Hi,
the original was built using a HP10811 oscillator and a Garmin 17 GPS
that delivered PPS.
The HP10811 ran a divider by 10 by 10 by 10 down to 1 hz.
I was the servo that adjusted the EFC of the OCXO so that the PPS
matched the 1Hz.
The divider clocked a counter of three decades of BCD, with latches
driving a 3 decade DAC. (about 12 bits of modified R-2R chain)
The latches were triggered by a pendulum clock being observed, or the
PPS of the Garmin GPS receiver.
That delivered a DC signal that could be logged to observe phase
drift on a chart recorder or data logger.
For higher frequencies, I used the D FF phase detector, which could
be used at 1MHz, 100kHZ, 10kHz, 1kHz or 100Hz,
depending on how sensitive I wanted the frequency (phase) comparison.
The test was that the phase noise must be less than one tenth
of a period, so the automatic regeneration of the more significant
digits in XL afterwards did not have ambiguities.
For any oscillator under examination I used a 4046 PLL to generate a
high enough frequency to drive the phase detector.
My 1 Hz pendulum clock generated a 1kHz signal via the 4046 so the
phase detector gave 1ms full scale on the chart recorder,
with a resolution of 1 microsecond. The low pass filtering inherent
in the PLL was not a worry as I was concerned with longer term drift.
It all avoids using digital processing and other instruments, the
main reason for that was to be able to leave it running for weeks
with only low
battery backup power required.
cheers, Neville Michie
On 26/07/2010, at 3:12 PM, Hal Murray wrote:
There is another way to compare two frequencies, relevant when
they are
very close together. I divide a reference down to 100KHz and use
it to clock
a phase detector made of a pair of D flip flops. The unknown
(divided to
100KHz) is fed into the circuit and an output that is
proportional to the
phase difference appears on the output as a changing mark-space
ratio.
I like it. Thanks.
How did you pick 100 KHz?
Using CMOS and a precise power supply (because under no load, CMOS
output is precisely rail to rail), the averaged output (100ms RC
filter) is
fed to a strip chart recorder.
Has anybody checked the edge cases and/or linearity of a setup like
this?
The recorder shows the changing phase difference and folds back
each time
a whole cycle passes. A 12 bit analog data logger resolves 2.5ns
of phase
and gives data for further analysis.
Is 2.5 ns good enough? What would you gain by using a 16 bit DAC?
If 2.5 ns is good enough, I'll bet you can do the whole thing in
digital
logic. Just get a fast FPGA/CPLD. I haven't done a serious
design, but a
quick check at some old data sheets shows it's not silly. You
could probably
bump it up by another factor of 2 with some external (p)ECL chips.
--
These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. I hate spam.
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