Hi I think you may be heading a bit off track digging into the 5120. The 53100a has a very different “heritage” than the TSC gear. The 5330 “TimePod” would be a better thing to dig into to see its history. I’m guessing 52100A is a typo.
The .TIM files are generated by TimeLab so that’s a good place to look for grubby details of this or that. They are “just” text files with a lot of embeded comments that document what’s what on each line. Maybe not *quite* a “just read it and it all makes sense”, but there is a lot of information in the file itself. I would suggest starting by reading through the file that TimeLab puts out. Bob > On Feb 9, 2022, at 1:43 PM, Joseph Gwinn <joegw...@comcast.net> wrote: > > I will be doing some residual phase noise tests in a month or so > using a 53100A Phase Noise Analyzer (not yet in hand), so I've been > studying the users manual and datasheet of the Microchip 52100A Phase > Noise Analyzer. I do know the history, starting with Sam Stein > developing the Timing Solutions Corp (TSC) model 5120. > > Anyway, some questions have arisen: > > 1. Where is the ".TIM" file format documented? Google fails here, > chasing after some other kinds of .TIM file unrelated to the 5120 and > descendants. The 53100A users manual does not define the .TIM file > format, or say where to find it. > > 2. There will be some debugging required in my test setup, and it > would be very useful if I could independently demodulate the > Amplitude Modulation (AM) and Phase Modulation (PM) components of the > phase noise, and present the low-passed waveforms in voltage versus > time form. Signals leaking in for other places may well be > recognizable by resemblance of the demodulated AM or PM baseband > waveform to other signals known to exist in the system under test. I > was thinking that the TIM file may be a start. > > 3. Where are the fundamental Principles of Operation documented? > The best I've found so far is a pair of patents by Wayne Solbrig, > US7227346 (Two channel digital phase detector) and US7436166 (Direct > digital synthesizer producing a signal representing an amplitude of a > sine wave), both originally assigned to TSC, and now expired. > > Thanks, > > Joe Gwinn > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe send an > email to time-nuts-le...@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there. _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe send an email to time-nuts-le...@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there.