Paul, Regarding SSR-Pricing, Synergy said they will make the new SSR-6Tr timing board available at $35 FOB San Diego (about half the $69.85 commercial price) for educational pursuits which include Ham radio, educational institutions, experimenters, etc. (limit one part per customer). For comparison, the u-Blox LEA-6T module alone sells for more than $100 each in low quantities.
The best way to ask Synergy about this is by using the form at http://www.synergy-gps.com/index.php?option=com_artforms&formid=1&Itemid=198. Rick W2GPS -----Original Message----- From: paul swed [mailto:paulsw...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2012 12:02 PM To: Tom Van Baak; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] PTTI 2012, part 3/3 Great comments and a good read. OK so what does the drop in replacement cost??? Thanks lots to read here. Later Paul WB8TSL On Thu, Dec 6, 2012 at 10:24 AM, Tom Van Baak <t...@leapsecond.com> wrote: > > Still, there are always a number of talks of more general interest to us > time nuts. > > In the next few postings I'll give more details on a couple of topics: > > And here's the third part of my PTTI report... > > - Vendor presentations/Symmetricom/Miles > > Besides 3 days of presentations, PTTI also hosts a vendor/exhibit area. > This includes the usual T&F suspects like FEI, Symmetricom, TRAK, > Spectracom, SpectraDynamics, TimeTech, etc. Most of this gear is outside > the budget of a regular time-nut but it's always nice to see and touch > what's on display, knowing in ten years it will show up on eBay. > > Yes, that was John Miles in the Symmetricom booth showing off his, I mean, > their new TimePod and wearing a Symmetricom shirt. We've had a number of > time nut "graduates" over the years: Rick Hambly went on to start CNS > Systems, Said Jackson started Jackson Labs, John Miles became Miles LLC and > both have ties with Symmetricom. You'll see press releases like this one: > < > http://www.gpsworld.com/symmetricom-expands-test-set-portfolio-with-high-perform ance-test-probe > > > > If you have more questions, I'm sure John will be happy to answer then on- > or off- the list. > > - M12/uBlox GPS board > > It was very nice to see Tom Clark ("grandfather" of time-nuts) at PTTI; it > was from his work at NASA with VLBI, masers, and Motorola Oncore GPS > receivers that a number of us caught the precise time bug in the early 90's. > > Many of you know him as the author of the often recommended paper > "Critical Evaluation of the Motorola M12+ GPS Timing Receiver vs. the > Master Clock at the United States Naval Observatory, Washington DC" which > is available here: > <http://www.gpstime.com/files/PTTI/PTTI_2002_CNS_Testbed.pdf> > <http://www.gpstime.com/files/PTTI/PTTI_2002_CNS_Testbed_VG.ppt> > > Anyway, this year Tom Clark presented performance results of a new GPS > board. It is h/w and s/w compatible with the Motorola M12 receiver used in > many existing T&F products, but it's based on a uBlox-6T chip instead of > the Motorola or iLotus M12 chip. The trick is that Rick Hambly added a PIC > on the board to make it talk exactly like an M12. The reason for this is to > allow drop-in replacement of the original Motorola M12 or still-current > iLotus M12+ with this new one. It's called the Synergy SSR-6T. > > That means that any instrument (e.g., GPSDO) that uses an M12 can be > upgraded to the uBlox-6T. Tom's presentation contains charts showing the > performance improvement: > < > http://www.cnssys.com/files/PTTI/Low_cost_GPS-based_time_and_frequency_products. pdf > > > <http://www.cnssys.com/publications.php> > > I have one to play with and hope to duplicate his results. I didn't get > pricing/availability info but it is supposed to be "really cheap". (Tom > Clark -- can you provide this info when you get it?) > > - Quartz in space > > With all the focus on fiber and optical and atomic clocks, it's refreshing > to hear now and then about good old quartz. This was a fascinating talk > about real-world (or real out-of-this-world) performance of quartz > oscillators in space. What they did was mine recorded telemetry from many > space missions looking to directly/indirectly measure the frequency of the > quartz oscillator over years in space. > > Just like we use LH to monitor the EFC of a GPSDO, they monitor the EFC of > the quartz LO in the GPS sats. In addition to normal drift there are > effects of radiation dose and solar flares. I'll post the URL of the paper > when it's out. Meanwhile I saw a bunch of fine papers/presentations at the > FEI site: > http://www.freqelec.com/tech_lit.html > > - ION/PTTI 2013 in Bellevue, WA (!) > > After 44 years, PTTI is changing "management". Instead of being organized > by the US government (USNO, NASA, JPL, and DoD) it will now be run by ION > (Institute of Navigation). This keeps the government out of the hospitality > and conference business. > > The next ION/PTTI will be held in Bellevue, WA. If you haven't considered > attending an ION or PTTI conference before, this might be a good one to > try. Also, since that's my hometown, I plan to have an "open house" during > the conference. That means I have a year to clean up the lab so more than > one person can walk in it... > > A number of people continued to comment on the relativity experiment I did > a few years ago. I have now posted the original (190 page) power-point > presentation I gave at PTTI that year: > http://www.leapsecond.com/ptti2006/ > > - The state of Time-Nuts > > Lastly, I wanted to make a note about time-nuts. I was pleasantly > surprised how many professionals already know about the time-nuts list or > lurk here. This group has really done well. Perhaps propelled by advances > in the telecom/optical world or neutrino experiments, there's a whole new > crop of scientists in the precise time field. Formal technical journal > articles by PhD's tend not to deal with the mundane details of precise time > measurement and lab equipment so people turn to google, and find us here. > > As the list grows we face some issues about posting bandwidth, focus, and > repetition. The list is mostly unmoderated, so it's completely up to you to > keep the list relevant and interesting. Please resist too off-topic posts > or low-content postings. For now at least, the archived list is rich enough > that it acts like a wiki or faq. > > As usual, if you have suggestions on how to make the list better please > send them to me (t...@leapsecond.com) and John (j...@febo.com). > > Thanks, > /tvb > > > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.