At 12.59 15/10/2005, you wrote:
Symmetricom purchased (exactly) two products from Agilent: the
5071A cesium beam frequency standard and the 5087B distribution
amplifier. They have not announced discontinuation or
discontinuation of support of either of them.
As to the larger question of providing support for obsolete
products, keep in mind that obsoletion of components is the
principal reason that products go obsolete. These days, in the
commercial electronics industry, typical product cycle lifetimes are
1-2 years. The component manufacturers cater to these high-volume
applications, not to the low-volume long-life frequency standard
industry. Hobbyists may be able to keep things going for a few
years by scavenging components but probably not with the same level
of performance and reliability one expects from manufacturer service.
Try getting a 5-year-old DVD player repaired before you start
demanding support on a 35-year-old mercury ioin standard that never
made it into production.
Note that I do not speak for Symmetricom management, nor am I privy
to any future plans for product obsolesence.
As TVB points out, that rack of Mg+ electronics was probably for a
prototype. Eventually, about a half-dozen pre-production units were
built at HP, about the size of a 5061. Most of them ended up at
USNO. If one of those ever shows up on Ebay, it might be worth the
trouble to try and get it working, but only if it comes with manuals
and schematics. The biggest issue will be the vacuum integrity of
the physics package. If it's lost vacuum or the ion pump won't
fire, you're probably dead in the water.
-RL
Thanks Robert and TVB for the info on the Hg+ standard. I was not
planning anything about it... just looking at the strange beast. And
I was not aware of the HP research on this type of standard.
About obsolescence, I agree totally. My job is buying, repairing and
selling second hand test equipment; the search for obsolete
components is an every-day matter. Every day worse, of course.
Marco IK1ODO
_______________________________________________
time-nuts mailing list
time-nuts@febo.com
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
