
> a slight gate phase related issue.  I don’t have anything to read the
> jitter on my GPSDO which is a Lucent RFTG-U with the REF1 and REF0 but
> since I am using it as the reference and the signal under test, it
> shouldn’t matter at .1hz.  If I run the count over 3 minutes, the count is
> .923hz high consistently. To put a finer point on it, reading
> 10,000,000.00hz from my GPSDO, It will read consistently 10,000,000.1 or
> 10,000,000.0 with the distribution of each to average 10,000,000.923 over 5
> minutes.  If I drop the input frequency by .25hz, it will read 10,000,000.0
> without a 10,000,000.1 until the cows come home.  I’ve
>  let it run about a day to check.
>
> So I was thinking, o.k., let’s put a frequency counter on the back to read
> the F0 output signal rom the 3586B and see what it reads but I then
> realized I don’t have anything that accurate.  I do have a lot of micro
> processors around, everything from the lowly PIC thru the DSPIC to the
> STM32F7’s, F4’s and if I have to, I will get a FPGA and go from there.  I
> could purchase an HP 12 digit counter if I could find one locally as I am
> tired of paying shipping but haven’t found one to date.
>
> So no really pressing reason for the counter other than just curious as to
> what is causing the issue with the 3586B.  By the way, when I read any of
> the WWV signals they count +.1hz as well under constant signal.  I am
> pretty sure the 3586B is recognizing my reference input as the OCXO is
> dialed to 10,000,000.0 and the standard oscillator is a little high at +.4
> (if I disconnect the OCXO strap) and I haven’t looked into it yet.
>
> Thanks for the interest and help
>
> Jerry
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Re: [time-nuts] HP E1938

[Orin Eman]

Re: schematic.

There's a link on the second ebay auction page:

http://www.prc68.com/I/pdf/E1938pdfdocs.zip

On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 10:42 AM, Larry McDavid  wrote:

> Ok, so a standard DB 25-pin socket-contact connector will mate with the
> on-board connector with the center hole and missing pins. That's good!
>
> I now notice a comment on your webpages about this device in which you
> mention a schematic. Do you have a schematic of this board? If so, can you
> point to it or send me a copy.
>
> I was unaware of the complete packaged unit on eBay; thanks for that.
>
> Another poster mentioned the wiring of the connector on the full
> instrument version power connector; is that pin-out and spec available?
>
> Larry
>
>
> On 4/15/2017 5:05 AM, Tom Van Baak wrote:
>
>> I purchased one of these HP E1938 OCXO recently on eBay but have not yet
>>> received it.
>>>
>>> Is that special D-Submin connector a receptacle-shell, pin contact
>>> version? Will a standard plug-shell, socket contact 25-pin D-Submin fit
>>> it?
>>>
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'll cc the group here since we may get some useful comments.
>>
>> I'm not exactly sure what you mean. The E1938A oscillators that I've seen
>> and tested look like this:
>>
>> http://www.leapsecond.com/museum/e1938a/
>>
>> And those can be interfaced with a simple D-sub DB25 connector on the
>> PCB. For connections, see that page, or any number of postings about the
>> E1938 in the time-nuts archives.
>>
>> Note that on eBay there are at least three variations of E1938A
>> oscillator. The item#'s below are just random search picks (I have no
>> affiliation with any buyers or sellers) and I also know not all surplus
>> refurbished surplus recycled surplus stuff works. But we do this because
>> when they did work, they are sometimes totally amazing.
>>
>> 1) There's the bare "puck" alone, as in http://www.ebay.com/itm/290829
>> 077542 -- and I have no idea where one would start with that item since
>> all the support circuitry on the PCB would have to be re-created by hand.
>>
>> 2) There's the integrated PCB assembly, as in
>> http://www.ebay.com/itm/181043193416 -- which is more like what I tested.
>>
>> 3) There's the full instrument version, as in
>> http://www.ebay.com/itm/171293069062 -- which is most likely to work, or
>> be less hacked up, or dented, or salvaged, or rusted. It even has all the
>> connectors and power supplies, and GPS, etc.
>>
>> If any other time nuts have experience with each of these methods to
>> obtain a E1938 oscillator, please let us know.
>>
>
>
> --
> Best wishes,
>
> Larry McDavid W6FUB
> Anaheim, California  (SE of Los Angeles, near Disneyland)
>
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Re: [time-nuts] ADEV query Timelab and TICC

[Orin Eman]

On Sun, Mar 19, 2017 at 8:03 PM, Tom Van Baak  wrote:

>
> Thanks for the raw data. It's very nice (2 hours 16 minutes = 8219
> points). Everything looks fine with the exception of 8 glitches. These are
> sometimes obvious jumps in phase, which cause massive spikes in frequency.
> Two plots attached.
>


First, thanks to Tom for taking a look at these files.



> Almost every data point is within a few ns of each other. This is good.
> The standard deviation is a fraction of 1 ns. But once in a while there is
> a relatively massive phase jump. This is bad. Interestingly these 8 phase
> jumps all appear to be about 25 ns or a multiple of 25 ns in magnitude. The
> full list is (ns units):
>
> 24.575
> 24.724
> 24.831
> 25.047
> 25.087
> 25.549
> 25.589
> 49.623
>
> 25 * N ns is not random. So I think this is not a Windows problem, not a
> USB problem, not a TimeLab problem, not a TICC problem either.
>


Personally, I didn't think it was any of the the above either.  The PicDiv
trace showed no such glitches, so I was fairly confident that the TICC was
working well.  But just to verify that, I connected the LTE-Lite PPS to the
5370A and let it run for a few hours.  The 5370A captures similar
glitches.  I have sent the file on to Tom.

For entertainment value, I have attached the current Lady Heather
screenshot for the LTE-Lite.  It has little relationship to the .tim files
I sent to Tom since I generated those a few weeks ago.  FWIW, it shows an
off by two error writing some text, for example: "PDTDT".  This seems to
happen if you go to some other screen (I think it was help in this case)
then returning.

Orin.

[image: Inline image 3]
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Re: [time-nuts] ADEV query Timelab and TICC

[Orin Eman]

On Sun, Mar 19, 2017 at 3:00 PM, Tom Van Baak  wrote:

> > I've seen similar with my TICC when observing a PPS - can't remember
> > whether the PPS was from the Thunderbolt or LTE Lite.
> >
> > There was a distinct glitch on the frequency plot when it happened and it
> > was pretty easy in timelab to expand the trace around the glitch to take
> a
> > better look.
>
> Orin -- Thanks for that report. If you still have the TIM file, can you
> send it to me?
>


I have sent a couple of files to Tom.  They were taken simultaneously from
an LTE Lite - one from the PPS and one from a PicDiv dividing the 10MHz to
1Hz.  The glitches were on the PPS trace, but not on the PicDiv trace, so
I'm fairly confident the TICC was working correctly.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] ADEV query Timelab and TICC

[Orin Eman]

I've seen similar with my TICC when observing a PPS - can't remember
whether the PPS was from the Thunderbolt or LTE Lite.

There was a distinct glitch on the frequency plot when it happened and it
was pretty easy in timelab to expand the trace around the glitch to take a
better look.

I did not see any such problem when dividing the 10MHz to 1PPS with a
PICDIV so I figured it was due to the GPSDO steering the PPS signal as
satellites appear/disappear - my antenna location is far from optimal.

On Sun, Mar 19, 2017 at 12:57 PM, Tom Van Baak  wrote:

> > I'm probably missing something obvious but don't understand what's
> > happened here so any suggestions would be welcome.
>
> Hi Nigel,
>
> Your setup sounds fine. Off-list, send me the TIM files and I'll see what
> happened.
>
> I know we all love ADEV but in general always look at the phase, phase
> residual, and frequency plots first before you bother with ADEV. These
> strip chart plots better show your raw data and measurement. Even a single
> glitch will be visible. Only if these plots are "clean" should you go ahead
> and use ADEV. Another trick is using the TimeLab "Trace" feature which
> splits the data into N segments and computes ADEV for each one
> independently.
>
> But in this particular case where you are comparing two GPSDO a phase
> difference plot will likely be more informative than an ADEV plot anyway.
> You may also want to play around with the averaging value (command 'g').
>
> /tvb
>
> - Original Message -
> From: "GandalfG8--- via time-nuts" 
> To: 
> Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2017 9:08 AM
> Subject: [time-nuts] ADEV query Timelab and TICC
>
>
> > Yesterday I used one of John's excellent TICC modules for the first  time
> > and initially set up a quick test using the 10MHz output from a
> Thunderbolt
> > as the frequency reference to measure the 1PPS from an  Oscilloquartz
> Star4
> > GPSDO, with the TICC output feeding a USB3 port on a Windows  10 PC
> running
> > the 64 bit version of Timelab 1.29.
> >
> > I'll attach a copy of the test plots I'm referring to but just in  case
> > this doesn't get through I've also uploaded it to
> >
> > https://www.mediafire.com/?9bue90yp1e8ueu6
> >
> > Using the basic settings as described in the TICC manual the first  run
> was
> > for 1 hour and seemed fine so I decided to extend the run time to 6
> hours.
> > The first 6 hour test started to follow the 1 hour plot as expected and I
> > watched this on and off and can confirm it did so up to somewhere between
> > the 100s and 1000s points on the x-axis, but some time after that the
> > complete  plot shifted upwards and then continued to completion to
> produce the
> > magenta  trace.
> >
> > I wasn't watching when it shifted so don't know if it was a jump or a
> > gradual shift but did see it continue until completion. When I repeated
> the 6
> > hour test, again without changing anything, and hoping to observe the
> effect
> > as it happened, it produced the green trace which was what I'd been
> > expecting to start with. Since then I've made other test runs and again
> all  seems
> > to be as expected.
> >
> >
> > Throughout the tests I have been simultaneously streaming data  from the
> > Star4 to Lady Heather via a "proper" serial port on the same PC so did
> wonder
> > if there might be some form of data conflict but it doesn't seem to  have
> > shown up as any obvious form of corruption and hasn't repeated  itself.
> >
> > Nigel,  GM8PZR
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Re: [time-nuts] My TICC came in the mail yesterday

[Orin Eman]

FWIW, here is a quick test I ran on my TICC, assuming the attachment makes
it.

"TICC base" was a Trimble Thunderbolt reference and PPS.

The reference for the other traces was an FE-5680A with an LTE Lite on ChA
and Trimble PPS on ChB.

The GPS antennas are indoors and entirely sub-optimal.  The LTE Lite is in
a Hammond enclosure and using the antenna supplied with the eval kit
sitting on top of a metal file cabinet.

The result seems to be about as expected for the LTE Lite.  The Trimble
typically doesn't track many satellites so I'm not expecting great results.



On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 11:58 PM, Andrew Rodland 
wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 24, 2017 at 7:08 PM, John Ackermann N8UR  wrote:
> > Hi Andrew --
> >
> > There seems to be more than a little magic involved in getting sane
> > three-corner measurements.  I've gotten best results when the run is long
> > enough to have many data points per tau, and also that results when
> you're
> > noise limited tend to go imaginary.  Finally, I think things work best
> when
> > the three sources have similar noise processes, e.g., looking at 3x OCXO
> or
> > 3x Rb or whatever.
> >
>
> Thanks. I'm not even complaining here, like I said, this is more
> visibility than I've had in the past, and the TICC is looking pretty
> good. As for more points, that was just the first 9 or so hours of a
> 24-hour run, which is now completed. At the end of that, it's more
> reasonable: http://i.imgur.com/7v3obqy.png — although I'm certainly
> not putting much faith in anything past 1000s. And the non-hat plot:
> http://i.imgur.com/xWTsqCX.png .
>
> Andrew
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Re: [time-nuts] Low CostTemperature sensor

[Orin Eman]

Directly proportional implies a relationship of the form y = c * x where c
is a constant and * is multiplication.  So it is linear.

To call an exponential relationship "directly proportional" would be wrong.

On Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 1:17 AM, Charles Steinmetz 
wrote:

> Tom wrote:
>
> That article has a major error. Anyone know what it is?
>>
>
> Well, the author says the reverse current of a diode is "directly"
> proportional to temperature.  This could suggest that he means the
> relationship is linear (the relationship is actually exponential with
> absolute temperature).  But that's not really an *error* -- just sloppy.
> "Direct" does not necessarily imply "linear."  An exponential relationship
> is "direct" in the sense that it is what mathematicians call "injective"
> (every temperature corresponds to exactly one value of reverse current).
>
> Then, in discussing the LM95235, he says that it can use the
> "collector-emitter junction diode" of a transistor as the sense element.
> Of course, a bipolar transistor has no collector-emitter junction. His
> diagram correctly shows a diode-connected NPN operating in the active
> region (forward biased, not reverse biased as the rest of his article
> discusses) as the sensor for the LM95235.
>
> Are any of these what you had in mind, or is there more?
>
> Charles
>
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Re: [time-nuts] wifi with time sync

[Orin Eman]

I merely used the ping to demonstrate Wireshark's packet time stamping
(though in this case, it seems that the router responds immediately).
FWIW, a couple of NTP packets got captured too with a 34 ms round trip.  I
was actually looking for an ARP request/response in consecutive packets on
the grounds that the router wouldn't delay ARP responses... I found one and
it was (claimed) 1.107 ms round trip.  I make no claim as to the accuracy
of these timestamps.

NTP packets:

Frame 779: 90 bytes on wire (720 bits), 90 bytes captured (720 bits) on
interface 0
Interface id: 0 (en1)
Encapsulation type: Ethernet (1)
Arrival Time: Jan 14, 2017 10:22:46.628995000 PST
[Time shift for this packet: 0.0 seconds]
Epoch Time: 1484418166.628995000 seconds
[Time delta from previous captured frame: 0.279231000 seconds]
[Time delta from previous displayed frame: 0.279231000 seconds]
[Time since reference or first frame: 129.296382000 seconds]
Frame Number: 779
Frame Length: 90 bytes (720 bits)
Capture Length: 90 bytes (720 bits)
[Frame is marked: False]
[Frame is ignored: False]
[Protocols in frame: eth:ethertype:ip:udp:ntp]
[Coloring Rule Name: UDP]
[Coloring Rule String: udp]
Ethernet II, Src: Apple_a2:57:7b (a8:8e:24:a2:57:7b), Dst:
Actionte_1a:57:9e (00:26:b8:1a:57:9e)
Internet Protocol Version 4, Src: 192.168.1.10, Dst: 17.253.26.253
User Datagram Protocol, Src Port: 123, Dst Port: 123
Network Time Protocol (NTP Version 4, client)
Flags: 0x23, Leap Indicator: no warning, Version number: NTP Version 4,
Mode: client
Peer Clock Stratum: secondary reference (2)
Peer Polling Interval: 6 (64 sec)
Peer Clock Precision: 0.01 sec
Root Delay:0.0334 sec
Root Dispersion:0.0335 sec
Reference ID: 17.253.26.253
Reference Timestamp: Jan 14, 2017 18:20:38.646497000 UTC
Origin Timestamp: Jan  1, 1970 00:00:00.0 UTC
Receive Timestamp: Jan  1, 1970 00:00:00.0 UTC
Transmit Timestamp: Jan 14, 2017 18:22:46.628854000 UTC

Frame 780: 90 bytes on wire (720 bits), 90 bytes captured (720 bits) on
interface 0
Interface id: 0 (en1)
Encapsulation type: Ethernet (1)
Arrival Time: Jan 14, 2017 10:22:46.663003000 PST
[Time shift for this packet: 0.0 seconds]
Epoch Time: 1484418166.663003000 seconds
[Time delta from previous captured frame: 0.034008000 seconds]
[Time delta from previous displayed frame: 0.034008000 seconds]
[Time since reference or first frame: 129.33039 seconds]
Frame Number: 780
Frame Length: 90 bytes (720 bits)
Capture Length: 90 bytes (720 bits)
[Frame is marked: False]
[Frame is ignored: False]
[Protocols in frame: eth:ethertype:ip:udp:ntp]
[Coloring Rule Name: UDP]
[Coloring Rule String: udp]
Ethernet II, Src: Actionte_1a:57:9e (00:26:b8:1a:57:9e), Dst:
Apple_a2:57:7b (a8:8e:24:a2:57:7b)
Internet Protocol Version 4, Src: 17.253.26.253, Dst: 192.168.1.10
User Datagram Protocol, Src Port: 123, Dst Port: 123
Network Time Protocol (NTP Version 4, server)
Flags: 0x24, Leap Indicator: no warning, Version number: NTP Version 4,
Mode: server
Peer Clock Stratum: primary reference (1)
Peer Polling Interval: 6 (64 sec)
Peer Clock Precision: 0.02 sec
Root Delay:0. sec
Root Dispersion:0.0011 sec
Reference ID: Unidentified reference source 'GPSs'
Reference Timestamp: Jan 14, 2017 18:22:40.409336000 UTC
Origin Timestamp: Jan 14, 2017 18:22:46.628854000 UTC
Receive Timestamp: Jan 14, 2017 18:22:46.637396000 UTC
Transmit Timestamp: Jan 14, 2017 18:22:46.637419000 UTC


On Sat, Jan 14, 2017 at 10:55 AM, Bob Camp  wrote:

> Hi
>
> The issue with using Wireshark is that it still is looking at a ping. It
> may tag the
> event to one more digit, but all of the earlier mentioned issues with
> pings are
> still there. Simply put, they aren’t the greatest thing for testing timing.
>
> Bob
>
>
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Re: [time-nuts] wifi with time sync

[Orin Eman]

You could run a network monitor, Wireshark for example...

https://wiki.wireshark.org/CaptureSetup/WLAN

There are specialized WIFI capture programs, but they tend to be designed
to break into networks rather than monitor performance - kismet/kismac.  I
run them every so often to check for malfeasance in the neighborhood.  The
Netstumbler kind of apps just try to discover local networks and report
their signal strengths.

I'd say Wireshark is a fair bet for packet timing, but even it might not
have the accuracy desired.  Here is a ping and its response on my WIFI
network, taken by Wireshark on a late 2012 Mac Mini on its builtin WIFI
adapter.  It's reporting to micro-second resolution and the ping time is
around 1.2 ms on this network.  It ranged from 0.993 to 5.927 (first ping)
over the dozen or so pings before I stopped it.  I don't know where the
time stamps are taken - whether it's in the OS or when it gets to Wireshark
itself.  FWIW, the WIFI access point is a Frontier Fios router.

Frame 955: 98 bytes on wire (784 bits), 98 bytes captured (784 bits) on
interface 0
Interface id: 0 (en1)
Encapsulation type: Ethernet (1)
Arrival Time: Jan 14, 2017 10:23:01.707462000 PST
[Time shift for this packet: 0.0 seconds]
Epoch Time: 1484418181.707462000 seconds
[Time delta from previous captured frame: 0.501617000 seconds]
[Time delta from previous displayed frame: 0.501617000 seconds]
[Time since reference or first frame: 144.374849000 seconds]
Frame Number: 955
Frame Length: 98 bytes (784 bits)
Capture Length: 98 bytes (784 bits)
[Frame is marked: False]
[Frame is ignored: False]
[Protocols in frame: eth:ethertype:ip:icmp:data]
[Coloring Rule Name: ICMP]
[Coloring Rule String: icmp || icmpv6]
Ethernet II, Src: Apple_a2:57:7b (a8:8e:24:a2:57:7b), Dst:
Actionte_1a:57:9e (00:26:b8:1a:57:9e)
Internet Protocol Version 4, Src: 192.168.1.10, Dst: 192.168.1.1
Internet Control Message Protocol


Frame 956: 98 bytes on wire (784 bits), 98 bytes captured (784 bits) on
interface 0
Interface id: 0 (en1)
Encapsulation type: Ethernet (1)
Arrival Time: Jan 14, 2017 10:23:01.708586000 PST
[Time shift for this packet: 0.0 seconds]
Epoch Time: 1484418181.708586000 seconds
[Time delta from previous captured frame: 0.001124000 seconds]
[Time delta from previous displayed frame: 0.001124000 seconds]
[Time since reference or first frame: 144.375973000 seconds]
Frame Number: 956
Frame Length: 98 bytes (784 bits)
Capture Length: 98 bytes (784 bits)
[Frame is marked: True]
[Frame is ignored: False]
[Protocols in frame: eth:ethertype:ip:icmp:data]
[Coloring Rule Name: ICMP]
[Coloring Rule String: icmp || icmpv6]
Ethernet II, Src: Actionte_1a:57:9e (00:26:b8:1a:57:9e), Dst:
Apple_a2:57:7b (a8:8e:24:a2:57:7b)
Internet Protocol Version 4, Src: 192.168.1.1, Dst: 192.168.1.10
Internet Control Message Protocol


On Sat, Jan 14, 2017 at 9:44 AM, jimlux  wrote:

> On 1/14/17 8:35 AM, Bob Camp wrote:
>
>> Hi
>>
>>
>
>> I also believe that ping data is one way to come up with an upper bound on
>> just how awful WiFi timing can be.  If others have a similar single shot
>> measure
>> of WiFi round trip that can be run on a wide range of devices, I’d
>> certainly be just
>> as interested in that.
>>
>>
> does software like netstumbler and such have lower level diagnostic
> measurements?
>
> There's a variety of apps for my phones that provide some info on WiFi
> networks, but I think it's all sort of in the "received signal strength"
> kind of level.  I've not seen anything for timing.  But that's not to say
> that it doesn't exist.
>
> I seem to recall some folks fooling with various timing parameters that
> can be set into 802.11 chipsets from 10 years ago.  Today's interfaces? I
> don't know.  The little interfaces that you put on a Arduino and such
> expose a serial port kind of interface with a AT command set.  I think they
> bury most all of the stuff we'd want to know about.
>
>
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Re: [time-nuts] Lady Heather Ver 5 Problem

[Orin Eman]

For a little more detail see WSA_NODATA here:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms740668(v=vs.85).aspx

The explanation is rather difficult to parse.  It seems it's indicating
that an MX record was found (somewhere you could send email) but no A
record (a server you could connect to).

As John says, probably a temporary problem.

Orin; never seen that one before.

On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 9:04 PM, John Miles  wrote:

> The error message in question came from the IPCONN::connect() method in
> ipconn.cpp.  That particular code (11004) is returned by gethostbyname()
> when it fails to resolve a DNS name.  Normally, when Heather tries to
> connect to the test server, gethostbyname() is used to turn "
> ke5fx.dyndns.org" into a numeric address that can be passed to
> connect().  If it returns 11004, it means that the client's DNS provider
> was able to find a record, but couldn't actually resolve it.
>
> Should just be a temporary glitch in the Matrix.  Nothing specific can be
> done about it AFAIK.
>
> -- john, KE5FX
> Miles Design LLC
>
> > I grep'd all the source code and there is no 11004 anywhere in the
> program...
> >
>
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Re: [time-nuts] Vintage Quartz Crystal Manufacturing

[Orin Eman]

Actually, there is a 37 before the last digits, so they are 3720, 3760 and
3780 kHz.

On Sat, Nov 26, 2016 at 7:15 AM, Bob Camp  wrote:

> Hi
>
> Welcome to eBay …..
>
> I don’t believe those are crystals at all. If you take a look at the
> markings on the parts
> they are labeled “80 K cps”. In other words they are 80 KHz not 80M
> devices. Looking
> at the gap, if there is a crystal in there it’s not obvious that it’s big
> enough for 80 KHz.
>
> My guess is that they are tank tuning caps for an mechanical MOPA style
> transmitter.
> The size and construction are about right for that sort of thing. Swap one
> in and the
> transmit frequency changes. Number 7 for 80 KHz. Number 8 for 85 KHz.
> Number 7 for
> 75 KHz. Just a guess …
>
> Bob
>
>
>
> > On Nov 26, 2016, at 7:40 AM, Adrian Godwin  wrote:
> >
> > I bought some old crystals on ebay :
> >
> > http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/15114483
> >
> > Is anyone familiar with this style ? I don't think the quartz is visible
> in
> > the glass section : I imagine that's just an insulator. I think the
> quartz
> > is under a brass disc, with a sping to hold the disc down visible through
> > the glass.
> >
> > Does anyone know what the reference marked on them "w'less sets No 7"
> > refers to ?
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 6:50 AM, Mark Sims  wrote:
> >
> >> Can you say "Mr Rogers' Neighborhood?"   I knew you could...
> >>
> >> He (along with creepy Mr McFeelie) always ran segments on how some item
> >> was made.   Geared towards pre-schoolers, but always worth watching.
> >>
> >> -
> >>
> >> Compare the Science channel's new "How Do They Do It" to the older "How
> >> It's Made"
> >> shows.
> >> ___
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Re: [time-nuts] DIY VNA design

[Orin Eman]

To 60MHz: http://n2pk.com; PCBs available here:
http://www.makarov.ca/vna.htm

To 500MHz, lower dynamic range to 1.3GHz:
http://sdr-kits.net/VNWA3_Description.html

OK, so the latter isn't build it yourself anymore.

I have version 2.6 of the latter and it works really well to about 575MHz.
Traces can get noisy after about 575MHz.

Remember these VNAs are only as good as the calibration kit you use with
them!

Orin.


On Sat, Aug 20, 2016 at 9:46 PM, Bob Albert via time-nuts <
time-nuts@febo.com> wrote:

> I was interested in this, but my needs are mostly below 100 MHz.  I wonder
> what could be done similarly for this lower range...
> Bob
>
>
> On Saturday, August 20, 2016 8:54 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist <
> rich...@karlquist.com> wrote:
>
>
>  Another great posting, Attila.
>
> When I was with Agilent, we looked at all kinds of
> simplified network analyzer architectures, and I
> would have to say the author is really well informed.
> One issue he doesn't seem to be aware of is that the
> ADL5801, when driven single ended, has some quirks
> below 100 MHz that I discovered experimentally.
> (The data sheet is silent on this).  IMHO, it
> would be worth 7 Euro's to use a balun, however,
> I would like to know the part number of this
> supposed component.  I am not so sure about MCL
> actually covering 30 MHz to 6 GHz in the same
> balun.  Sometimes their advertising is confusing,
> and when they say .03-6 GHz baluns, they mean
> that the range can be covered in several bands
> by several model numbers.
>
> Still, quite impressive work by an individual
> practitioner.
>
> Rick
>
> On 8/20/2016 7:19 PM, Attila Kinali wrote:
> > Moin,
> >
> > I stumbled over a new open hardware/source VNA design:
> > http://hforsten.com/cheap-homemade-30-mhz-6-ghz-vector-
> network-analyzer.html
> >
> > Unlike other designs out there, this one is very well done and has very
> > little room for improvement, without increasing the price considerably.
> >
> > About the only things i would do different is to use two receiver
> > channels, one fix connected at the TX source to be able to do a
> > difference measurement between TX and the RX channels and thus
> > improving precision. And the other would be to use a dual ADC
> > with an FPGA for the data processing, again in order to increase
> > performance.
> >
> > But as I wrote, both changes would increase complexity and price.
> >
> > Other than being a well thought through design, the website also
> > explains all the big design choices and why this or that has been
> > done instead of one of the many alternatives. That alone makes it
> > worth reading, IMHO.
> >
> > Attila Kinali
> >
> >
> >
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Re: [time-nuts] Working with SMT parts.

[Orin Eman]

On Fri, Aug 12, 2016 at 7:25 PM, Brooke Clarke  wrote:

> Hi Chris:
>
> ExpressPCB has very easy to use free software for schematic capture (later
> used to check the board wiring) and software for board layout including
> making custom components if their library of stock components does not have
> what you need.  The output file format is proprietary, which makes it
> interesting that Far Circuits can read it.
>
> I just have not wanted to go through learning curve for Gerber files and
> all the associated stuff (maybe drilling, silk screen, solder mask) which
> is very easy to do with ExpressPCB.



I did my first 'CAD' PCB with EasyTrax... a DOS program.  Must have been
about 1998 as that's the copyright date I put on the board.

Believe me, getting any of the current programs to produce gerber files is
trivial compared to using EasyTrax and making it produce gerber files.  In
fact, I usually us itead.cc for small boards and they provide the script to
produce gerber files from Eagle, which is what I currently use.  I've also
used OSH Park and you can simply send an Eagle board file to them; just as
easy as using ExpressPCB without the expensive tie-in.

I must admit ExpressPCB leaves me with a sour taste - many published
projects seem to use them as  I suppose the author liked the free
software.  But then everyone that uses the ExpressPCB files that the author
supplies pays the ExpressPCB premium.  $300 in one case and the boards
weren't even flat!

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] HP5370 power supply measurements

[Orin Eman]

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 10:55 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp 
wrote:

> 
> In message <
> cany2ixq6onvridofgnfkebqjdkntp7t8kue7boupxjwlcux...@mail.gmail.com>
> , "William H. Fite" writes:
> >David Kirkby scripsit:
> >>
> >> I often here of people replacing fans with quiter ones, but I suspect
> that
> >> all they really do is reduce the airflow.
> >
> >Not necessarily, Dave. The Austrian company, Noctua, for one, makes
> >extremely quiet fans with excellent airflow.
>
> ... at zero pressure differential, which is easy to do (Think: ceiling
> fan).
>
>

Right.

You have to look at the curves on the data sheet that shows air flow vs.
static pressure (and be careful about the static pressure scale).  I found
that a 'quiet' fan would often be flowing one tenth as much air as the
original fan at the static pressure at which the original fan was rated.

In a given instrument, you may get away with the quieter fan, but how would
you tell other than putting a thermometer inside and making a before/after
comparison?

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] RS232 / GPS interface/prototyping board

[Orin Eman]

On Wed, Jun 22, 2016 at 3:14 PM, Nick Sayer via time-nuts <
time-nuts@febo.com> wrote:

>
> > On Jun 22, 2016, at 1:33 PM, Mark Sims  wrote:
> >
> > The value, quality, and turn-around from all these places is amazing.
>  In the olden days, one was paying $50 a square inch for a single prototype
> board with 4 week turn-around.
> >
>
> Not to turn this into the “Four Yorkshireman” sketch, but in the olden
> days (which by my reckoning were maybe only 10 years ago) there wasn’t
> reasonable hobbyist access to PCB CAD software either - like EAGLE or
> Altium or KiCad or the like.
>


Easytrax - I used it at least as long ago as 1998 because that's the
copyright date on the boards I had made at AP Circuits.  The boards weren't
cheap, I seem to recall in the order of $100 for a couple of double sided
boards with plated through holes and no solder mask.  Of course, Easytrax
is a DOS program and PCB layout only, but it did the trick.  You can still
make it work under a DOS emulator.  I used to call it 'vi' for PCBs given
the way you gave it commands from the keyboard.  I still remember "pt" for
place track...

I use Eagle now.  It's not much better for PCB layout, but at least it has
the schematic editor.  I've tried KiCad at least twice, but find no
advantage over Eagle and keep going back to the Eagle free version.


>
> When I was a teenager (mid 80s) I tried making my own PCB with clad board,
> an etch resist pen, that nasty brown acid and the smallest drill bit I
> could get my hands on. This was a single-sided board - I had absolutely no
> way to line up a two-sided design even if through-hole plating would have
> been an option (of course, it wouldn’t have). No solder resist, no silk
> screen.
>
> It was a disaster. Even with a drill press I couldn’t line the DIP holes
> up closely enough to mash a chip in without bending the leads to hell and
> gone.
>


BTDT too.  I used a 1/16" drill bit and a hand drill.  I'm sure the drill
bit wandered...  For home etched boards, I now use the MG Chemicals
positive resist boards.  If you have the CAD program print the pads with
the holes when you make the transparency, and hold the board just right
under a drill press, the board will self-center under the drill bit!  I'm
sure the MG Chemicals boards cost more per square inch than the Chinese
suppliers, but I can have a single sided board exposed, etched and drilled
in a couple of hours once I have the design.  If I'm going to home-produce
a board, I design it with two layers, but use the top layer as little as
possible and use wire links for all tracks on the top layer... obviously I
have to be careful where I put tracks on the top layer when doing this.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] Maser 0.7 nsec jumps solved

[Orin Eman]

On Wed, May 25, 2016 at 9:59 AM, Mike Monett 
wrote:

> >Am 23.05.2016 um 05:15 schrieb Jim Palfreyman:
> >> As far as a remedy goes we are going to try a solid state relay that
> only
> >> switches on at 0V in the AC waveform. This should slow the inrush
> current,
> >> and hopefully the magnetic impulse.
> >
> >In the context of transformers and motors, switching on at 0V is
> >actually the worst point in time.
> >
> >< https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einschalten_des_Transformators > (German)
> >
> ><
> >
> http://electrical-engineering-portal.com/practical-considerations-of-transformer-inrush-current
> > >
> >
> >regards, Gerhard
>
> LTspice shows  switching  at 0V is the best point in  time.  With no
> flux in the magnetics, the inrush current is limited by  the circuit
> resistance. The magnitude is given by Ohm's law: I = E / R.
>
> Switching at 0V,
>
> I = E / R
> = 0 / R
> = 0A
>
> However, switching  at  the peak of the voltage can  give  very high
> inrush currents. You can verify this with LTspice. The  schematic is
> at
>
> http://www.pst.netii.net/misc/48b961a6.gif
>
> There are two circuits. They are identical except the second has the
> applied voltage  shifted  by 90 degrees. The  inductors  have  1 Ohm
> series resistance (not shown.)
>
> The waveforms are at
>
> http://www.pst.netii.net/misc/48b96217.gif
>
> The currents are IL1 and IL2.
>
> Switching at  0V, IL1 starts at zero. It rises to a  peak  of 900mA,
> then falls  back  to  zero. The DC offset takes 3  or  4  seconds to
> decay, then the current is stable at zero +/- 450mA.
>
> Switching at the peak, IL2 is
>
> I = E / R
> = 169.7 / 1
> = 169.7A
>


Er, no.  It's an RL circuit for which:

V(R) = E(1-e^(-(R/L)t)

so I(R) = I(L) = (E/R)(1-e^(-(R/L)t)

for t close to zero where E is essentially constant, I is going to rise
with the time constant of R/L which for a 1H inductor and 1 ohm resistance
is 1 second.

I suggest running the simulation with a pulse voltage source, Tdelay 1ms,
period 1s, Ton 0.5s (Period and Ton are fairly arbitrary, the Tdelay is
important).

You only need to run the simulation for a few ms.  You will get a very
different result.

Now as Poul-Henning Kamp suggested, an induction motor is anything but an
ideal inductor...
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Re: [time-nuts] Raspberry PI 3 NTP server with GPS time data.

[Orin Eman]

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 4:15 PM, Chris Albertson 
wrote:

> Did you see the notice on the adafruit 2324 web page that reads "Does
> not work with the Pi 3 at this time".
>


I would assume that's because the Pi3 uses /dev/ttyAMA0 for Bluetooth.
Here is how to route ttyAMA0 back to the IO pins on the Pi3.  It is useful
information for any device trying to use ttyAMA0 on the Pi3.

Remove all references to ttyAMA0 from /boot/cmdline.txt (as on a Pi2)

To disable bluetooth:

systemctl disable hciuart
Add "dtoverlay=pi3-disable-bt" to /boot/config.txt

Finally, perhaps unnecessary, use raspi-config to disable login on the
serial port.  (Serial under Advanced Options.)

The above worked for me porting code that worked over ttyAMA0 on the Pi2 to
the Pi3.

It was a poor decision IMO to usurp ttyAMA0 for Bluetooth on the Pi3.  They
broke just about every device that uses serial IO out there.  By default,
they now route the IO pins to /dev/ttyS0 which is useless for most purposes
_as its baud rate depends on CPU core frequency, which is variable_!
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Re: [time-nuts] Lady Heather coming soon to a Linux box near you...

[Orin Eman]

On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 10:13 PM, Mark Sims  wrote:

>
> One thing that will probably not be supported is sound file support...
> playing .WAV files asynchronously does not seem to come naturally to
> Linux.  Does anybody know of a simple / lazy bastard way to play a sound
> file in the background from a C/C++ program...  I'd really like my GPS
> disciplined singing clock to work.
>


Why not run up a thread and play the sound synchronously in the thread?
I'd use std::thread if in C++ land, otherwise, you are in pthread hell.

If a thread doesn't work, there's always fork/exec...
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Re: [time-nuts] How to run Lady Heather under Windows10

[Orin Eman]

If you want to argue about FTDI, please take it over here:

http://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/ftdi-gate-2-0/



On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 10:36 AM, Dan Kemppainen 
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Sorry, I have to speak up here. This fake stuff isn't "clone" FTDI
> hardware. It is counterfeit hardware. And it uses FTDI's VID illegally.
>
> FTDI should block counterfeit hardware from using their drivers. Making
> the assumption that the counterfeit junk will work, and putting blame on
> FTDI for blocking it is unacceptable. Unfortunately, some of us trying to
> save a few bucks are ripped off by vendors selling this garbage.
>
> FTDI chip makes great hardware. Real FTDI hardware and drivers make an
> amazingly easy to use USB solution. They are extremely reliable.
>
> Dan
>
>
>
>
> On 3/18/2016 12:00 PM, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
>
>> --
>>
>> Another issue is that FTDI is back at it again with making their drivers
>> incompatible with clone FTDI chips.   Their previous attempt actually
>> bricked the clone USB interface chips.  Their latest driver just sends
>> garbage out the serial port.   If you are using a cheap USB to serial
>> converter cable there is a very good chance it has a clone chip in it and
>> FTDI's latest driver may be up to its evil ways.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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Re: [time-nuts] Thinderbolt 10 Mhz output level?

[Orin Eman]

I have now:

+11.7 dBm on the 8568A spectrum analyzer with 2nd & third harmonics at -60
dBc.

So yes, mine is a dB or two above +10dBm.

Orin.

On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 6:29 PM, Chris Arnold via time-nuts <
time-nuts@febo.com> wrote:

> Has anyone actually measured the 10 Mhz level on their thunderbolt? More
> than +10 dbm?
>
> Thanks
> Chris
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Re: [time-nuts] Lady Heather Server On Raspberry Pi 2 Model B?

[Orin Eman]

Well, you can run Windows 10 on the Pi...

As the question was running LH Server, perhaps it could be compiled as a
"Universal" Windows app.

On Sat, Jan 9, 2016 at 6:36 AM, Chuck Harris  wrote:

> Unfortunately, LH uses a graphics toolkit that was written by
> John Miles, and it, and he, is windows only.
>
> I got started on converting it to PyQT4, but got side tracked.
>
> Maybe this year is the year I get all of the stuff I have promised
> done?
>
> -Chuck Harris
>
>
> Ed Armstrong wrote:
>
>> Has anyone successfully ran Lady Heather Server On Raspberry Pi 2 Model
>> B? As it's
>> not an x86 architecture processor, I assume Wine is no use and a custom
>> compile is
>> needed. Am I correct? Can any of you suggest where I can learn to do
>> that, I'm rather
>> new to Linux.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Ed
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[time-nuts] SRS FS710 10MHz distribution amp

[Orin Eman]

I see a couple on eBay, already bid up to $150.  Seems rather a lot, but
what do I know.

The manual, including schematic is here:

http://www.thinksrs.com/downloads/PDFs/Manuals/FS710m.pdf

Comments?

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] LAN/USB to GP-IB/HP-IP Adapters

[Orin Eman]

I have successfully used an Agilent 82357B USB adapter - there are plenty
on eBay from Chinese sellers...

I got NI Visa to talk to Agilent, er, Keysight IO Libraries and access a
3456A attached to the 82357B.  That's the simplified version... the 82357B
was on a remote system over a WiFiI link and the Agilent IO Libraries took
care of the details.  It was painful.  Don't try this.  At one point, it
managed to access the wrong device on the remote system!  There was only
the 3456A on GPIB and a 34461A on ethernet, but it got them mixed up.

However, I'm not sure that NI Visa on its own with an NI adapter is less
painful.  It refused to find devices after I accidentally deleted the name
of a serial port in NI Max (double click the name, hit delete, click
somewhere else; easy to do when you are trying to get rid of a phantom COM3
that turned out to be a software modem).  Attempts to refresh the device
list put "Visa Error" in the device list.  Clicking on it gave a useless
message about the configuration being incorrect, but no real way of fixing
the problem.  I'm told uninstalling/reinstalling NI Visa is usually
required.

For under $200, I think I'd go for the NI USB adapter - hopefully it would
come with support.

Good Luck, Orin.




On Thu, Sep 10, 2015 at 2:58 PM, Brooke Clarke  wrote:

> Hi:
>
> It's taken a few months to get LabVIEW Home version working so now I'm
> looking for a good way to control HP-IB instruments.
> I tried to get a computer built that would run DOS, WIN 3.1, WIN 98, WIN
> XP and WIN 7 (NI does not yet fully support WIN 10), but the required
> motherboard is not longer made so I'm looking for an adapter that runs from
> LAN or a USB port.
>
> NI has the GPIB-USB-HS+ (their latest version) so the prior version
> GPIB-USB-HS is available for under $200.
>
> Can anyone comment on what's available?
>
> Mail_Attachment --
> Have Fun,
>
> Brooke Clarke
> http://www.PRC68.com
> http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html
> http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html
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[time-nuts] Another KS-24361 REF1 DOA, investigation

[Orin Eman]

I ended up with a dead REF1, so I decided to investigate.

The -15V was at -0.6V and the 15V at 3.5V.  The power module was hot
to the touch.

Then I found Bob Stewart's post from a few months back, so I decided
to pull the power module and check the capacitors.  First, I measured
the resistance of the power rails to ground.  15V was about 1k and
-15V 0.9 ohm, so I was pretty sure it was one of the tantalum
capacitors.

The pins in the power module are not well seated.  Two came loose just
under the influence of my Hakko 808.  A third broke off while pulling
out the circuit board.  The potting compound came off the bottom in
big chunks, no problem at all.  Some of the potting compound stayed on
the top of the board, but not over the offending capacitors.

I removed the capacitor from the -15V output and it measures about 1.0
ohms, so its definitely dead.

For the record, it is 15 uF, 25V (and the capacitor on the 15V output
is the same).

I happened to have some 10uF 35V surface mount tantalum capacitors
around, so I soldered one in place of the original part for test
purposes (I'd have used two in parallel if they would have fit; I
doubt that the value is critical), fixed the broken pins and did the
push it into the holes trick... I applied power and it flashes its
LEDs as expected.

So, time to order up a few 15uF = 25V caps.  I'll be replacing both
before putting it all back together!

Orin.

*I had 35V rated parts around to get a low ESR, I use them with an
LT1763-3.3 that wants  3 ohms ESR on its output.
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Re: [time-nuts] HP5335A GPIB questions.

[Orin Eman]

The 5335A is fussy.  FWIW I used the following init string:

IN,FN1,WA1\n

Important: I then wait for 125 ms; that being the total time for IN,FN1,WA1
to execute per the 5335A manual.  Only then, do I try to read data from the
instrument.  Pay careful attention to the times that commands take and
don't try to access the 5335A before that time... expect it to sulk
otherwise.

After reading the first result, then I loop reading results.  I have an
additional delay of 100ms before reading each result.  The comment in my
code is: 5335A seems to sulk if we read too soon.

I was using a real Prologix Ethernet GPIB adapter when I wrote this code.

The delays are extremely important.  The 5335A can and will hang if you
don't wait long enough.  In keeping with that, *do not* set your adapter to
do an automatic read after sending data over the GPIB.

Another thing to note is that the 5335A likes some kind of termination on
its commands.  I used CR using the ++eos=1 command to the Prologix.  The
unescaped '\n' in my init string ends the string to be sent over GPIB and
'\r' is appended by the Prologix adapter.  There is no need to send EOI
after a command and the 5335A does not send EOI after the last character it
sends.You have to read up to '\n' instead.

You also want to make sure you don't timeout any read from the adapter
before the gate time that is set on the 5335A.  I used a 3s timeout with a
gate of about 2s.

I think that covers the gotchas that I know of!

Orin.



On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 7:24 PM, Luke Mester lmeste...@gmail.com wrote:

 I recently bought a HP5335A counter and have some questions about operating
 the instrument with GPIB.

  I expect that a lot of time nuts are using this instrument and may be able
 to help. Please excuse me if this is a stupid question. This is my first
 GPIB instrument.

 After each GPIB command that I send I've found that I then need to send an
 RE (reset) command. If I Don't send RE the instrument takes no readings and
 has a blank display. For example I send FN9 to select period and  get no
 readings until RE is sent. Is this normal?

 I'm currently talking to it with a USB to GPIB adapter and a terminal
 program.

 Since I had no idea if the GPIB interface was functional I didn't want to
 buy an expensive GPIB adapter. I build the cheapest GPIB adapter that I
 could find on the internet. It's possible that this is causing problems.

 It emulates a Prologix adapter. Here is a link if you're interested.
 HTTP://http://www.dalton.ax/gpib/
 I've found that this adapter does not properly report the serial control
 line status. Because of this, Timelab won't detect the GPIB adapter.

 You can get Timelab to work if you choose the Acquire from counter in talk
 only mode option.







 --
 Luke Mester
 http://mesterhome.com/
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Re: [time-nuts] If your 5335A is acting goofy or dead...

[Orin Eman]

Update.

I replaced the relay socket anyway with a 27E213 from Digi-Key.  It fits
perfectly.  The socket I removed was a 27E129.  It would seem that the
27E129 should have a ground strap.  The one I removed doesn't.  Otherwise,
the 27E213 should be identical.  The Digi-Key part number is PB806-ND.

Although the bad contact with the socket caused enough heat to discolor the
base of the relay, I don't think the relay was harmed.

I also did the extra wiring from the service note to add a second set of
contacts in parallel for the 5V supply.  Hopefully this problem is fixed
for the next decade or two.

Orin.

On Sat, Dec 27, 2014 at 9:06 PM, Orin Eman orin.e...@gmail.com wrote:

 While evaluating my LTE Lite and testing my buffer board, my 5335A started
 acting goofy - random hangs/crashes etc..

 This morning, the fan came on, but no display.

 To make a long story short, the problem was exactly as described in
 Service Note 5335A-26B.  I found evidence of overheating on the power
 supply relay.  The 5V (and 3V) supply was down.  During investigating the
 fault, I disturbed the power supply relay and reseated it.  The instrument
 worked again.  Further investigation revealed a cold looking solder joint
 on the relay socket and spread contacts on the relay socket.  About 1V was
 dropped across the relay socket and the relay itself.  I resoldered the
 socket and 'persuaded' the contact with a small screwdriver.  All now seems
 to be back to normal.

 FWIW, do not believe the part number on the relay.  It is really a 6PST NO
 beastie for which I have not yet found a replacement.

 The above mentioned service note adds a second pair of contacts for the 5V
 supply after replacing the 120V fan with a 24V fan fed from the power
 switch.  This uses the relay contacts that used to be used to drive the
 120V fan.  Ideally, you replace the relay and its socket as well, but good
 luck finding the relay.  My unit has the 24V fan, but I have yet to do the
 rewiring for the second pair of contacts, so I suspect the fix might not
 last.  Still, it's 22 years since the date on the service note, so I might
 have a few years.

 So, if your 5335A fan comes on, but no display, check the 5V supply first
 and if it's down, suspect the power supply relay/socket.

 Orin.


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Re: [time-nuts] If your 5335A is acting goofy or dead...

[Orin Eman]

Magnus,

The service note is attached.

Orin.

On Sun, Dec 28, 2014 at 8:04 AM, Magnus Danielson 
mag...@rubidium.dyndns.org wrote:

 We had that issue with the 5335A at work, and replacing the relay did the
 trick.

 5335A is still the counter which is easiest to use, even if it doesn't
 have stellar performance, but usually that is not needed.

 Where did you find the Service Note?

 Cheers,
 Magnus


 On 12/28/2014 06:06 AM, Orin Eman wrote:

 While evaluating my LTE Lite and testing my buffer board, my 5335A started
 acting goofy - random hangs/crashes etc..

 This morning, the fan came on, but no display.

 To make a long story short, the problem was exactly as described in
 Service
 Note 5335A-26B.  I found evidence of overheating on the power supply
 relay.  The 5V (and 3V) supply was down.  During investigating the fault,
 I
 disturbed the power supply relay and reseated it.  The instrument worked
 again.  Further investigation revealed a cold looking solder joint on the
 relay socket and spread contacts on the relay socket.  About 1V was
 dropped
 across the relay socket and the relay itself.  I resoldered the socket and
 'persuaded' the contact with a small screwdriver.  All now seems to be
 back
 to normal.

 FWIW, do not believe the part number on the relay.  It is really a 6PST NO
 beastie for which I have not yet found a replacement.

 The above mentioned service note adds a second pair of contacts for the 5V
 supply after replacing the 120V fan with a 24V fan fed from the power
 switch.  This uses the relay contacts that used to be used to drive the
 120V fan.  Ideally, you replace the relay and its socket as well, but good
 luck finding the relay.  My unit has the 24V fan, but I have yet to do the
 rewiring for the second pair of contacts, so I suspect the fix might not
 last.  Still, it's 22 years since the date on the service note, so I might
 have a few years.

 So, if your 5335A fan comes on, but no display, check the 5V supply first
 and if it's down, suspect the power supply relay/socket.

 Orin.
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Service Note 5335A-26B.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document
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[time-nuts] If your 5335A is acting goofy or dead...

[Orin Eman]

While evaluating my LTE Lite and testing my buffer board, my 5335A started
acting goofy - random hangs/crashes etc..

This morning, the fan came on, but no display.

To make a long story short, the problem was exactly as described in Service
Note 5335A-26B.  I found evidence of overheating on the power supply
relay.  The 5V (and 3V) supply was down.  During investigating the fault, I
disturbed the power supply relay and reseated it.  The instrument worked
again.  Further investigation revealed a cold looking solder joint on the
relay socket and spread contacts on the relay socket.  About 1V was dropped
across the relay socket and the relay itself.  I resoldered the socket and
'persuaded' the contact with a small screwdriver.  All now seems to be back
to normal.

FWIW, do not believe the part number on the relay.  It is really a 6PST NO
beastie for which I have not yet found a replacement.

The above mentioned service note adds a second pair of contacts for the 5V
supply after replacing the 120V fan with a 24V fan fed from the power
switch.  This uses the relay contacts that used to be used to drive the
120V fan.  Ideally, you replace the relay and its socket as well, but good
luck finding the relay.  My unit has the 24V fan, but I have yet to do the
rewiring for the second pair of contacts, so I suspect the fix might not
last.  Still, it's 22 years since the date on the service note, so I might
have a few years.

So, if your 5335A fan comes on, but no display, check the 5V supply first
and if it's down, suspect the power supply relay/socket.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] 10MHz LTE-Lite

[Orin Eman]

I had PCBs made by OSHPark for the buffer discussed below.  I just built
one up and it's working fine.  3 outputs giving about 10 dBm each.

The board design is shared at:  https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/pCpmILwj

There are links to the schematic and a picture of the mostly complete
board.  If you have SMA end-launch sockets, they may fit the board (I'd
have to scrape some solder mask off the ground plane for the ones I have to
fit) or you can just solder coax directly.  Use the pads on the bottom of
the board for the coax screen.

Feel free to use the design.  (If you sell anything based off it, please
attribute the source.)

Orin.

On Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 10:32 PM, Orin Eman orin.e...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hi Said,

 It's a little while since you sent this, but I just finished some testing
 with the LTE Lite.

 I already had a Trimble Thunderbolt and also have an HP 5335A with OCXO.
 The 5335A has shown the Trimble O/P 10 MHz +/- 0.03 Hz for the last few
 years (displayed frequency on the 5335A has drifted down by about 0.04 Hz).

 So, I set up the LTE Lite (10MHz TCXO version) with its antenna about 6'
 from that used by the Trimble.  After letting it settle down, it looked
 good.  I was using the high impedance input of the 5335A (aside: if set for
 DC coupling, the 5335A would read 20MHz from the ringing.  I only have
 about 18 of RG-188 after the pigtail supplied with the LTE Lite).

 Today, I made up a buffer using a 74AC04 and LT1763-3.3 LDO regulator
 supplied with 5V from a bench supply.  Two inverters each into 100 ohms
 then 0.1uF DC block as suggested.  I connected this to the LTE Lite instead
 of directly to the 5335A with the 5335A set to 50 ohms and the 5335A read
 0.5Hz low!  It settled down to the original reading after a while.  I
 looked at the signal from the buffer using a 50 ohm pass-through terminator
 and the signal looked nice and square.

 A few hours later I went back and it still looked good.  I decided to look
 at the input to the buffer on a TDS-210 'scope with a 10X probe.  There is
 now perhaps 6 of coax to the buffer which has 1 Mohm in parallel.  The
 signal is about 5V pk-pk, but the ringing dies down quickly.  BUT, the
 5335A was displaying a few hundredths of a Hz higher than 10MHz, whereas it
 was a few hundredths below before!  When I removed the probe, it went a few
 hundredths of a Hz below where it was originally and gradually recovered.

 So, in addition to temperature, the LTE-Lite eval board with 10MHz TCXO
 appears to be sensitive to load as well as temperature, such that just a
 10X oscilloscope probe will affect the output.  Normally, you probably
 wouldn't notice this, but I switched the loads while it was running.
 Certainly, once put in an enclosure, the 74AC04 buffer would be permanently
 connected and I'd assume any effect noticed above would be during the
 warmup of the LTE-Lite and wouldn't really be noticed.

 I'm sure I forgot some detail or other in the above description.  I
 couldn't find a DIP 74AC04 so I made a PCB for an SMT 784AC04 using MG
 Chemicals 1/32 positive-resist PCB and Eagle for the design; 1206 100 ohm
 series resistors and 1206 0.1uF ceramic DC blocking capacitors.  I laid it
 out for SMA sockets that you could wire RG-316 or similar directly instead.
 I used a 6 MMCX to RG-316 pigtail from the LTE-Lite to my buffer.  I
 mounted one SMA socket on the outputs which is what I used to connect to
 the HP 5335A.  The LT1763 has a 1uF 35V tantalum on the input and 10 uF 30V
 tantalum on the output (they are what I had in the parts bin, or I'd have
 used *smaller* ceramic parts).  I tweaked the design for hand soldering
 with no solder mask (i.e. 20 mil clearances and top layer restrictions
 around most components to keep the ground fill away).

 Orin.

 On Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 9:44 AM, Said Jackson via time-nuts 
 time-nuts@febo.com wrote:

 Hi Paul, Jim, David,

 Let me address all your emails:

 Glad you got your boards. $50 in overseas additional charges from your
 post office sucks!

 Some hints for experimenting from what I have learned:

 You definitely want to build a 50 Ohms buffer for the 10MHz boards and
 the synthesized outputs on all boards; on the 20MHz boards on the Tcxo
 output it's optional.

 The biggest problem is building a suitable 3.3V or 5V power supply. I
 built a buffer using two NC7SZ04 chips receiving the input in parallel with
 a 1M terminating resistor to ground. Then using a 100 Ohms series resistor
 on both outputs to get ~55 Ohms equivalent impedance, and combining the two
 R's to drive the 50 Ohms inputs through a 100nF cap for DC blocking. You
 can use a 74AC04 just as well. I tried a standard high quality 3-pin
 regulator and got very bad AM noise modulation due to the large noise on
 the rail. Then I used a very low noise LDO from LT and that solved the
 problem and the output is now very clean and drives 50 Ohms inputs with
 ease.

 you can grab the very low noise 3.0V rail output from the eval

Re: [time-nuts] Cheap 5370A on eBay

[Orin Eman]

On Sat, Dec 20, 2014 at 12:12 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp p...@phk.freebsd.dk
wrote:

 
 In message blu170-w651e405ea49cc0fe9e42d0ce...@phx.gbl, Mark Sims
 writes:

 I believe there are 5370 ROM dumps on KO4BB.COM

 They're also in the BBB-5370 repos.

 I few years back i posted on this forum how  I restored a 5370A
 that had a missing ROM board by installing an EEPROM into the empty
 socket on the CPU board.  I did have to jumper a couple  of address
 lines to the EEPROM and perhaps tweak the data buffer enable signal...
 it's been a while.  The 5370A normally uses a separate ROM  board
 containing the firmware in several ROM chips.  I read out those
 chips from a good machine and merged the data into a single EPROM.

 One detail to be aware of if you do this, is that the HP5370 uses
 inverters as address line buffers.



I suppose that would affect the order in which you merge the ROMS into a
single (E)EPROM, but that's hardly necessary any more.  The images in the
BBB repos are in the reversed order necessary for programming a new ROM.  I
had to reverse the order to disassemble the code...
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[time-nuts] Cheap 5370A on eBay

[Orin Eman]

#151518774079

Currently at $49.95 plus shipping.

It's showing a ROM error (7.7) on startup.  I asked what the error was this
morning and they posted pictures this afternoon.  It could be a candidate
for one of John Seamons' 5370 processor replacement boards assuming nothing
else is wrong.

I have the minimum bid in, but if anyone else wants it, go for it; I
already have one.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] 10MHz LTE-Lite

[Orin Eman]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 11:07 AM, Byron Hayes Jr bha...@earthlink.net
wrote:

 So, I brought out Big Gonzo, a HP 5335A counter with Option 010
 (Hi-Stability time base) I purchased on eBay about six months ago but had
 never fired up.  It came up OK and I hooked it to the LTE-Lite output.  It
 initially read 1028, but I gave it a couple of hours to warm up the
 oscillator oven and stabilize.  By then, the reading had settled to 10 000
 000.  Now I switched cables and hooked the Rb to the 5335A, and it read 10
 000 000.  I hooked the LTE-Lite to channel A of the 5335A and the Rb to
 channel B of the 5335A, and set the counter to ratio.  When it settled,
 the counter read 1.000 000 indicating that the two outputs were the same
 frequency, at least to six decimals.  Apparently the 5335A is right on.



You can get another couple of digits for frequency out of the 5335A by
setting the gate longer... I use about 2 o'clock on the Gate Adj. pot.

My 5335A is now reading 9 999 999.96 for both LTE Lite and Trimble
Thunderbolt.  It must be coming on 4 years since Joe/KN5U adjusted the OCXO
in the 5335A, so its drift seems well within spec.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] 10MHz LTE-Lite

[Orin Eman]

Hi Said,

It's a little while since you sent this, but I just finished some testing
with the LTE Lite.

I already had a Trimble Thunderbolt and also have an HP 5335A with OCXO.
The 5335A has shown the Trimble O/P 10 MHz +/- 0.03 Hz for the last few
years (displayed frequency on the 5335A has drifted down by about 0.04 Hz).

So, I set up the LTE Lite (10MHz TCXO version) with its antenna about 6'
from that used by the Trimble.  After letting it settle down, it looked
good.  I was using the high impedance input of the 5335A (aside: if set for
DC coupling, the 5335A would read 20MHz from the ringing.  I only have
about 18 of RG-188 after the pigtail supplied with the LTE Lite).

Today, I made up a buffer using a 74AC04 and LT1763-3.3 LDO regulator
supplied with 5V from a bench supply.  Two inverters each into 100 ohms
then 0.1uF DC block as suggested.  I connected this to the LTE Lite instead
of directly to the 5335A with the 5335A set to 50 ohms and the 5335A read
0.5Hz low!  It settled down to the original reading after a while.  I
looked at the signal from the buffer using a 50 ohm pass-through terminator
and the signal looked nice and square.

A few hours later I went back and it still looked good.  I decided to look
at the input to the buffer on a TDS-210 'scope with a 10X probe.  There is
now perhaps 6 of coax to the buffer which has 1 Mohm in parallel.  The
signal is about 5V pk-pk, but the ringing dies down quickly.  BUT, the
5335A was displaying a few hundredths of a Hz higher than 10MHz, whereas it
was a few hundredths below before!  When I removed the probe, it went a few
hundredths of a Hz below where it was originally and gradually recovered.

So, in addition to temperature, the LTE-Lite eval board with 10MHz TCXO
appears to be sensitive to load as well as temperature, such that just a
10X oscilloscope probe will affect the output.  Normally, you probably
wouldn't notice this, but I switched the loads while it was running.
Certainly, once put in an enclosure, the 74AC04 buffer would be permanently
connected and I'd assume any effect noticed above would be during the
warmup of the LTE-Lite and wouldn't really be noticed.

I'm sure I forgot some detail or other in the above description.  I
couldn't find a DIP 74AC04 so I made a PCB for an SMT 784AC04 using MG
Chemicals 1/32 positive-resist PCB and Eagle for the design; 1206 100 ohm
series resistors and 1206 0.1uF ceramic DC blocking capacitors.  I laid it
out for SMA sockets that you could wire RG-316 or similar directly instead.
I used a 6 MMCX to RG-316 pigtail from the LTE-Lite to my buffer.  I
mounted one SMA socket on the outputs which is what I used to connect to
the HP 5335A.  The LT1763 has a 1uF 35V tantalum on the input and 10 uF 30V
tantalum on the output (they are what I had in the parts bin, or I'd have
used *smaller* ceramic parts).  I tweaked the design for hand soldering
with no solder mask (i.e. 20 mil clearances and top layer restrictions
around most components to keep the ground fill away).

Orin.

On Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 9:44 AM, Said Jackson via time-nuts 
time-nuts@febo.com wrote:

 Hi Paul, Jim, David,

 Let me address all your emails:

 Glad you got your boards. $50 in overseas additional charges from your
 post office sucks!

 Some hints for experimenting from what I have learned:

 You definitely want to build a 50 Ohms buffer for the 10MHz boards and the
 synthesized outputs on all boards; on the 20MHz boards on the Tcxo output
 it's optional.

 The biggest problem is building a suitable 3.3V or 5V power supply. I
 built a buffer using two NC7SZ04 chips receiving the input in parallel with
 a 1M terminating resistor to ground. Then using a 100 Ohms series resistor
 on both outputs to get ~55 Ohms equivalent impedance, and combining the two
 R's to drive the 50 Ohms inputs through a 100nF cap for DC blocking. You
 can use a 74AC04 just as well. I tried a standard high quality 3-pin
 regulator and got very bad AM noise modulation due to the large noise on
 the rail. Then I used a very low noise LDO from LT and that solved the
 problem and the output is now very clean and drives 50 Ohms inputs with
 ease.

 you can grab the very low noise 3.0V rail output from the eval board to
 power the buffers (see the schematics in the user manual) but loading that
 creates a bit of heat on the LTE-Lite which will affect stability a tiny
 bit.

 On the power consumption, you can see we go through a linear regulator to
 get 3.3V from 5V USB/EXT power. This is very inefficient. For best power
 consumption you want to use a very high efficiency buck regulator to
 generate the 3.3V from your battery. This means you loose the USB interface
 though as that chip runs from 5V and has an internal LDO.

 On the zero Ohms R2/R3 resistors, check the schematics - these allow you
 to power the DIP-14 Tcxo from either the digital 3.3V rail, or the
 low-noise 3.0V rail (default). The software will auto-detect if you attach
 a 10MHz or 20MHz Tcxo, no 

Re: [time-nuts] LTE-Lite

[Orin Eman]

On Fri, Nov 28, 2014 at 3:42 PM, Hal Murray hmur...@megapathdsl.net wrote:


 kb...@n1k.org said:
  The “new chip ID, new com port” thing is pretty typical for the FTDI
  drivers. If you plug the old LTE back in there’s a good chance it will
 come
  back up as COMM 5. Usually they are pretty good about only adding ports
 for
  devices they have not seen before.

 Most/some of the FTDI usb to serial chips have a serial number.  I don't
 know
 how it works on Windows, but on Linux, you can use the udev rules to make
 an
 alias so your software can refer to something with a filename like
 /dev/LITE
 rather than /dev/ttyUSB2.  It works no matter which slot you plug it into
 and/or still works after it gets unplugged and reconnected.



It's really a limitation of USB.  You have the vendor ID, product ID, and
for some devices, a serial number.

IF the device has a serial number, next time it's plugged in, the OS can be
pretty certain it's the same device and can use the same COM port or device
assignment as last time.  If not, all bets are off.

If a USB device has no serial number, Windows choses to use the physical
USB port the device is plugged into.  I.e. if you plug such a device with
the same vendor ID/product ID into the same USB port, you get the same COM
port assignment.  I really don't know of a better way.  It's unfortunate
that for a device with no serial number, if you plug the same device into a
different USB port, you get a different COM port, but it is the best
solution for the case where you have more than one USB device with the same
vendor ID/product ID... it works just the same as traditional RS232 ports:
the COM port assignment depends on which socket you plug the device in.

It is also unfortunate that the USB specs allowed this to happen and didn't
require devices to have a serial number.
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Re: [time-nuts] Si570 question

[Orin Eman]

I have one of these: http://sdr-kits.net/PA0KLT_Description.html

built with the CML output Si570 that goes to 1417 MHz (!)

There is a schematic in the assembly manual that's linked to from that
page.  They use 100n and 1n capacitors in parallel on Vdd and 4K7 pullups
on SCL/SDA.  They have 100n DC blocks directly on the output pins.

Into a 50 ohm load, the CML outputs produce about 4dBm as I recall.
Obviously, the CMOS output will be different.

There is a review of a different Si570 kit on the Clifton Labs site:

http://www.cliftonlaboratories.com/si570_kit_from_k5bcq.htm

I got similar results comparing my kit against an HP 8640B.  The Si570
beats the 8640B close in just as shown on the Clifton Labs site.

Some Softrock SDR radios also use the Si570.  They use a single 10n
capacitor on Vdd and 2K2 pullups...:

http://www.wb5rvz.org/ensemble_rxtx/03_lo

I have the Softrock Ensemble RXTX.  It works fine on RX, but unfortunately
I have not been able to get satisfactory image rejection on TX.  I suspect
the FST3253.

So, it looks like decoupling isn't that critical - 10n or 100n||1n in these
examples.  1K pullups on SDA/SCL seem to be overkill and anything
reasonable = 4K7 should work.

Orin.


On Tue, Nov 18, 2014 at 7:59 AM, Jim Lux jim...@earthlink.net wrote:

 I'm sure someone here has fooled with the Si570.
 I just got a few of them (CMOS output), and am about to deadbug one of
 them to fool with it (unless there's some convenient protoboard out there
 available.. I didn't look too long and hard, but some casual googling
 didn't find one).
 Looking at AN334 from SiLabs:
 It looks like you just need a 10nF bypass on the Vcc, a pull down on the
 OE (1k), 1k pullups to 3.3V on SDA/SCL (which is going to be driven by a
 3.3V teensy 3.0/3.1 microcontroller)
 150 ohm loads to ground, followed by a 0.1 uF DC block?

 I'm going to be running it at less than 50 MHz (although the parts I got
 are preset to 100 MHz)

 Any traps for the unwary?
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Re: [time-nuts] Lord Vetinari wall clock

[Orin Eman]

I made one and replaced a normal wall clock at work.  No-one really noticed
unless it was pointed out.

I got it from here:

www.akafugu.jp/posts/products/vetinariclock/

Out of stock at the moment though.

On Sun, Nov 2, 2014 at 5:59 AM, Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org wrote:

 Hi

 We’ve gone around on this one a few times. The group seem to divide into
 two groups. One group suggests that anything other than perfect accuracy is
 not a TimeNut subject. The other group seems to come up with “that’s neat …
 do it this way”. Part of it seems to depend a bit on having read (and very
 much liked) Terry Pratchett’s writings.

 Bob

  On Nov 2, 2014, at 8:48 AM, Mike Baker mp...@clanbaker.org wrote:
 
  Time-Nutters--
 
  I have been tempted to build a (hacked) wall clock
  (after Lord Vetinari) that has an erratic second hand
  that sometimes skips ticks and sometimes ticks
  several times very rapidly but still keeps correct
  time.   I would love to put one of these up on a doctor's
  patient waiting room wall just to see what people's
  reactions are.
 
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpqFU4SGe1Y
 
  I suppose this would not generate the same reaction
  if it were done to a digital (numerical) clock.
  H---  maybe if a tick sound were added...?
  Nah...  Whoever heard of a digital clock that ticked...
 
  See:
 
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpqFU4SGe1Y
 
  Mike Baker
 
 
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Re: [time-nuts] ARM boards for low-cost GPSDOs

[Orin Eman]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 4:40 PM, Chris Albertson
albertson.ch...@gmail.comwrote:


 3) TI sells a Launch Pad at a very good price, about $13 and it is VERY
 well supported with training materials, software and so on.  I'm sure TI
 iix taking a loss on these.   They can't be making money at $13  This is a
 great value.
 http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/launchpads-tivac.html#tabs



edX have been running a course on embedded systems using a TI LaunchPad.
 I've been doing it for fun using the TI Stellaris LM4F120 LaunchPad:

https://www.edx.org/course/utaustinx/utaustinx-ut-6-01x-embedded-systems-1172

If that doesn't work, got to www.edx.org and look for courses from
UTAustinX.

It's a pretty good introduction to programming these things, using the Keil
development environment.  They have programmed addons to the IDE to grade
your work both in simulation and on real hardware.  A bit late to start on
it, but no actual deadlines have passed... yet.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] First success with very simple, very low cost GPSDO, under $8

[Orin Eman]

On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 2:08 AM, Hal Murray hmur...@megapathdsl.net wrote:


 hol...@hotmail.com said:
  I'm not sure how the Arduino environment handles interrupts,  but in C
 you
  need to declare any variables altered by an interrupt as volatile so
 that
  the compiler optimization routines know not to assume they contain known
  values.

 Good point.

  Also any code that accesses them needs to do so with interrupts turned
  off...  otherwise you can wind up with corrupted values.

 Not quite.  That may be the simplest way, but you can also use
 inter-process
 communications type tricks.  The classic for a two byte counter is to read
 high-low-high and try again if the high values don't match.  That assumes
 the
 interrupt routine updates low then (maybe) high.



You have to read hardware counter registers on some PIC chips that way.
 You have to read the documentation carefully to work out how to correctly
read 16bit counters on an 8 bit CPU.

The order the interrupt routine updates the counter shouldn't matter since
it's atomic as far as the mainline code is concerned.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] First success with very simple, very low cost GPSDO, under $8

[Orin Eman]

On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 11:03 AM, Chris Albertson
albertson.ch...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 2:08 AM, Hal Murray hmur...@megapathdsl.net
 wrote:

 
   Also any code that accesses them needs to do so with interrupts turned
   off...  otherwise you can wind up with corrupted values.
 

 Forgot if I made this point but in a GPSDO when the interrupt is caused by
 the PPS, the interrupts are in effect off for 0.9 seconds after each
 interrupt.   The software can assume an interrupt will never happen less
 then one second after an interrupt.  So the software does all the variable
 access within millisecond after each interrupt.

 These micro controllers are actually much easier to deal with than a
 general purpose multi-tasking operating system.  There is far less
 non-determinism.



Indeed.  I was just thinking the same thing.  It's much easier to deal with
an interrupt routine updating variables than multiple threads fighting over
them...   I just had to replace a mutex lock with an atomic exchange to
avoid a deadlock in my code at work.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] Rb as source for ADEV?

[Orin Eman]

Bob,

If you want a C++ class to talk to the Prologix Ethernet, I have one.  (I
don't have a USB version, but that would just be a matter of implementing a
simple subclass to do the communication with the device.)

I also have code that uses the above and talk to a 5335A and to a 5370A,
both of which like to sulk if you don't do things in the right order.

It's written for Windows and should compile in the _free_ Visual Studio
Express 2012 (it used to, but the last time I built it was with the full
version).  Porting to Linux/Mac/iOS would be easy enough... maybe I'll do
iOS for fun, if Xcode doesn't sulk and stays alive long enough that is; the
only thing Xcode does fast for me is crash!

Licensing for all but the findAdapters method will be LGPL once I put
headers in.  findAdapters() is derived from John Miles's GPIB library and
subject to its licensing.

Orin,
KJ7HQ


On Sun, Feb 9, 2014 at 7:36 AM, Bob Stewart b...@evoria.net wrote:

 Hi Hal,

 I'm thinking about doing it, but I'm still doing extended tests of my
 GPSDO with the 5334B.  So in order to get access to the 5335A, I'll have to
 write a server for my Prologix GPIB Ethernet adapter.  I've got a lot of
 time nuts projects stacked up, and it looks like the GPIB server is going
 to be key to all of them.

 Bob - AE6RV





 
  From: Hal Murray hmur...@megapathdsl.net
 To: Bob Stewart b...@evoria.net; Discussion of precise time and
 frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com
 Cc: hmur...@megapathdsl.net
 Sent: Saturday, February 8, 2014 10:48 PM
 Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Rb as source for ADEV?
 
 
 
 b...@evoria.net said:
  Would I learn anything useful by hooking my Rb standard up to my 5335A
 and
  comparing that to the OCXO?
 
 What kind of time-nut question is that?  :)
 
 Try it and see.   Maybe you will find something interesting where you/we
 didn't expect it.
 
 If you assume the Rb is stable, you should be able to watch the long term
 drift of the OCXO.  How many low digits can you get out of the 5335A?
 
 Do you have an GPSDO to add to the mix?  That would let you calibrate the
 Rb.
 
 
 
 --
 These are my opinions.  I hate spam.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Re: [time-nuts] ThunderBolt Display - Update

[Orin Eman]

My test for this kind of thing is: Would it be OK if a frequent
contributor to the list had posted the same information?.  I.e. is the
information of interest to the list?  In this case, I'd say yes and I have
no problem with it being posted here.  If he posted the same information
every week, it would be a different matter.  Then it would be looking
mighty spammy.

This product?  I looked at it and decided it was too expensive for my
taste.  I'll stick with LH.

As for removing anyone from an email list - pointless IMO.  The really
obnoxious ones come right back with a different email address and you end
up playing a game of whack-a-mole.  If you don't want to hear from this
guy, just set up a filter to trash his emails.


On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 12:09 AM, wb6bnq wb6...@cox.net wrote:

 Well Robert,

 In his Youtube video he says it is fully assembled, so no code, schematics
 or programmed cpu would be forthcoming is how I would interpret it. Up Shot
 is this is just shameless promotion.

 From my 99% complete Timenuts list database of saved messages going back
 to Jan 2006, his first appearance on the list was last year on Oct 3, 2012.
 This is his third message to the list with all three messages being a sales
 pitch for his product. It certainly seems to be a one-way gratuitous
 relationship to say the least.

 I don't mind people talking about, describing and offering their efforts
 to the list. But, I do mind when it seems that is the only purpose of their
 involvement.

 So, I would vote to have him removed from the list.

 BillWB6BNQ

 Robert Atkinson wrote:

  Hi Adam,
 If you do not normally monitor this email reflector or contribute to
 it, why are you using it it promote your commecial product?
 Are you going to make the circuit and code (or programmed MCUs) available
 to list members?
 Â Robert G8RPI.



 __**__
 From: Adam Maurer m...@vklogger.com
 To: time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, 12 September 2013, 6:56
 Subject: [time-nuts] ThunderBolt Display - Update

 Hello all

 An update:
 ThunderBolt Display started shipping over a week ago.
 31 out the 50 have already been sold.

 I have made a video on the display, and you can see a working example
 here:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?**v=BSSZ6BcggBohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSSZ6BcggBo

 Any new orders for the  “jumbo† sized green and standard sized
 inverted blue variants will incur a 2 week wait, as these LCDs are only
 ordered in as-required.

 I do have a number of standard sized green units available for immediate
 shipping though on a first-in basis.

 I am away for 3 weeks in October, so if you want a display sooner than
 later, you should consider placing an order in the next few days, as it
 take 2 weeks for the LCDs to arrive.

 For more information of this device, please refer to:
 http://vk4ghz.com/thunderbolt-**display/http://vk4ghz.com/thunderbolt-display/
 You will find the latest revision of User Guide and Tech Supplement PDFs
 available as well.
 PayPal is welcome on the proviso I receive the full amount and you take
 care of any PayPal fees, if applicable.
 (This changes from one region to another)
 One way to avoid fees is to make sure your PayPal account has funds in
 it, and never draw upon other accounts (especially a credit card).

 Once these are gone, they are gone, and 130 units will be out there in 12
 countries (so far).

 I do not normally monitor this email reflector, so please email me
 directly, if you want to obtain a ThunderBolt Display.


 Cheers,
 Adam, VK4GHZ
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Re: [time-nuts] ThunderBolt Display - Update

[Orin Eman]

Enough already.

As ever, the followups are worse than the original offense, if any.

Robert should not have forwarded Adam's reply to the list, but since he
did, note that _another list member_ suggested that Adam post the
information here.  Nice welcome.  Not.


Orin, KJ7HQ.
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Re: [time-nuts] FE-5680A Voltage?

[Orin Eman]

Yes, my reading of the datasheet was the same.  18V in would be fine for
15V output.  My concern would be how noisy the output would be.  I have 9
of the from China ebay boards here (gave one to my boss to play with).  I
should wire one up and take a look.  At any rate, I think a turn or two of
the output wires through a ferrite bead would be in order.  The data sheet
shows a secondary filter of 3uH/180uF as well which I'd certainly want to
use to feed a 5680A.  Shouldn't do any harm, might do some good.

Orin.


On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 7:19 PM, Robert LaJeunesse 
rlajeune...@sbcglobal.net wrote:

 Looking at the LM2596 datasheet the switch transistor saturation voltage
 is 1.5V max at 3A (1.16v typ). That and an educated guess of about 0.25V
 for inductor loss combine to set the minimum difference between input and
 output. The 1.23V reference is about +/-3% accurate, so after setting the
 buckboard to 15.00V out (at 25C) expect it to shift at most 0.5V over
 time and temp. Add that to the minimum in-out difference and now you are at
 a minimum safe input of 2.25V above the nominal 15V output, or 17.25V in.
  An old 19V 3A laptop supply might be a good supply to use for this, if you
 were local I'd hand you one.

 As for efficiency, that just tells you the amount of heat the regulator,
 plus inductor, plus diode, etc. will throw off. FWIW the datasheet Figure 5
 indicates you should expect about 88% or better efficiency for 15V out and
 at least 2V higher input voltage. (Doing some switching power supply design
 for a living does help with my understanding of them, but not ever enough!)

 Bob LaJeunesse

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Re: [time-nuts] DIY HP/Agilent 53131A 010 High Stability Timebase Option

[Orin Eman]

On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 9:30 AM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist 
rich...@karlquist.com wrote:


  I have an 18 GHz HP 5342A frequency counter, which I don't seem to see
 a lot, as members of my radio club borrow it. But it  has no oven.
 There is an option for an oven, but my model does not have the
 optional oven fitted. I don't know if it would take a 10811A - if so I
 might fit one, since I have a spare of them around.

 Dave


 When the 10811 was being designed, the prime directive was that it
 had to be retrofittable into any 10544 socket.  (Note that the
 converse is not necessarily true.)  Therefore you should be able
 to install a 10811 in an old counter, if you have the infrastructure
 that fitted the 10544.  IIRC, the 5342 came out in the 1970's before
 the 10811.



In the 5342A the 10544A was option 001.  Installing it is just a matter of
removing the TCXO, plugging the OCXO in and securing it with a couple of
5/16 6-32 screws in.  The hardest part is probably finding the right
screws.  The 'infrastructure' is already there.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] SDR Radio Opinion- Next Question

[Orin Eman]

Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix

Microsoft DID sell a re-branded Unix.

On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 2:34 PM, Chris Albertson
albertson.ch...@gmail.comwrote:

 Yes,  I'm writing this on an iMac.  I'm a long time BSD Unix user going
 back to about 1980.

 Now, FINALLY we can say the UNIX and Linux are the most commonly used OSes
 in the wold as one of those runs on most phones.  Linux is in Androids and
 a unix varient is on iPhones and Macs

 I remember going to a talk by Bill Gates, this was in the  pre-Windows ears
 when his main product was MS-DOS.  He said that he would make DOS more and
 more unix-like as PC hardware grew in power.  At that time he did not
 understand what an OS was and they UNIX was just the shell, and worked like
 DOS.  It was was an amusing speak he was completely ignorant about OS
 design.  But he was the exec not the engineer so he did not have to know.
  Still  Had Windows not surprised them Gates would have done have Apple
 (and Sun and man others) did and simply sold a re-branded UNIX.   What much
 better off we'd all have been


 On Tue, Aug 6, 2013 at 12:43 AM, Mark C. Stephens ma...@non-stop.com.au
 wrote:

  Hi Chris,
 
 
  The Mac OS X user base is also growing rapidly, with many preferring the
 X
  desktop to Winders.
  And, under the hood is BSD unix (sort of).. And there is MkLinux if you
  don't like OS X..
 
   It depends of it you want to be the kind of ham who understands radios
  and can build and design them
   or the kind who would have never remove the cover off his commercial
  built radio.
   Linux is the best OS for developers and those who like to build gear.
   Windows is better for the appliance user crowd.
 

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Re: [time-nuts] HP 10811 update

[Orin Eman]

I find it hard to believe that NTE spec the 123AP to replace a transistor
with min beta of 500...

This is quite entertaining:

http://www.vetco.net/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1856

Look at the parts it's supposed to replace.

(Nothing against Vetco - they are a great source of NTE components and are
local to me.  They are just quoting what NTE claim.)

Orin.




On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 8:42 PM, J. L. Trantham jlt...@att.net wrote:

 The 2N6429 crosses to an NTE123AP, in stock at Allied for $0.80.


 http://www.alliedelec.com/search/productdetail.aspx?SKU=70214870mkwid=szEc5

 jMBIpcrid=23468365337pkw=nte123appmt=epdv=cgclid=CKyzu9_cybgCFWYV7AodJA
 sAWQ

 Good luck.

 Joe

 -Original Message-
 From: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On
 Behalf Of paul swed
 Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2013 8:29 PM
 To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
 Subject: Re: [time-nuts] HP 10811 update

 Well learned quite a bit Q4 does have an issue. Further there is a reason
 it
 has such high Beta. Its must deliver 30 ma to the oscillator and buffer.
 I was quite surprised by this current level. I was  guessing the oscillator
 was a few mils and the buffer maybe 8.
 The 2n3904 simply does not cut it. Need to do some digging in the ole
 transistors.
 Regards
 Paul.


 On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 8:06 PM, paul swed paulsw...@gmail.com wrote:

  I can hope
  I will embed a k thermocouple also.
 
 
  On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 7:45 PM, Bob Camp li...@rtty.us wrote:
 
  Hi
 
  The regulator should be fixed, and the OCXO will work better with it
  repaired. That said, shifting the regulated voltage from 5.7 to 5.27
  volts should not shift that oscillator 45 Hz.
 
  Bob
 
  On Jul 24, 2013, at 9:00 AM, paul swed paulsw...@gmail.com wrote:
 
   Hello to the group. Numbers of threads running on the HP 10811.
   Mine is
  45
   Hz low. The oven is most likely ok. I did get the can open per the
  various
   other threads and the web pix. Started testing the circuits and
   have
  found
   that the regulator for the oscillator isn't. Its supposed to
   produce
  5.7V
   and is at 5.27V thats pretty significant. The transistor looks like
   a shorted collector base junction. Though I do not have it out of
   circuit yet. Its Q4 a 2n6429. What interesting about this
   transistor is its
  beta at
   1 ma is 500 min and max is 1300. Its not a darlington. Thats pretty
   amazing. I am looking through my xsistors to find something close.
   May
  just
   through a 2n3904 in for a quick test. Its beta is nothing like the
 6429.
   But it would help to prove/disprove the point that the low V may be
   offsetting the oscillator I hope.
   Will also embed a K thermal couple to verify the oven really is in
   the 80-84C region.
   Regards
   Paul.
   WB8TSL
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Re: [time-nuts] Spectrum Analyzer Suggestions

[Orin Eman]

On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 7:37 AM, David Kirkby david.kir...@onetel.netwrote:

 On 15 July 2013 14:19, Robert LaJeunesse rlajeune...@sbcglobal.net
 wrote:
  Rigol, unlike most of the Asian based manufacturers, does have a support
 office in the States. They have also had a noticeable presence at the
 Dayton Hamvention. I'm rather pleased with the low-end Rigol scope I bought
 at Dayton two years ago.
 
  Bob LaJeunesse

 I don't know if it is true, but I read somewhere that some of the
 low-end Agilent scopes are made by Rigol. Personally I'd try to work
 around the weight issues of the HP. At least the HP will be fixable,
 whereas the Rigol will most likely be unrepairable in a few years
 time.



That was true, but I'm not sure it's true any more.

The new Rigol 2000 series scopes look very nice, but I just paid Tektronix
to tell me my 15 year old TDS210 is still in calibration, so no new scope
for me.

Back to spectrum analyzers.  The Rigol is very nice, but as far as I can
tell, an HP 8568A/B is going to beat it handily in terms of phase noise and
resolution bandwidth and you can pick up a good example of the HP for about
the same price.  But you do have the weight issue.  You need a GPIB
controller if you want to capture screenshots etc. from the HP, but the
Prologix USB controller at $150 will do that nicely.

If you want new and a warranty, I think the Rigol is the way to go.  There
is also the Signalhound, but it has software issues and needs a PC to drive
it.  I got a broken 8568B with the intent of fixing it, selling it and
getting a Signalhound.  The 8568B, though marginal on its log fidelity test
(an in-spec Rigol would be no better) is staying.

If you want to know what's in a Rigol SA, Dave Jones has a teardown here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY0acWrCYjw


Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] HP 5370B Leds pulsing slowly, buttons selecting normally, PB LEDS scannning and appears to be reading o/k

[Orin Eman]

What's the specified tolerance on the 17,000 uF?  You probably have quite a
range to work within.  If you are lucky, they specified something like
+80/-20% and the 29,000 uF might be OK (measure it).


On Sat, Jul 6, 2013 at 4:18 AM, Mark C. Stephens ma...@non-stop.com.auwrote:

 C3 (17000uf @ 10v) is open circuit.
 Where am I going to get one of those from.

 I need some advice here, Should I just use modern low ESR solder lug type
 soldered directly onto the board?
 Or Should I try and locate a screw terminal type Capacitor?

 Obviously, I want to do the best for this timer as I rely on it
 tremendously.


 -marki

 -Original Message-
 From: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On
 Behalf Of Mark C. Stephens
 Sent: Saturday, 6 July 2013 8:47 PM
 To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
 Subject: Re: [time-nuts] HP 5370B Leds pulsing slowly, buttons selecting
 normally, PB LEDS scannning and appears to be reading o/k

 Checked the PSU voltages on the PSU card next to the 10811.
 The -5.2 is reading -4.2.
 Took a look with the scope and instead of a nice flat DC I see a 4V Peak
 to Peak spike @ 100Hz.
 Trying to track down a service manual.
 Any ideas on this one guys, if the Pass tranny was shorted, it would be a
 lot more than 4.2V unless the overvoltage Zener is able to sink all that
 current...


 -marki


 -Original Message-
 From: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On
 Behalf Of Mark C. Stephens
 Sent: Saturday, 6 July 2013 8:18 PM
 To: time-nuts@febo.com
 Subject: [time-nuts] HP 5370B Leds pulsing slowly, buttons selecting
 normally, PB LEDS scannning and appears to be reading o/k

 I went to use my 5370B todayt and noticed the LEDS on the display are
 slowly sort of pulsing bright one after another.
 Also all the push button LEDS are going on and off one by one.
 The strangest thing is that it appears to be working o/k via HPIB.

 I don't have extender boards but I do have a signature analyser.

 Could it be something silly like one of the PSU regulator has gone kaput?
 Has anyone seen this issue before?


 -marki

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Re: [time-nuts] OT Prototype Boards

[Orin Eman]

0.1 is 2.54mm by definition these days.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_yard_and_pound

Now whether the board really is 2.54mm is an entirely different matter...
if it is, you should be fine with 0.1 pitch chips.

Orin.



On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 9:10 PM, Bob Stewart b...@evoria.net wrote:

 I need to get some largish prototype boards for my project.  Has the
 industry standardized on a 0.10 pitch for hole spacing?  IOW, if the ad
 says 2.54mm pitch will I get a board that will fit American chips, or will
 I just get something metric sized for the landfill?  I ask, because I've
 got a prototype board sitting around here someplace that is unusable
 because the pitch isn't quite right.  Needless to say, I'm ordering this
 from ebay from a seller in China or Hong Kong or someplace, points East.

 Bob - AE6RV
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Re: [time-nuts] Good (cheap) PIC chip choice for project?

[Orin Eman]

On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 4:50 AM, Bob Camp li...@rtty.us wrote:

 Hi

 One of the original starting points was a free tool chain. Paying major
 money for a compiler is moving a bit far from that. You would have to do a
 *lot* of home projects to justify that cost.



Indeed.  I wouldn't pay commercial prices for a PIC C compiler for home
projects.  The 'Lite' version of SourceBoost that I actually bought is a
whopping $5 and in spite of its RAM/ROM limitations, it's been good enough
for me.  If I ever sell a product that uses it, I'd need the commercial
version at $150 - fair enough IMO.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] Good (cheap) PIC chip choice for project?

[Orin Eman]

On Sat, May 25, 2013 at 6:39 PM, Didier Juges shali...@gmail.com wrote:

 While I have often said that I have more time than money, I still consider
 that my time is too scarce (or valuable) for assembly language.

 My opinion is that the language for small embedded devices is C. Some may
 disagree, but after over 40 years of writing software for a whole bunch of
 platforms (obviously not all in C), I see no reason to switch to something
 else for small embedded systems.

 Therefore make sure you select a chip/family/architecture for which you
 can get a decent C compiler.

 Friends don't let friends write in assembly.



I agree entirely.

C is pretty close to assembly itself in a way... given its history where
*p1++ = *p2++; was one PDP-11 instruction.

It's so much easier to get a program going in C than PIC assembly; now
which way around do I have to put the operands to subtract a constant?  (I
had macros to do such things before I switched to a C compiler.)

I have tried a few PIC C compilers and actually paid money for the
SourceBoost compiler.  I look at the assembly output and it usually does at
least as good a job as I would.  If not and it's timing critical, I can
embed some assembly, though the little review I just did showed that the
timing critical parts were in C!

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] Net4501's cheap..

[Orin Eman]

There were two auctions... the $59 ones are new, the others lightly used.
Now there are only the new ones left.


On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 7:10 PM, Tom Clifton kc0...@yahoo.com wrote:

 Seller obviously figured out that somebody feels they are of value and
 adjusted the selling price to see what he can squeeze out of them.  I'd
 suggest making a $20 offer if you want to try to drive the price back down
 to what is reasonable


 Message: 6
 Date: Sun, 19 May 2013 18:07:51 -0500
 From: Didier Juges shali...@gmail.com
 To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
 Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Net4501's cheap...
 I snatched one for $20 and they are now $59 or best offer.
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Re: [time-nuts] Signal Hound

[Orin Eman]

There is a yahoo group for the Signal Hound.  For one user, the original
Signal Hound showed really poor phase noise performance with an external
reference with the internal reference always being better... see the
External ref vs internal ref.pdf document on the yahoo group for
details.  The plot presented in that document looks really bad.

Orin.


On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 8:39 PM, Jim Lux jim...@earthlink.net wrote:

 Inexpensive USB spectrum analyzer.. http://www.signalhound.com/

 I think it has the ability to capture raw samples, too. (the BB60
 definitely does.)  They have a 10MHz ref input.

 The spectrum analyzer has a phase noise feature
 Phase Noise Plot
 : Displays the phase noise amplitude, in dBc/Hz, vs. offset from carrier
 when checked. You must have a span of 10 KHz or less, and the signal should
 be within 1 division of the reference level (e.g. within 10 dB). This
 utility takes about 1 minute to run. It will sweep several times, then
 combine the sweeps into a phase noise plot. The data is approximate and is
 limited by the phase noise of the SignalHound itself. For best close in
 phase noise, use an external 10 MHz reference with  10 dBm power level. To
 resume normal operation,click Phase Noise Plot a second time to un check.


 Anyone fooled with one?  Think it might work as a low cost part of a phase
 noise test set.
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Re: [time-nuts] Win XP and NIST time

[Orin Eman]

On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 9:46 AM, Dan Kemppainen d...@irtelemetrics.comwrote:


 As for timing things on windows, check out how to read the performance
 counters in windows. I believe these are QueryPerformanceCounter and
  QueryPerformanceFrequency in kernel32. In most modern systems these should
 give a time stamp from the system start, at the native core clock frequency.



If you use those, you have to lock the thread you are timing to one
CPU/Core as the performance counters are per CPU/Core and can get out of
step.  Or you can force your thread onto one CPU for the
QueryPerformanceCounter call.  This seems to be a bad idea to me as it
would add an indeterminate time before querying the counter (indeterminate
as if you are running on a different CPU, the OS would have to switch to
the one you requested).

Search for SetThreadAffinityMask and/or SetProcessAffinityMask along with
QueryPerformanceCounter.

Then all bets are off if you have a CPU that runs at variable speed if you
want the result to be actual time.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] 2.5 Ghz 12 digit counter project

[Orin Eman]

On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 6:45 PM, Tom Harris celephi...@gmail.com wrote:

 Watch out for Silicon Chip designs, they have a habit of not making the
 source code available, which you only find out at the end of the project. I
 suppose that it is to allow the author to make a few extra $$ selling
 programmed micros. They had a nice 3 phase inverter design a year ago that
 had this problem, I wrote to the author promising not to distribute the
 source, I just wanted to read it, but didn't even get the courtesy of an
 answer.

 I suspect that this counter is like the inverter, an oldish design that is
 not worth building as you can get the same for half the cost out of China.
 What makes it worthwhile is getting the hardware  the source code, so that
 you can tinker with it.



I have a 2.7GHz counter out of China and cannot recommend it.

If I feed it 10 MHz from a OCXO that is within 1Hz (as checked on my 5335A
with high stability timebase), the counter will read fine for a while, then
the reading will start drifting upwards and become unstable.  I forget how
high the reading drifts, hundreds of Hz at least.  It will count to at
least 2.7GHz, but I cannot trust it.

It also has a 13 MHz output on the back.  I looked at it on my TDS210
digital scope and there is a glitch on the leading edge of the waveform!
It clearly goes up, returns to zero then finally goes back up for the rest
of half a period.  Whether this glitch affects the gating, I don't know.
It's possible it is generated in whatever circuit buffers the clock for the
output.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] For my whole life timezones have been weird

[Orin Eman]

On Sat, Nov 3, 2012 at 9:24 AM, Jim Lux jim...@earthlink.net wrote:

 On 11/3/12 8:50 AM, Chris Albertson wrote:


 That is the root cause of all Window's problems.  The company was run be a
 chief software architect who technically very ignorant and lacked any
 formal education in the subject.  Windows still suffers because it tries
 to
 maintain backwards compatabilty



 Hardly the root of all problems..  Yes, the conflation of kernel and UI
  (most of Windows is really all about UI capabilities: heck it's the very
 name of the product).  The kernel of NT was based on the architecture of
 VAX/VMS, which was fairly nice.  Real multitasking, real pre-emption, real
 process isolation, real dynamic run time binding. (none of which DOS had)



There was also OS/2...





We have the Internet (called arpanet back then.  We had email and UNIX
 was
 alive and well.   We even had mice and track balls This was not the dark
 ages the only real difference was the price of hardware.  And in this age
 gates did NOT know the difference between an OS and a command shell and he
 was running Microsoft.


 Don't make the mistake of confusing public statements with background and
 knowledge.  For all you know, Gates wanted to deliberately confuse the two
 for marketing reasons.



Not to mention that in the early 80s, Microsoft was a leading supplier of
Unix, er, Xenix!  Here is an interesting history:

http://www.softpanorama.org/People/Torvalds/Finland_period/xenix_microsoft_shortlived_love_affair_with_unix.shtml

and note the comment by John Wilson* here:

https://plus.google.com/112975947891556571931/posts/Vpmx4EBMCR3

Yes, Unix was alive and well back then and Microsoft were actively using
and selling it.  The PC market was a different animal.

Orin,
Worked in Europe in the early 80s with Xenix.

*Managed the group at Logica in London that sold Xenix in Europe.  He had
the misfortune that Microsoft kept poaching his staff to work in Redmond on
Windows!
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Re: [time-nuts] WWVB New Modulation scheme...

[Orin Eman]

Looks like they _might_ have been 30 _Hz_ out... I had to tune to 1188.97
to get a 1kHz beat in upper sideband mode a few minutes ago but they are
within 10Hz of where they are supposed to be now - according to my radio
anyway (I just checked the radio against WWV at 5MHz and it was less than
10Hz out).

Orin, KJ7HQ.

On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 7:41 PM, Bob Camp li...@rtty.us wrote:

 Hi

 Not to mention attention from the guy who *should* be 3 channels over …

 Bob

 On Oct 26, 2012, at 10:31 PM, Peter Gottlieb n...@verizon.net wrote:

  It would attract a lot of attention from people not finding it at the
 right place on the dial.
 
  On 10/26/2012 10:09 PM, Max Robinson wrote:
  The frequency of 1190 indicates an AM station.  I assume you mean 30
 Hz.  An error of 30 KHz would attract a lot of attention from Charley.
 
  Regards.
 
  Max.  K 4 O DS.
 
  Email: m...@maxsmusicplace.com
 
  Transistor site http://www.funwithtransistors.net
  Vacuum tube site: http://www.funwithtubes.net
  Woodworking site
 http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/funwithtubes/Woodworking/wwindex.html
  Music site: http://www.maxsmusicplace.com
 
  To subscribe to the fun with transistors group send an email to.
  funwithtransistors-subscr...@yahoogroups.com
 
  To subscribe to the fun with tubes group send an email to,
  funwithtubes-subscr...@yahoogroups.com
 
  To subscribe to the fun with wood group send a blank email to
  funwithwood-subscr...@yahoogroups.com
 
  - Original Message - From: Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX N2469R 
 c...@omen.com
  To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement 
 time-nuts@febo.com
  Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 12:14 AM
  Subject: Re: [time-nuts] WWVB New Modulation scheme...
 
 
  I have my 3586b slaved to my Thunderbolt along with a
  Flex-1500 radio, Racal-Dana counter, Advantest Spectrum
  analyzer and Gigatronics signal generator.
 
  You might be interested to know KEX 1190 in Portland
  is about 30 kHz low.  At least they aren't spewing
  IBOC lately.
 
  --
  Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX N2469R c...@omen.com   www.omen.com
  Developer of Industrial ZMODEM(Tm) for Embedded Applications
   Omen Technology Inc  The High Reliability Software
  10255 NW Old Cornelius Pass Portland OR 97231   503-614-0430
 
 
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  -
  No virus found in this message.
  Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
  Version: 10.0.1427 / Virus Database: 2441/5355 - Release Date: 10/26/12
 
 
 
 
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[time-nuts] Wavetech/Wavecrest DTS-2010

[Orin Eman]

There was some discussion of the DTS-207X recently.  There is a DTS-2010 on
ebay for $265.  Anyone know about this model?  The usual searches come up
empty.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] WWVB Format Ownership

[Orin Eman]

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 7:15 PM, Peter Gottlieb n...@verizon.net wrote:

 Not quite sure about the analog to health care, but certainly a
 transmission being public domain doesn't mean much if the only possible way
 to use it is proprietary.  Sounds like something Microsoft would strive for.



I think Apple and the iPhone would be a better example... they are already
there.  Yes, Microsoft are trying to jump on that bandwagon with the
used-to-be-named-Metro interface on Windows 8, but IMO, are shooting
themselves in the foot*.

Back to the patents.  The more ideas we get here, the less defensible the
patents will be if they use an idea suggested here (not only this present
thread; there were previous threads back in March) - after all, we have
many engineers experienced in the field on the list...

Orin.

*too OT to go into here.
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Re: [time-nuts] Motorola UT+ Interface Board

[Orin Eman]

On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 6:31 PM, Chris Albertson
albertson.ch...@gmail.comwrote:

 On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 6:20 PM, paul swed paulsw...@gmail.com wrote:

  impressive
  Shame there is not a buy now. 1cent plus $4 shipping and you have to
 wait 2
  days to see if you won the bid. Or am I missing something?
 
  Yes,  There are MANY other auctions for this same product.  Some have
 buy
 it now with free shipping but a $6 price.  Some will give you a better
 deal if you buy several.  They've got all options covered



They sure do.  180688345029 is the same thing for $3.99, Buy it now, free
shipping,  10 available...

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] 10 MHz low pass filter

[Orin Eman]

A little delayed, but here's a sweep to 500MHz:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/-wJRN8e2ugrxVVtMxqYI49MTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink

1.2 dB loss at 10MHz.  Something going on at 347MHz.

If I get chance, I'll do a sweep to 1GHz.

Orin, KJ7HQ.

On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 4:17 PM, Thomas S. Knutsen la3...@gmail.com wrote:

 Based on that PCB, I want to see an sweep to at least 1GHz.
 The reason is that experience have shown that the inductance (perhaps 10nH)
 in series with C2 and C6 would damage the stop-band rejection at UHF.

 Used with an OXCO this would not matter, but the desire to make the
 ultimate filter is still there.

 Thomas.

 2012/6/21 li...@lazygranch.com

  If the output is buffered, there really shouldn't be a problem.
 
  Incidentally, I can crank out high order LCR filters all day just by
  transforming prototypes out of Zverev. But it has been my experience at
  even 10MHz the parasitics of the elements will throw off the design.
 
 
  -Original Message-
  From: Bob Camp li...@rtty.us
  Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
  Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2012 17:49:37
  To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
  time-nuts@febo.com
  Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
 time-nuts@febo.com
  Subject: Re: [time-nuts] 10 MHz low pass filter
 
  Hi
 
  That's a pretty high order filter. The output of most OCXO's already has
 a
  filter on it. Combining two filters (especially high order ones) without
  isolation between them is not a good idea. The resulting transfer
 function
  will not be what you expect it to be….
 
  Bob
 
  On Jun 20, 2012, at 4:54 PM, Joseph Gray wrote:
 
   I came across this filter design recently and thought I'd build a few.
  
   http://www.jwmeng.com/AppNote/AppNote003.html
  
   I was about to place a Mouser order when I came across someone selling
   filters, based on the above design.
  
  
 http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-MHz-filter-kit-for-tcxo-gps-pll-/110893777470
  
   The price with a board seemed low enough that I ordered a few. I'll
   let everyone know how they work out.
  
   Joe Gray
   W5JG
  
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 --

  Please  avoid sending  me  Word  or  PowerPoint  attachments.
  See  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
 PDF is an better alternative and there are always LaTeX!
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Re: [time-nuts] Antenna for T-bolt

[Orin Eman]

There are still some listed at GBP 19.00.  Search for lucent 40db.

Orin.

On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 4:14 PM, Pete Lancashire p...@petelancashire.comwrote:

 All gone .. I got one. I'm happy for $26 but the thing was pretty
 badly treated in its life and the seal did not
 look well. If yours is as knocked around I'd suggest pulling it apart
 and use a bit of sealer (RTV etc)

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Re: [time-nuts] OT - Portable Digital 'scope

[Orin Eman]

On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 2:22 PM, Azelio Boriani azelio.bori...@screen.itwrote:

 Actually, undersampling does use the alias effect to bring down the RF
 carrier. That is, the direct sampling radio concept cannot avoid the
 aliasing: it is exploited to avoid, for example, to sample a 2GHz carrier
 modulated with a 20MHz signal with a 4Gsample/second ADC (by the way, does
 it exist?). A simple 20Msample/second ADC would be enough. Yes, to analyze
 an analog signal in real time I doubt you can use this method, if the
 signal is periodic maybe... you can advance the sampling trigger a bit,
 cycle by cycle, and reconstruct the whole signal after this little amount
 has covered a full cycle.


Yes.  See for example, the description on this (and the seller's other
similar) ebay item(s): 260955742514

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] 32768 Hz from 10 MHz

[Orin Eman]

On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 1:08 AM, Dennis Ferguson dennis.c.fergu...@gmail.com
 wrote:


 On 3 Feb, 2012, at 14:15 , Orin Eman wrote:

  On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 7:16 PM, Hal Murray hmur...@megapathdsl.net
 wrote:
 
 
  It's possible to use Bresenham with two integers 10,000,000 and 32,768
  but I
  found no way to perform all the 24-bit calculations on an 8-bit PIC
 quick
  enough. Removing the GCD often helps but in this case the accumulator
  remains 3-bytes wide.
 
  To generate 32 kHz you have to toggle a pin and calculate if the next
  toggle
  must be 38 or 39 instructions in the future; all the math must occur
  within
  37 instructions. That's why I came up with the binary leap year kind of
  algorithm; it's as close to math-less as you can get.
 
  You missed the simple way.  Table lookup.  :)
 
  The table is only 256 slots long.
 
  That's toggling between 305 and 306 cycles.  If your CPU uses N clocks
 per
  instruction, multiply the table size by N.
 
 
 
 
  Well, I thought table lookup too, but I figured  a 2048 x 1 table.
  Easily
  done with a rotating bit and 256 byte table.
 
 
  Assuming clocking a PIC at 10MHz, you have 2,500,000 instructions per
  second.  Since there was talk about time to the next toggle, we have
  2,500,000/65536 instructions between toggles, ie 38.1470... instructions.
  The fraction turns out to be 301/2048, so you have to distribute 301
 extra
  instructions over every 2048 half-periods of the 32768Hz waveform.

 I only barely know the instruction set on those processors, but it seems
 like it should be way easier than that.  You know it is going to be 38 or
 39 instructions, so that only question is when it should be 39.  The value
 of 250/65536 is 38.1470… in decimal, but in hex it is exactly 26.25a;
 that is the 0x26 is 38 decimal while the fractional part is only 10 bits
 long.  This means you should be able to compute when the extra cycle is
 required by keeping a 16 bit accumulator to which the fractional part
 0x25a0 is added at every change and executing the extra instruction when
 there is a carry out of that. The seems straight forward.  If `lo' and `hi'
 are the two halves of the accumulator then the working part of this becomes
 something like (excusing my PIC assembler, which I mostly forget):

movl0xa0,w  // low byte of increment into w
add w,lo// add w to lo, may set carry
movl0x25,w  // high byte of increment into w
btfsc   3,0 // skip next if carry clear
add one,w   // increment w by one; I'm not sure how to do that
add w,hi// add w to hi, may set carry
// if carry set here need extra instruction.  Maybe this does it?
btfss   3,0 // skip if carry set
gotoblorp   // carry clear, don't execute next instruction
nop // the extra instruction
 blorp:
// enough instructions more to make 38/39

 Maybe someone who knows what they're doing can interpret that?



Here you go:

 movlw 0xa0
 addwf  lo,f
 movlw 0x25
 btfsc  status,C
 addlw 1; or movlw 0x26
 addwf hi,f
 btfss  status,C
 goto   skip
 nop
 nop
skip:


Takes 9 or 10 instruction cycles.  You needed an extra nop as the goto
takes two cycles, one cycle if skipped.  I'd just reverse the sense as
follows:

btfsc  status,C
goto   skip
skip:

If carry is clear, skipping the goto takes one instruction cycle.  If carry
is set, executing the goto takes two instruction cycles.  Yes, the goto is
to the next inline instruction, but as far as I know, the PIC doesn't
optimise that.  The entire sequence in this case would take 8 or 9
instruction cycles.

I'd forgotten the trick of using binary fixed point arithmetic with the
fractional part strategically placed at a byte boundary!  I've used a
similar trick in the past to convert a binary fraction into decimal digits
- keep multiplying by 10 (a couple of shifts plus an add), pick up the
non-fractional bits as the next decimal digit, then truncate to the
remaining fractional bits.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] 32768 Hz from 10 MHz

[Orin Eman]

On Thu, Feb 2, 2012 at 7:16 PM, Hal Murray hmur...@megapathdsl.net wrote:


  It's possible to use Bresenham with two integers 10,000,000 and 32,768
 but I
  found no way to perform all the 24-bit calculations on an 8-bit PIC quick
  enough. Removing the GCD often helps but in this case the accumulator
  remains 3-bytes wide.

  To generate 32 kHz you have to toggle a pin and calculate if the next
 toggle
  must be 38 or 39 instructions in the future; all the math must occur
 within
  37 instructions. That's why I came up with the binary leap year kind of
  algorithm; it's as close to math-less as you can get.

 You missed the simple way.  Table lookup.  :)

 The table is only 256 slots long.

 That's toggling between 305 and 306 cycles.  If your CPU uses N clocks per
 instruction, multiply the table size by N.




Well, I thought table lookup too, but I figured  a 2048 x 1 table.  Easily
done with a rotating bit and 256 byte table.


Assuming clocking a PIC at 10MHz, you have 2,500,000 instructions per
second.  Since there was talk about time to the next toggle, we have
2,500,000/65536 instructions between toggles, ie 38.1470... instructions.
 The fraction turns out to be 301/2048, so you have to distribute 301 extra
instructions over every 2048 half-periods of the 32768Hz waveform.

Here's what I would do in a mix of C and asm:

unsigned char bitmask = 0x80;
unsigned char index =  0xFF;
unsigned char table[256] = { // Calculate using a spreadsheet or similar };
bit OutputBit;

asm {
loop:
BCFSTATUS,C
RLFbitmask,F
BTFSS STATUS,C
GOTO IndexOK
RLFbitmask,F   ; restore low bit from carry
INCF   index,W ; on to the next byte in the table
GOTO DoLookup
IndexOK:
NOP; equalize time in if/else cases
NOP
MOVF index,W
DoLookup:
CALL TableLookup; Not defined here, returns value in W

ANDWF bitmask,W
BTFSS STATUS,Z
GOTO  ExtraCycle; 1 cycle if skipped, 2 if executed
ExtraCycle:
}
// Extra delay to get to 38/39 instructions (about 20 instructions if I
counted right)

OutputBit ^= 1; ; Toggle output
goto loop;

This version rotates the mask each time through and increments the index
every 8 times through.  You could increment the index each time through and
rotate the mask when the index rolls over.  That makes calculating the
table harder though.

No doubt I got the sense of the skips wrong or miscounted instructions
somewhere!

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] Prologix GPIB-ETH - Linux examples ?

[Orin Eman]

On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 11:23 AM, cfo xne...@luna.kyed.com wrote:

 I just got my Prologix GPIB-ETH

 I am 90% Linux Ubuntu based , and would like to get 99% based.
 So i am looking for some C code examples, implementing the linux
 networking part.

 I have sen the Prologix example C/C+ , but it's WINSOCK.



There's hardly any difference between Linux sockets and WINSOCK as far as
that example code goes.

Remove the WSAStartup/WSACleanup calls, change sprintf_s to sprintf,
WSAGetLastError() to errno, SOCKET to int and you should be done.  That's
the easy part.

The hard part is handling timeouts as the Prologix doesn't give any
indication if a ++read timed out.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] Invitation to connect on LinkedIn

[Orin Eman]

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 2:13 PM, J. Forster j...@quikus.com wrote:

 I have had no contact with Scott Dennis either, AFAIK.

 LinkedIn went through his Address Book and/or Inbox and harevested all the
 email addresses therein, then spammed them all of them.




I doubt that.

LinkedIn provides a facility to import your contacts.  You then select
which ones you want to invite.  They don't automatically spam your entire
contact list or there would have been many such 'invites' here.  The
contact import is not automatic and cannot be as they need the email
password to do it.

I suspect Scott simply pushed the wrong button.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] NTP for 64 bit windows

[Orin Eman]

On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 8:17 AM, Chris Albertson
albertson.ch...@gmail.comwrote:

 Can't you build the reference version 64 bit?Have you tried.

 That said, I don't see why you'd need a 64-bit version.  NTP is never
 going to use so much RAM that you need the wider address space.



I don't either - for user mode code running on the x64 (aka amd64)
architecture anyway.  My experience is that 64bit cpu intensive code that
doesn't need the wider address space is slower than the equivalent 32bit
code.  This is especially true if the code does a lot of memory management
- and if you are using C++ and std and/or boost libraries, there is a lot
of memory management going on behind the scenes.  Plain C wouldn't be so
bad.  WOW on x64 has a thin shim layer to interface to OS calls, which may
be significant if you make a lot of OS calls, but again, I've not noticed
it when profiling my software.

If the CPU is other than x64 architecture, then 32bit code is emulated and
for sure, you want a 64bit native version.

If a kernel device driver is involved, then of course, there is no choice
but to use a 64bit version of the driver.  Still no need for 64bit user
mode code though.

Personally, I run 64bit 2008 Server at work and 32bit Windows 7 at home.
Other than having to develop 64bit versions and drivers, I wouldn't chose
to run 64bit Windows unless I had an application that really needed the
extra address space.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] NTP for 64 bit windows

[Orin Eman]

On Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 10:30 AM, li...@lazygranch.com wrote:

 The intel 64 bit CPUs used the AMD64 instruction set.



There are still some Itaniums around (which are not AMD64) which is why I
made an exclusion for non-x64 architecture.



 Note there are more instructions in the 64bit architecture, so some
 programs are more efficient under a 64 bit OS.



True.  You just have to compile for both and profile them to see which is
better for a given application.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] Internal 5 volt switching regulator on some non-programmable FE-5680A's

[Orin Eman]

On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 1:51 PM, Clint Turner tur...@ussc.com wrote:

 Hello,

 After posting a few days ago about one of my '5680A's having the voltage
 converter installed - but not connected - I've done a bit of
 reverse-engineering and sleuthing around and (probably) have a fairly
 complete picture of what it would take to populate that section of the
 board.  That information may be found here:

 http://ka7oei.com/10_MHz_**Rubidium_FE-5680A.htmlhttp://ka7oei.com/10_MHz_Rubidium_FE-5680A.html

 This page is a work in progress, using my LPRO-101 page as a template and
 unashamedly stealing a good chunk of its content - most of which is
 directly applicable, anyway!




Are you sure about those resistor values?   They look like 5.11K and 5.62K
(standard 1% values) to me.


Orin, KJ7HQ.
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Re: [time-nuts] Power supply for 'Bay FE-5680A?

[Orin Eman]

On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 6:11 PM, time-n...@custodes.info wrote:

 Thanks, but what are people using to feed it? I'm having trouble pinning
 down power requirements. http://www.freqelec.com/rb_osc_fe5680a.html says
 32W peak, but then also 15-18v@700mA, which doesn't make sense. I'm still
 waiting on the slow boat from China, so I have a while to find a power
 supply.



I'm using a Mastech HY5020E* set to 15V to test mine.  Yes, complete
overkill, but it's the only supply I have that will do  1A at 15V.  14V
would have been easy.  I supplied the 5V with a 7805 (I left the 5680
screwed to the circuit board it came on and held the 7805 down with one of
the allen screws).  BTW, the wires from the plug to the circuit board were
standard color code, matching the pin numbers, so it was really easy to
wire up by cutting and splicing the existing wires (with a little heat
shrink tubing to keep things honest).

The Mastech shows 1.8A to start, dropping to 0.8A after a few minutes,
including whatever the 7805/5V line is using.

*the HY5020E gets really confused when you turn it off.  As the voltage
drops - it seems to flip back and forth between constant current and
constant voltage modes for many seconds, blinking its displays and LEDs on
and off!

Orin, KJ7HQ.
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Re: [time-nuts] crunching numbers from XOR phase detector

[Orin Eman]

Have you tried the 74HCT9046?  They claim no dead zone.  Note - seems to be
HCT only.

Orin.

On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 9:32 AM, Brian Justin wa1...@att.net wrote:

 Be very careful of the FPD in the 4046. It has a dead-zone when the phase
 error
 is at or very close to zero.  Some versions of the chip claim to have
 improved
 that dead-zone. But it's still there to some degree, at least in all the
 versions I have tried.

 -Brian, WA1ZMS


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Re: [time-nuts] FE-5680A Results so far

[Orin Eman]

On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 11:14 PM, mike cook michael.c...@sfr.fr wrote:


 1) What is the expected 10MHz peak to peak voltage.  FEI doc seems to
 indicate 0,5V but I am getting only 200mv.
 2) What is the sensitivity to 15V input level. I am only measuring 14,722
 (stable) on Pin1.
 3) Could this low input voltage affect output voltage?

 The box locks after a couple of minutes but my TDS 210 is showing a very
 jittery  ( 9,98-10,02 MHz ) but well formed sine wave for 8 hours of being
 powered on.  Could this also be an artefact of low main power?



IME 9.98 to 10.02 is about as good as it gets measuring 10 MHz on the
TDS210.   I'd guess it's measuring the time between two zero crossings and
inverting it.  With a horizontal resolution of 1024 divisions, your +/-
0.02 MHz isn't surprising.  I got similar frequency measurements on my
TDS210 using a 10x probe, but got about 2V pk-pk voltage.

The fact you are a factor of 10 out is suspicious - check your probe!

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] Clocking a PIC16F628A from a Rubidium Standard

[Orin Eman]

On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 1:21 PM, Robert Atkinson robert8...@yahoo.co.ukwrote:



 Hi,

 Microchip cerainly condone using input protection diodes of PIC devices as
 clamps. There are application notes for zero-crossing detection which
 connect the input to the 115V AC line via a resistor. Note that these are
 intentional protection diodes, not unavoidable parasitic junctions. Typical
 Absolute max clamp current (inc. 16F628) is +-20mA.



Yes, absolute max - that below which the part doesn't let the magic smoke
out...  but note the comment below the absolute max ratings (I'm taking
this from a PIC16F88 datasheet since I happen to be using this part):
This is a stress rating only and functional operation of the device at
those or any other conditions above those indicated in the operation
listings of this specification is not implied. Exposure to maximum rating
conditions for extended periods may affect device reliability.

Note also the max voltage on any pin is something like Vdd+0.3V.  One
wonders how much conducting their diodes do with 0.3V across them.

Personally, I don't let the protection diodes conduct in normal operation.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] Clocking a PIC16F628A from a Rubidium Standard

[Orin Eman]

On Fri, Nov 25, 2011 at 12:17 AM, Attila Kinali att...@kinali.ch wrote:

 On Thu, 24 Nov 2011 12:05:13 -0700
 Kevin Rosenberg ke...@rosenberg.net wrote:

  Since frequency reference sine wave can exceed Vdd, you want to current
  limit the external clock. For example, an unterminated TBolt puts out
 0-7V
  Pk-Pk. Atmel, in an app note where they hook up the pins of an AVR
  to 220V mains, states the over/under voltage protection diodes should
  not carry more than 1 milliamp of current. But, you should both read
  the datasheet for the output voltage of the Efratom and measure Pk-Pk
  voltage output at the point of your PIC.

 Using the protection diodes as part of the circuit is bad design practice.
 Use instead explicit shottky diodes (like BAT54S) for clamping.



I agree entirely.  I had an AtoD converter that if I let the protection
diodes conduct at all, would be several counts out.  In this case, even a
schottky diode wasn't enough!  I ended up clamping to slightly less than
Vdd using a schottky diode and a TL431 to provide about Vdd-0.2V.

Orin.
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Re: [time-nuts] Lucent RFTG-m-XO GPSDO

[Orin Eman]

On Sun, Oct 9, 2011 at 6:55 AM, EB4APL eb4...@cembreros.jazztel.es wrote:

 Peter,

 My UT+ works ok with common antennas, I tested it with a Trimble 28367-00
 and with a  INPAQ AAF-03B 5V.  Both are quite old garden variety GPS
 antennas intended for car navigators so your problem can be in the receiver.
 I bought mine from fluke.l and he still have some available on his other
 shop:
 http://www.ebay.com/itm/**130303889204?ssPageName=STRK:**
 MEWAX:IT_trksid=p3984.m1438.**l2649http://www.ebay.com/itm/130303889204?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649
 http://www.ebay.com/itm/**130303889204?ssPageName=STRK:**
 MEWAX:IT_trksid=p3984.m1438.**l2649http://www.ebay.com/itm/130303889204?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649
 
 They are cheap enough to buy one as a spare just in case.  Also you can try
 with another antenna anyway, because the receiver checks only that an
 antenna is connected (that is, the current range is right) but your antenna
 could became defective.



I found one of these:

http://www.frys.com/product/5342178

to be more sensitive than the egg shaped antenna from fluke.l (fluke.l is a
good seller and I've bought a couple of things from him).  Whether the
GILSSON draws enough current is another matter - Frys claim 12 +/-1 mA.

Orin.
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