On 7/8/13 7:55 AM, Ed Palmer wrote:
In 2002, this document:
THE CRYSTAL OSCILLATOR CHARACTERIZATION FACILITY AT THE AEROSPACE
CORPORATION
http://www.pttimeeting.org/archivemeetings/2002papers/paper32.pdf
stated:
"The Programmed Test Sources, Inc. PTS model #250M6NIGSX-51 low-noise
frequency synthesizer is
used to offset the frequency reference to obtain the desired beat
frequency. In our previous system, we
used a Fluke 6160B frequency synthesizer, since the Fluke 6160B
frequency synthesizer had the lowest
noise contribution of all the frequency synthesizers on the market at
that time. The reason for having the
low-noise frequency synthesizer is the synthesizer noise contributions
to the system noise-floor.
Unfortunately, Fluke has discontinued manufacturing and maintaining this
synthesizer. Therefore, we
looked at the new synthesizers on the market and found that the PTS
synthesizer was the closest to the
Fluke 6160B frequency synthesizer in terms of noise floor. "
Sounds like a working 6160B would be a nice thing to have.
Unfortunately, it's too large for my already overcrowded lab. :-(
It's like a HP 8663B (not the modern Agilent E8663).. very low noise,
not made any more, I don't think Agilent will even repair them. We've
got lots of them sitting on the floor, partly dead, at work: they were
the workhorse of the Deep Space Network systems.
Fluke does make a modern copy of the HP8663B with all the same
peculiarities (e.g. smooth sweep, modulation input, etc.) which the
Agilent does not do.
(for instance, we feed the signal from a 3325 at around 10 MHz into the
FM port on the 8663 and then filter to select just the modulation
sideband, which then gets multiplied up to the desired frequency)
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