[time-nuts] EFOS B Hydrogren maser arrived
Fellow time-nuts, This afternoon my EFOS B hydrogen maser has arrived and been set up. We just need to wait for it to lock up, which may take about a week. I can report a lot more on it, as I have a huge stack of documents. Hydrogren diassociator already gives that nice pink glow. Its been refurbished and measured, so it goes to 3E-15 at least, should reach 2E-15, with out trouble. It is a huge beast, so it took quite some effort to get the 250 kg heavy beast of the van, and in the house. Now we have enjoyed dinner and good drinks. I will do a bit of more cleanup before I meet my final destination for the evening, but it all looks good so far. I have 5 MHz, 180 MHz and 1440 MHz outputs to play with. So, I have now transitioned from OCXO, to Rubidium, to Cesium and to Hydrogren maser. So, this is why I think in terms of phase microstepper. Cheers, Magnus ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Chinese NTP Time server
No need for serial cable. Network port 4001 worked perfectly. It is documented in the Chinese Manual. Thank you Google ! On 2019-12-27 14:12, Brian Lloyd wrote: On Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 2:24 AM xaos wrote: Brian, I created a new web page with some pics and a live output of the NTP server from "Lady Heather V5.0" Nice. Did you interface LH using the serial output or through a network connection? I haven't run LH in about 6-7 years so I don't know its current feature set. I haven't made a cable for the HD-15 connector. https://www.maximaphysics.com/GPS.shtml You can clearly see the Missing OP-AMP on the bottom of the unit in the pic. You would think that these guys would add a penny part to this ... Well, the parts came to around $10(us) from Mouser but I get your point. They should be here today so I should be able to give you more info tonight. The guy I bought it from has already agreed to have me sent it back. However, If you get yours working I don't want to bother. Also, I wonder of my OCXO from a HP counter would fit in there. Prob needs lots of work. The OCXO is powered by the +12V supply after passing through the input filter. The wall-wart switcher they provide is quite noisy, as one would expect of a cheap wall-wart switcher. (Ripple and noise measuring about 60mV p-p with ripple and switching transients clearly visible.) Measuring the noise at the input to the OCXO the noise is down to about 15mV, mostly just HF noise, around 50-60MHz my 'scope says. Switching transients and ripple are gone. So it appears to me that they did spend some effort trying to quiet down the noise at the power input. And here I was worried what my next crazy project would be. Heh. George, N2FGX On 12/22/2019 12:49, Brian Lloyd wrote: > > On 11/26/19 09:28, x...@darksmile.net wrote: >> Hello everyone, >> >> Does anyone here know about this item: >> >> https://www.ebay.com/itm/Brand-New-NTP-Time-Server-GPSDO-GPS-Disciplined-Oscillator-GPS-Clock/362758051388?hash=item547610963c:g:yFIAAOSwgztdgfM9 >> >> >> George, N2FGX > OK, I ordered one. I missed the part about the 10MHz output being > "optional". (Optional? Really?) So I ordered one and it arrived 2 days > ago. Delivery took about 3 weeks. Looks nice, well packed, no damage. It > includes an active GPS antenna with about 20' of RG174 and a 12VDC > wall-wart. Unit, antenna, and PSU, nothing else. No doc and no software. > No problem ... so far. > > Plugged it in. Power supply LED comes on and the Sync LED is flashing at > about 2Hz. About 20 seconds later the SV LED comes on. about 2 minutes > later the Sync switches to 1Hz. I am guessing it has achieved some sort > of lock. I connect the 10MHz output to my FA-2. Of course, no 10MHz > output. (More on this later.) I plugged it into the network. Looked at > my DHCP server. No IP address assigned. Huh. How do I find this thing on > my network? > > eBay message back to the seller. Seller sends me a link to a zip file > with the software and doc. The first 'uh oh' is that all the file names > are in mandarin. I must admit, I find .pdf and .exe > amusing. I have an old laptop that dual-boots Linux and Windows just for > this sort of thing, i.e. annoying software that only runs on Windows. I > extract everything from the zip file and try things out. One of the > programs shows just an ip address of 192.168.0.100 and has three windows > separated into dotted-quads. Could this be the tool that sets the IP > address, subnet mask, and gateway? I run the PDF that opens with a > picture of the unit through google translate. OK, yes, that is what the > program does. There is a picture of the window and, guessing at the > examples, I was right, IP addr, mask, and gateway. With 5 buttons to > click on in varying orders, it tooks me several tries to finally get it > to change its IP address to one on my network. It is now pingable. > > I look at some of the other programs. These are mostly in English, being > open software, and do things like let you look at the status of the GPS > receiver. After successfully setting the IP address of the unit, I was > able to run the utility 'PowerGPS.exe' and have it report GPS status > from the box. > > So I pointed ntp on my linux server at the box as a server. It synced > right up and chose it as the primary ntp source. Clearly it works just > peachy as an NTP server and is running in my network that way. Now to > tackle the lack of 10MHz output. > > Opening up the box it clearly has a 10MHz OCXO so getting something out > the 10MHz BNC connector should be fairly straight-forward. Examining the > bottom of the board, the path from the OCXO to the 10MHz BNC output is > pretty clear. It goes through a single buffer op-amp and then drives the > BNC jack. The only problem is, the op-amp is missing. The pads are for > an SO-8 package. Following the traces it is pretty clear it is a > standard, single-op-amp pinout, i.e. : > > 1. n/c (null) > 2. invert
Re: [time-nuts] Chinese NTP Time server
On Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 2:24 AM xaos wrote: > Brian, > > I created a new web page with some pics and a live output of the NTP > server from "Lady Heather V5.0" > Nice. Did you interface LH using the serial output or through a network connection? I haven't run LH in about 6-7 years so I don't know its current feature set. I haven't made a cable for the HD-15 connector. > https://www.maximaphysics.com/GPS.shtml > > You can clearly see the Missing OP-AMP on the bottom of the unit in the > pic. > You would think that these guys would add a penny part to this ... > Well, the parts came to around $10(us) from Mouser but I get your point. They should be here today so I should be able to give you more info tonight. > > The guy I bought it from has already agreed to have me sent it back. > However, If you get yours working I don't want to bother. Also, I wonder > of my OCXO from a HP counter > would fit in there. Prob needs lots of work. > The OCXO is powered by the +12V supply after passing through the input filter. The wall-wart switcher they provide is quite noisy, as one would expect of a cheap wall-wart switcher. (Ripple and noise measuring about 60mV p-p with ripple and switching transients clearly visible.) Measuring the noise at the input to the OCXO the noise is down to about 15mV, mostly just HF noise, around 50-60MHz my 'scope says. Switching transients and ripple are gone. So it appears to me that they did spend some effort trying to quiet down the noise at the power input. And here I was worried what my next crazy project would be. > Heh. > George, N2FGX > > On 12/22/2019 12:49, Brian Lloyd wrote: > > > > On 11/26/19 09:28, x...@darksmile.net wrote: > >> Hello everyone, > >> > >> Does anyone here know about this item: > >> > >> > https://www.ebay.com/itm/Brand-New-NTP-Time-Server-GPSDO-GPS-Disciplined-Oscillator-GPS-Clock/362758051388?hash=item547610963c:g:yFIAAOSwgztdgfM9 > >> > >> > >> George, N2FGX > > OK, I ordered one. I missed the part about the 10MHz output being > > "optional". (Optional? Really?) So I ordered one and it arrived 2 days > > ago. Delivery took about 3 weeks. Looks nice, well packed, no damage. It > > includes an active GPS antenna with about 20' of RG174 and a 12VDC > > wall-wart. Unit, antenna, and PSU, nothing else. No doc and no software. > > No problem ... so far. > > > > Plugged it in. Power supply LED comes on and the Sync LED is flashing at > > about 2Hz. About 20 seconds later the SV LED comes on. about 2 minutes > > later the Sync switches to 1Hz. I am guessing it has achieved some sort > > of lock. I connect the 10MHz output to my FA-2. Of course, no 10MHz > > output. (More on this later.) I plugged it into the network. Looked at > > my DHCP server. No IP address assigned. Huh. How do I find this thing on > > my network? > > > > eBay message back to the seller. Seller sends me a link to a zip file > > with the software and doc. The first 'uh oh' is that all the file names > > are in mandarin. I must admit, I find .pdf and .exe > > amusing. I have an old laptop that dual-boots Linux and Windows just for > > this sort of thing, i.e. annoying software that only runs on Windows. I > > extract everything from the zip file and try things out. One of the > > programs shows just an ip address of 192.168.0.100 and has three windows > > separated into dotted-quads. Could this be the tool that sets the IP > > address, subnet mask, and gateway? I run the PDF that opens with a > > picture of the unit through google translate. OK, yes, that is what the > > program does. There is a picture of the window and, guessing at the > > examples, I was right, IP addr, mask, and gateway. With 5 buttons to > > click on in varying orders, it tooks me several tries to finally get it > > to change its IP address to one on my network. It is now pingable. > > > > I look at some of the other programs. These are mostly in English, being > > open software, and do things like let you look at the status of the GPS > > receiver. After successfully setting the IP address of the unit, I was > > able to run the utility 'PowerGPS.exe' and have it report GPS status > > from the box. > > > > So I pointed ntp on my linux server at the box as a server. It synced > > right up and chose it as the primary ntp source. Clearly it works just > > peachy as an NTP server and is running in my network that way. Now to > > tackle the lack of 10MHz output. > > > > Opening up the box it clearly has a 10MHz OCXO so getting something out > > the 10MHz BNC connector should be fairly straight-forward. Examining the > > bottom of the board, the path from the OCXO to the 10MHz BNC output is > > pretty clear. It goes through a single buffer op-amp and then drives the > > BNC jack. The only problem is, the op-amp is missing. The pads are for > > an SO-8 package. Following the traces it is pretty clear it is a > > standard, single-op-amp pinout, i.e. : > > > > 1. n/c (null) > > 2. inverting input > > 3. non-inverting
Re: [time-nuts] 10811 performance
Hi To that I would add - how long was it on power when measured? Does it run on power 24/7 at the club or is it power down 99% of the time? 10811’s (at least as much as other OCXO’s) “like” to be power on all the time. However using it one way and calibrating it another way may not be the best approach. All this “fun” is one of the reasons for setting up a “lab standard” and piping it to all the gear rather than calibrating each item individually. With the Chinese packaged GPSDO’s coming in at < $100 delivered it is not a major investment. That kind of thing may or may not make any sense at all in this case. Bob > On Dec 27, 2019, at 8:02 AM, Tom Van Baak wrote: > > Hi Robert, > > If your 10811 10 MHz oscillator is off by 0.08 Hz after 20 years it's > equivalent to an average frequency drift rate of only 0.08/1e7/20/365, or > 1e-12/day. If so, you have an absolutely superb 10811; one that's 500x better > than spec. Congrats! Don't power it off, don't touch it, don't move it, don't > tilt it, don't sell it. > > Still, there are a lot of assumptions here: > > - Do you know how closely was it calibrated 20 years ago? > - Did anyone measure it once a month or even once a year since then? > - Do you have reason to believe the frequency drift rate is constant or > predictable? > - What's the environment been like (temperature, humidity, pressure)? > - How much do you trust your cheap China GPSDO? > - What does your 53131A counter say over gate times of 10 s or 100 s, and > over an entire day or week? > - Was this a one-time lucky measurement or is your 10811 really this good day > after day after day. > > Lots of questions. What I mean is that you may have one of the best 10811 > ever seen, or something's funny with the above assumptions. The nice thing > about a precise time & frequency hobby is that, without too much effort, you > can figure this out. > > Still, 0.08 Hz out of 10 MHz is 1e-8, or 0.01 ppm, or 10 ppb, so depending on > the accuracy that you need for the amateur radio club, it may be plenty good > enough as-is. > > /tvb > > > > On 12/26/2019 8:51 PM, Robert DiRosario wrote: >> I am trying to calibrate some equipment at the amateur radio club at work, >> and my stuff. We have an HP 5340A with a 10811 inside. It must have been >> upgraded at some point in the past, the display uses Nixie tubes. I >> calibrated it c2000 using a HP Cs standard. That lab and it's equipment are >> gone. :-( >> >> From ebay / China I got a simple GPSDO that uses a Trimble 57963 inside. I >> use the output of the 10811 in the 5340A to drive an HP 53131A. I then >> measured the 10 MHz output of the GPSDO using the HP 53131A and got >> 10,000,000.08 Hz. >> >> Assuming the GPSDO is correct, is 0.08 Hz drift over 20 years a reasonable >> amount of drift for an 10811? >> >> I have an HP Z3801A, once I get a power supply for it I can check the other >> GPSDO. >> >> Thanks >> >> Robert >> KA3ZYX >> >> ___ >> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com >> To unsubscribe, go to >> http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com >> and follow the instructions there. >> > > > ___ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to > http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > and follow the instructions there. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] 10811 performance
Hi Robert, If your 10811 10 MHz oscillator is off by 0.08 Hz after 20 years it's equivalent to an average frequency drift rate of only 0.08/1e7/20/365, or 1e-12/day. If so, you have an absolutely superb 10811; one that's 500x better than spec. Congrats! Don't power it off, don't touch it, don't move it, don't tilt it, don't sell it. Still, there are a lot of assumptions here: - Do you know how closely was it calibrated 20 years ago? - Did anyone measure it once a month or even once a year since then? - Do you have reason to believe the frequency drift rate is constant or predictable? - What's the environment been like (temperature, humidity, pressure)? - How much do you trust your cheap China GPSDO? - What does your 53131A counter say over gate times of 10 s or 100 s, and over an entire day or week? - Was this a one-time lucky measurement or is your 10811 really this good day after day after day. Lots of questions. What I mean is that you may have one of the best 10811 ever seen, or something's funny with the above assumptions. The nice thing about a precise time & frequency hobby is that, without too much effort, you can figure this out. Still, 0.08 Hz out of 10 MHz is 1e-8, or 0.01 ppm, or 10 ppb, so depending on the accuracy that you need for the amateur radio club, it may be plenty good enough as-is. /tvb On 12/26/2019 8:51 PM, Robert DiRosario wrote: I am trying to calibrate some equipment at the amateur radio club at work, and my stuff. We have an HP 5340A with a 10811 inside. It must have been upgraded at some point in the past, the display uses Nixie tubes. I calibrated it c2000 using a HP Cs standard. That lab and it's equipment are gone. :-( From ebay / China I got a simple GPSDO that uses a Trimble 57963 inside. I use the output of the 10811 in the 5340A to drive an HP 53131A. I then measured the 10 MHz output of the GPSDO using the HP 53131A and got 10,000,000.08 Hz. Assuming the GPSDO is correct, is 0.08 Hz drift over 20 years a reasonable amount of drift for an 10811? I have an HP Z3801A, once I get a power supply for it I can check the other GPSDO. Thanks Robert KA3ZYX ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] 10811 performance
Hi, Do you aim to ensure that your 5340A is "calibrated"/adjusted as you take it to the club? If so, using the GPSDO and 53131A together is a good idea. If you can setup so that you can log the 53131A using GPIB or serial port into TimeLab, I suggest you shift from using the 53131A in frequency mode and use it in TI mode, trigger the measurement with the GPSDO PPS into the Channel 1 (Start) and measure the time-base output on the 5340A on Channel 2 (Stop). Be careful to turn off the auto-trigger feature on the 53131A and set your own trigger point at say 1 V for the PPS. The 53131A is impatient and the PPS is a too slow rate for it to handle the signal right. Then you can fine-tune the frequency adjustment there and also see how it shifts around which is very educational. This setup would also be suitable to compare the GPSDOs with. As you measure frequency, this can cause some systematic errors, but those is avoided as you use the TI measurement, but direct frequency measurement is good and direct enough to get you started. For what seems to be your actual application, the above is overkill, but very good exercise. You will find that after moving and turning on, the oscillator will have a residual drift as you measure carefully, and for most uses to calibrate your amateur radio stuff at the club, you will be way overkill anyway, but this is time-nuts, and we enjoy doing overkill because it is pretty easy to do and we learn by doing it over and over. Cheers & 73 de Magnus SA0MAD On 2019-12-27 05:51, Robert DiRosario wrote: > I am trying to calibrate some equipment at the amateur radio club at > work, and my stuff. We have an HP 5340A with a 10811 inside. It must > have been upgraded at some point in the past, the display uses Nixie > tubes. I calibrated it c2000 using a HP Cs standard. That lab and > it's equipment are gone. :-( > > From ebay / China I got a simple GPSDO that uses a Trimble 57963 > inside. I use the output of the 10811 in the 5340A to drive an HP > 53131A. I then measured the 10 MHz output of the GPSDO using the HP > 53131A and got 10,000,000.08 Hz. > > Assuming the GPSDO is correct, is 0.08 Hz drift over 20 years a > reasonable amount of drift for an 10811? > > I have an HP Z3801A, once I get a power supply for it I can check the > other GPSDO. > > Thanks > > Robert > KA3ZYX > > ___ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to > http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > and follow the instructions there. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
[time-nuts] 10811 performance
I am trying to calibrate some equipment at the amateur radio club at work, and my stuff. We have an HP 5340A with a 10811 inside. It must have been upgraded at some point in the past, the display uses Nixie tubes. I calibrated it c2000 using a HP Cs standard. That lab and it's equipment are gone. :-( From ebay / China I got a simple GPSDO that uses a Trimble 57963 inside. I use the output of the 10811 in the 5340A to drive an HP 53131A. I then measured the 10 MHz output of the GPSDO using the HP 53131A and got 10,000,000.08 Hz. Assuming the GPSDO is correct, is 0.08 Hz drift over 20 years a reasonable amount of drift for an 10811? I have an HP Z3801A, once I get a power supply for it I can check the other GPSDO. Thanks Robert KA3ZYX ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Chinese NTP Time server
Brian, I created a new web page with some pics and a live output of the NTP server from "Lady Heather V5.0" https://www.maximaphysics.com/GPS.shtml You can clearly see the Missing OP-AMP on the bottom of the unit in the pic. You would think that these guys would add a penny part to this ... The guy I bought it from has already agreed to have me sent it back. However, If you get yours working I don't want to bother. Also, I wonder of my OCXO from a HP counter would fit in there. Prob needs lots of work. And here I was worried what my next crazy project would be. George, N2FGX On 12/22/2019 12:49, Brian Lloyd wrote: On 11/26/19 09:28, x...@darksmile.net wrote: Hello everyone, Does anyone here know about this item: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Brand-New-NTP-Time-Server-GPSDO-GPS-Disciplined-Oscillator-GPS-Clock/362758051388?hash=item547610963c:g:yFIAAOSwgztdgfM9 George, N2FGX OK, I ordered one. I missed the part about the 10MHz output being "optional". (Optional? Really?) So I ordered one and it arrived 2 days ago. Delivery took about 3 weeks. Looks nice, well packed, no damage. It includes an active GPS antenna with about 20' of RG174 and a 12VDC wall-wart. Unit, antenna, and PSU, nothing else. No doc and no software. No problem ... so far. Plugged it in. Power supply LED comes on and the Sync LED is flashing at about 2Hz. About 20 seconds later the SV LED comes on. about 2 minutes later the Sync switches to 1Hz. I am guessing it has achieved some sort of lock. I connect the 10MHz output to my FA-2. Of course, no 10MHz output. (More on this later.) I plugged it into the network. Looked at my DHCP server. No IP address assigned. Huh. How do I find this thing on my network? eBay message back to the seller. Seller sends me a link to a zip file with the software and doc. The first 'uh oh' is that all the file names are in mandarin. I must admit, I find .pdf and .exe amusing. I have an old laptop that dual-boots Linux and Windows just for this sort of thing, i.e. annoying software that only runs on Windows. I extract everything from the zip file and try things out. One of the programs shows just an ip address of 192.168.0.100 and has three windows separated into dotted-quads. Could this be the tool that sets the IP address, subnet mask, and gateway? I run the PDF that opens with a picture of the unit through google translate. OK, yes, that is what the program does. There is a picture of the window and, guessing at the examples, I was right, IP addr, mask, and gateway. With 5 buttons to click on in varying orders, it tooks me several tries to finally get it to change its IP address to one on my network. It is now pingable. I look at some of the other programs. These are mostly in English, being open software, and do things like let you look at the status of the GPS receiver. After successfully setting the IP address of the unit, I was able to run the utility 'PowerGPS.exe' and have it report GPS status from the box. So I pointed ntp on my linux server at the box as a server. It synced right up and chose it as the primary ntp source. Clearly it works just peachy as an NTP server and is running in my network that way. Now to tackle the lack of 10MHz output. Opening up the box it clearly has a 10MHz OCXO so getting something out the 10MHz BNC connector should be fairly straight-forward. Examining the bottom of the board, the path from the OCXO to the 10MHz BNC output is pretty clear. It goes through a single buffer op-amp and then drives the BNC jack. The only problem is, the op-amp is missing. The pads are for an SO-8 package. Following the traces it is pretty clear it is a standard, single-op-amp pinout, i.e. : 1. n/c (null) 2. inverting input 3. non-inverting input 4. V- 5. n/c (null) 6. output 7. V+ 8. n/c (null) Lots of parts could go there. Looks to me like it should probably be something like an LT1227. The op-amp is operated at a gain of 2 with a 100ohm FB resistor and 100ohm to ground. This should be pretty stable with 100ohm pretty much swamping any parasitic capacitance in the FB loop. The input is a 300 ohm/300ohm voltage divider so the overall gain of the stage is unity. Input to the buffer from the OCXO is capacitively-coupled as is the output. There is a 50ohm resistor in series with the output. The unloaded voltage output of the OCXO is a 3.5V positive square wave. After passing through the buffer it is probably supposed to approximate a 3V p-p sine wave. (At least, that is what the marketing verbiage suggests.) The board is already populated with linear +5v and -5v regulators (74L08 and 74L09 respectively) and associated bypass/filtering. +5v is present at pin7. No -5v is present. Tracing the board back to the source of the -V at the input to the -5v regulator, one arrives at an empty 4-pin through-hole area marked u14. This has +7.5V on pin 2 which also feeds the input to the +5V regulator. Pin 3 is the -V output that feeds the input to the negative analog
