[time-nuts] A Lady H mystery

2017-12-19 Thread Mark Sims
I don't think Heather v5.0 ever worked with the ACE-III. Heather uses the TSIP primary and secondary timing messages to drive the display. The ACE-III (and SV6) don't output those messages. The next release of Heather has SV6 support and also supports the Trimble TAIP protocol that these

[time-nuts] Recently acquired 53132A

2017-12-18 Thread Mark Sims
I have worked out a design for using an LCD display in the 531xx counters. Basically it's a replacement front panel board with a micro and graphical LCD. I'm probably not going to build it until my VFD goes bad... maybe by then OLED displays will have their lifetime flaws worked out...

[time-nuts] Cannot Command RFTGm-II-Rb / RFTGm-II-XO

2017-12-17 Thread Mark Sims
The RFTG-m units don't speak SCPI. They have an undocumented binary control language. I reversed engineered the protocol and the latest version of Lady Heather can talk to them. The v5.0 release of Heather does not support these. If you run something linuxy or can compile the v5.0

[time-nuts] Lucent RFTG-u REF0-REF1 cable

2017-11-13 Thread Mark Sims
The 15 pin cable is wired reversed from a straight through cable: 1 -> 15, 2->14, ... 15->1. http://www.prc68.com/I/KS-24361.html I think ko4bb.com also has info on these. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to

[time-nuts] Trimble SVeeSix-CM3 with Lady Heather?

2017-11-13 Thread Mark Sims
The latest version of Heather does support the SV6 in both TSIP and TAIP mode. If you are running Linux, etc or can compile the current Windows version I can send you the latest source code to compile. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com

[time-nuts] Symmetricom X72 rubidium oscillator breakout board now avaiable

2017-11-20 Thread Mark Sims
Maybe: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Symmetricom-X72-Rubidium-Oscillator-10-32V-DC-10MHz-USED/132116702248?epid=1023910441=item1ec2c4e428:g:2p8AAOSwXYtYvKWc I don't know if RDR Electronics still have any X72's. There used to be a lot of X72's for sale that were pulled from something. They came

[time-nuts] Why discipline Rubidium oscillator

2017-11-20 Thread Mark Sims
For you, nerd dick waving. For her, bragging rights! She will have the most accurate egg timer on the block (assuming she is the head chef in the house). > Have to do a cost/benefit analysis for the wife... ___ time-nuts mailing

[time-nuts] X72 Heatsink

2017-11-20 Thread Mark Sims
I stopped by a local electronics store today and came across a heatsink that is the perfect size for the X72. To mount the X72 to it you would need to drill four holes in the corners and do a little Dremel work on the outer fins to get to the screw heads. The store owner says he has a case

[time-nuts] Why discipline Rubidium oscillator?

2017-11-20 Thread Mark Sims
I did hack together some code to GPS discipline a HP-5071. But it only disciplines the oscillator if the unit is in standby and the cesium tube is off... I did say it was a hack... -- > You can (or course) do a GPS disciplined Cs standard. That’s not easy to do, > but some are

[time-nuts] Symmetricom X72 rubidium oscillator breakout board now available

2017-11-19 Thread Mark Sims
I have finished my breakout boards for the X72 oscillator. It consists of two boards connected by a ribbon cable (or you can remove a header and replace with a female and directly connect them or solder the boards together). Power input is through a 2.1mm barrel connector. Input caps are

[time-nuts] Input filter for data logger

2017-11-19 Thread Mark Sims
Here are Wenzel's input circuits: http://www.wenzel.com/documents/waveform.html The TAPR TICC uses a slightly modified version of the two transistor circuit. Also check out the LPRO-101 manual for their versions of the single CMOS gate squarer. One thing they do is add an RC filter to the CMOS

[time-nuts] Lucent RFTG-u REF0-REF1 cable

2017-11-14 Thread Mark Sims
There is also a nice pdf out there by Peter Garde that tells how to add a GPS receiver to the non-GPD RFTG. It involves moving around 6 0-ohm (?) resistors and plugging in an old Motorola (UT+) receiver. I found the pdf on EEVBLOG.

[time-nuts] Designing an embedded precision GPS time

2017-11-01 Thread Mark Sims
Trying to further compensate a TCXO can be a losing proposition. Your control loop and the TCXO's control loop can easily get their panties all twisted in a wad. You are probably better off compensating a plain XO... which yields a TCXO that you can actually manipulate to your hearts

[time-nuts] Lady Heather DST change

2017-11-05 Thread Mark Sims
Lady Heather did the change, but triggered a hour early. D'oh! A while back I changed the way Heather kept dates and times internally from separate hh,mm,ss,month,day,year variables to keeping all times as double precision Julian dates. That change caused the DST code to not account for the

[time-nuts] Trimble UCCM weird behaviour

2017-11-01 Thread Mark Sims
That looks like the device is defective. I'd see if the seller will replace it. ___ 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] Continously drifting HP 10811...

2017-11-09 Thread Mark Sims
I put a UCT8663 DOCXO in my HP-53132A counter (using Gerry Sweeny's adapter board). I bought a bunch of those DOCXOs around 10 years ago. It was never powered up during that time. Here are the notes that I made: UTC 8663 mounted on Sweeny DOCXO card in a HP 53132A counter. The 8663 had

[time-nuts] Holdover, RTC for Pi as NTP GPS source

2017-11-01 Thread Mark Sims
I have an analytical balance that reads down to micrograms. The weigh chamber is surrounded by three layers of IR absorbing glass so that radiated body heat does not induce convection currents in the air. I worked on a balance that had nanogram resolution (mostly wishful thinking in that

[time-nuts] HP-531xx counter calibrator boards

2017-12-06 Thread Mark Sims
The PCB's for the new (and hopefully improved) time interval calibrator board have shipped. They should be here early next week. The boards can do the Offset, Gain, and Fine time interval calibration steps in the HP 531xx calibration menu and replace the unobtainium HP-5-J06 time

[time-nuts] Symmetricom X72 interface boards

2017-12-06 Thread Mark Sims
The X72 rubidium oscillator interface board sets have (finally) been shipped to everybody that paid for them. I had hoped to get them out a couple of weeks ago, but ran into a couple of annoying snags... First, the assembly house built a couple of test articles that were great and were

[time-nuts] Spectrtime SRO100 rubidium oscillator

2017-12-06 Thread Mark Sims
I recently got in a Spectrtime SRO100 rubidium oscillator. It is a very small (2.75 x 4") Rb that runs on 11-19V. The firmware has the ability to discipline itself to a 1PPS input and can self-optimize the loop time constant depending upon the stability of the input PPS. I now have Lady

[time-nuts] Spectratime SRO100/SRO75 rubidium question

2017-12-10 Thread Mark Sims
Versions of these oscillators prior to firmware version 1.96 had a user programmable DDS in them that could generate up to 20 MHz on pin 11 of the DB25 connector. All references to the commands to program this output have been removed from the current documentation. Does anybody have any

[time-nuts] IEEE Spectrum - Dec 2017 - article on chip-scale atomic frequency reference

2017-12-10 Thread Mark Sims
A 30 cm daily vertical offset is pretty typical. I've seen over 45 cm. Horizontal offsets are usually less than +/- 75 mm per day with the longitude displacement typically twice the latitude displacement. Heather uses a standard model (see http://geodesyworld.github.io/SOFTS/solid.htm) to

[time-nuts] IEEE Spectrum - Dec 2017 - article on chip-scale atomic frequency reference

2017-12-09 Thread Mark Sims
In the standards definitions that include "at sea level", the question these days is "which sea level?". As ocean temperature changes sea level will change (except maybe in Washington DC). Will the standards be amended to include something like "at sea level in 1990" or will the value being

[time-nuts] IEEE Spectrum - Dec 2017 - article on chip-scale atomic frequency reference

2017-12-09 Thread Mark Sims
Which gets real fun with things like solid earth tides getting involved. Lady Heather can now calculate and plot solid earth tides. Over the last 48 hours my place moved up/down 315 mm and gravity changed 186 microgals... and that was a rather stable period. -- > A 1

[time-nuts] IEEE Spectrum - Dec 2017 - article on chip-scale atomic frequency reference

2017-12-09 Thread Mark Sims
Yep, to paraphrase Bunker Hunt's "a billion dollars ain't what it used to be"... a nanosecond (or picosecond) ain't what it used to be. Things that used to be insignificant n'th order theoretical nuisances are now very real significant problems. > But it's not one-to-one as

[time-nuts] NEO-7M various modes

2017-10-28 Thread Mark Sims
Lady Heather will also work with the Ublox modules and can be used to configure the units. Heather can easily be compiled to run under Linux/macOS/freeBSD. You might have the SNR and/or elevation mask filters set improperly for indoor operation. ___

[time-nuts] I've been thinking about a GPS receiver experiment

2017-10-25 Thread Mark Sims
> No, you set up an oscillator so that is why you have that problem. I hooked the two rubidiums together just to see what would happen. It pretty much did what I expected... chaos... the time-nut equivalent of a naughty schoolboy putting a microphone up to the speaker of the public address

[time-nuts] I've been thinking about a GPS receiver experiment

2017-10-25 Thread Mark Sims
I did a quick silly experiment where I took a PRS-10 disciplined by an X72 which was disciplined by the PRS-10. The result seemed to have created a rupture in the space-time continuum. Nobody was happy... they didn't seem to agree on who was in charge.I need to try it again now that I

[time-nuts] I've been thinking about a GPS receiver experiment

2017-10-25 Thread Mark Sims
Well, the X72 uses a DDS instead of a DAC... not much different except you have no DAC to freq math to worry about. The DDS res is 60 MHz / 8192 - > I've been thinking about a GPS receiver experiment ___ time-nuts mailing list --

[time-nuts] Datum/Symmetricom Tymserve TS2100 GPS NTP Server Questions

2017-10-25 Thread Mark Sims
The SV6 has three different firmware versions for the following protocols: NMEA, TSIP, and TAIP. The latest Lady Heather code(5.01 or later) does support all the SV6 versions. You could pull the receiver and wire it to a TTL-RS232 converter and maybe get some more info on what it is

[time-nuts] Datum/Symmetricom Tymserve TS2100 GPS NTP Server Questions

2017-10-20 Thread Mark Sims
The SV6's are all well past their rollover date. A common problem with the SV6 (and the Motorola 6 and 8 channel receivers) is the TCXO has drifted out of range. Some have an adjustment cap that can be tweaked. ___ time-nuts mailing list --

[time-nuts] Nanosecond level GNSS data from Android devices

2017-10-31 Thread Mark Sims
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/31/google_gnss_analysis_tool_accurate_to_nanosecond_movements/ I wonder how well it works on a $20 Android tablet / phone? ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to

[time-nuts] Spice simulation of PSRR and phase noise

2017-10-28 Thread Mark Sims
And it's the only way to be sure... never trust a simulation, particularly for such flighty and subtle things like noise. Simulations can be useful for pointing you in the right direction for a design, but where the rubber meets the road there is nothing like real hardware to get to the true

[time-nuts] nuts about position (cheap receiver)

2018-05-04 Thread Mark Sims
You could add doppler to the RINEX file. All the receivers with raw messages seem to output that. I am playing with the Furuno GT87 output. It does not output carrier phase data (only pseudorange / doppler / SNR). CSRS-PPP can still process that. On the first run (3 hours of data,

[time-nuts] Ashtech Z12 question.

2018-05-06 Thread Mark Sims
I just added support for the Z12 to Lady Heather and fired up my Z12 for the first time in a few years. It powers up in some kind of a weird loopback mode and you have to reset the receiver memory to get it working. Does the Z12 have an internal memory backup battery? Mine is currently

[time-nuts] Ashtech Z12 question.

2018-05-11 Thread Mark Sims
The "new" Z12 from Ebay came in today. Works fine (except bad memory backup batteries). So antenna, power supply, cables are OK. Replacing the memory backup batteries is fairly easy, except for the gazillion and three screw to open it up. A pair of memory batteries costs around $15. I

[time-nuts] nuts about position (cheap receiver)

2018-05-10 Thread Mark Sims
I have Lady Heather's RINEX writer working fairly well. Handles GPS and GLONASS (should also do Galileo when the M8T comes in from Germany... was "in stock" but it took them over a week to ship it). I just did a run on the Furuno GT-8736. It only outputs pseudoranges. A 2.5 hour run @ 1Hz

[time-nuts] Ashtech Z12 question.

2018-05-10 Thread Mark Sims
Well, my Z12 stopped tracking sats yesterday. It passes all self-tests. I then replaced the memory backup batteries... it fixed the bootup error problem, but still won't track sats. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe,

[time-nuts] Ashtech Z12 question.

2018-05-11 Thread Mark Sims
Antenna is good... it is feeding an HP amplified splitter which goes to 7 other receivers. And yes, it died in the middle of a run. I have another Z12 coming from Ebay... -- > Rats. Is the antenna known to be good? Is the Z12 providing bias on the antenna cable? Did the Z12

[time-nuts] Ublox Galileo/Beidou PRNs

2018-05-11 Thread Mark Sims
Does anybody know how Ublox maps their reported PRNs for Galileo and Beidou satellites to the true satellite PRNs. What little there is on the web appears on the web is rather incorrect. For Galileo I have seen Ublox PRNs from 212 to 240. That seems to imply it might be ACTUAL =

[time-nuts] WWVB: measuring local 60 KHz noise

2018-05-05 Thread Mark Sims
Although it does not measure propagation delays, Lady Heather can now estimate propagation delays. You can enter the lat/lon/alt of the station or specify the station name. You can enter the ionosphere height, or Heather will estimate it depending upon the month. --- >

[time-nuts] ✘NEO-M8N vs. NEO-M8T

2018-05-20 Thread Mark Sims
Most of the post-processing services use reference stations that are surveyed and verified to mm level accuracy. The 13 reference stations used by AUSPOS were uncertainties all less than 4/4/8 mm. Unfortuenatly some of the baselines were rather long. My antenna is swimming in multi-path and

[time-nuts] ✘NEO-M8N vs. NEO-M8T

2018-05-20 Thread Mark Sims
The main significant difference between the M8N and M8T is the fact that the M8T can output raw data (and sawtooth). The hardware is the same so there should not be much difference PPS wise between the two. I have Lady Heather's RINEX writer working pretty well. Tested with the

[time-nuts] Thunderbolt code phase measurement

2018-05-16 Thread Mark Sims
I was losing messages for up to 4 seconds on some of the receivers (ResT?) so I commented out that message request. I need to go back and do some tests to see which ones are actually affected. --- > By "hosing" do you mean that you lose messages for the next second? That was

[time-nuts] ✘NEO-M8N vs. NEO-M8T

2018-05-21 Thread Mark Sims
Lady Heather can configure the various time pulse / PPS outputs on the Ublox receivers. (P keyboard menu) If the receiver supports sawtooth data, the current sawtooth value will be shown at the top of the screen (second column). It can also be shown in the plot area (GD will toggle the

[time-nuts] NEO-M8N vs. NEO-M8T

2018-05-21 Thread Mark Sims
Yes, the Ublox sends ps... whatever software that is processing the message is scaling it wrong. And labeling it wrong... qErr:-0.00105210 ps... that aint' right... no way... no how.. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To

[time-nuts] NEO-M8N vs. NEO-M8T

2018-05-21 Thread Mark Sims
It looks like you have slipped a decimal point somewhere (also that "ps" label is wrong). I have an M8N running here and the report sawtooth errors are all within a +/- 10 ns span. (and LEA-5T is +/- 5ns). --- > Class: TIM(0xd) ID: TP(0x1), len: 0x10

[time-nuts] NEO-M8N vs. NEO-M8T

2018-05-21 Thread Mark Sims
One thing to look out for when messing with sawtooth messages is the question of does the message come out before or after the PPS pulse... good look finding the answer in the receiver documentation... "After" seems to be the most common answer. That makes hardware/delay line compensation

[time-nuts] Antenna cable delay compensation

2018-05-21 Thread Mark Sims
A related question is: Do you use positive or negative numbers to set the antenna cable delay value? Again, most GPS receiver documentation does not say.I think that I've only seen it explicitly mentioned in the Trimble documentation and the Oscilloquartz Star-4 documentation. Also there

[time-nuts] Ublox M8T question

2018-05-23 Thread Mark Sims
I recently got in a Ublox M8T board in from CSGSHOP. The M8T supposedly outputs raw measurements (carrier phase, pseudorange, doppler) for all the sat systems it supports, but I am only getting raw measurements for GPS and SBAS... no Glonass or Galaileo.Any ideas why? Has anybody gotten

[time-nuts] Ublox M8T question

2018-05-23 Thread Mark Sims
I have it working now.The problem was the way I was interpreting the satellite system gnssid:svid values in the RAWX message. Basically the data for all the sat systems were being mapped to GPS prns. Heather has a command for configuring which GNSS constellations that you want to use.

[time-nuts] Thunderbolt code phase measurement

2018-05-15 Thread Mark Sims
The Trimble Thunderbolt has a message (0x5A) that outputs raw receiver measurement data. One value is "code phase" (along with PRN, sample length, sig level, dopple, and time-of-measurement). This is a single precision floating point number in units of 1/16 of a chip. Does anybody know how

[time-nuts] WTB: HP/Agilent/Symmetricom 58517A Distribution Amplifier

2018-05-18 Thread Mark Sims
Well, not strictly L1. I have a 58517A connected to an Ashtech Z12. It does report good signal levels on the L2 data (same range as the L1 signals)... but the Z12 L2 results are rather noisy and I don't get a very accurate solution. Also the '517A does seem to work OK with Galileo and

[time-nuts] TruePosition GPSDO Holdover Issues

2018-05-15 Thread Mark Sims
Lasy Heather can read a receiver data capture file as a "simulation" file. Use the /rs=filename command line option. You can also specify the /0 command line option (don't use serial port) and /rx= command line option to specify the receiver type. The simulation file reads in at around

[time-nuts] Thunderbolt code phase measurement

2018-05-16 Thread Mark Sims
Many thanks Peter for confirming what I suspected. The problem with the Trimble receivers is that requesting the satellite C/A code data can hose up a lot of them. So, I'm stuck with calculating the integer number of milliseconds. How to do that? I do know my position to a few feet. I

[time-nuts] ✘NEO-M8N vs. NEO-M8T

2018-05-20 Thread Mark Sims
I think what Gary really wants is a GPS receiver with the most stable PPS output available. That is probably the Furuno GT-8736... 1.7 nsec sawtooth error. Typical PPS span is +/- 4 nsec. Also, the Trimble Thunderbolt has 0 sawtooth error. ___

[time-nuts] ✘NEO-M8N vs. NEO-M8T

2018-05-20 Thread Mark Sims
The sawtooth value is in the 0x0D-0x01 (TIM-TP) message. Third value, called qErr. 32-bit dword. In picoseconds. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow

[time-nuts] Cheap-ish PRS-10 rubidiums on Ebay

2018-06-09 Thread Mark Sims
There is a guy selling some (5) PRS-10's on Ebay for $170. Says pulled from decommissioned systems, but sold for parts. No telling if they are any good... They are listed as being "used" and not "for parts"... which I think means Ebay says you can return them.

[time-nuts] where can I purchase 794.7 nm VCSEL for building CPT rubidium clock?

2018-06-11 Thread Mark Sims
Well, no. Green laser pointers convert a rather high power 800 nm laser to 1600 nm in one crystal then divide it to 533 nm in another one. The physics and manufacturing of them is best described as black magic. They are cheap because China developed the process to grow the crystals in bulk

[time-nuts] Affordable PoE 6-digit time displays?

2018-06-15 Thread Mark Sims
You could also run Lady Heather on a PI with NTP and select one of the zoomed full screen clock displays (analog watch or digital clock). ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-05-30 Thread Mark Sims
Ok, I did the experiment. I took an 8 hour M8T RINEX file with GPS,SBAS,GLONASS,GALILEO data in it. I then used to TEQC to extract GPS only and GLONASS only data (CSRS-PPP ignores SBAS and GALILEO data). The 95% confidence error ellipse estimates ("rapid" orbits) were: GPS+GLONASS:lat

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-05-29 Thread Mark Sims
I finally got in the Ublox M8T and have been testing its RAW data measurements (carrier phase / pseudorange / dopper) data by having Lady Heather write a RINEX file and sending it to CSRS-PPP. Collecting GPS, SBAS, GLONAS, and GALILEO data (CSRS-PPP ignores GALILEO and BEIDOU data) for 2 hours

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-06-02 Thread Mark Sims
Well, with a little prodding and help from Magnus, I now have the Trimble devices outputting RINEX files. They have pseudorange, doppler, and signal strength observations. A 5 hour 1Hz run was sent to CSRS-PPP and the lat/lon/alt error ellipses were in the 250/250/700 mm range... that

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-06-03 Thread Mark Sims
I haven't done any extensive testing of how accurate the results are, but comparing them to the position produced by a L1/L2 (error ellipses < 50mm) they seem to be correct. One issue to be aware of is that some receivers want altitude in othometric height (MSL) and others use geoid (GPS)

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-06-03 Thread Mark Sims
I did a test on a 1 second vs a stripped out 10 second rate from the same 24 hour run. The differences were down in the noise. Some people have actually reported slightly better results with 30 second vs 1 second data... but I doubt that... I suspect they used different data sets and the

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-06-03 Thread Mark Sims
As far as I'm concerned anything that you can do to improve the position accuracy, environmental changes, noise environment, etc is a good thing. Minimizing errors and disturbances can't hurt and may even improve things. How much any improvement provides ... ??? But time nuts tend to

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-05-31 Thread Mark Sims
I did another test to see if the M8T offered any positioning advantage over the old (and cheap) LEA-4T and LEA-5T devices. I drove the M8T and LEA-4T with the same antenna, collected data for 12 hours, beamed the RINEX files to Canada. The results matched to within 3mm... so, again, the

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-06-02 Thread Mark Sims
I repeated the two-receiver test, this time comparing 10 hours of 1 Hz measurements from an LEA-4T with NVS-08C measurments. The NVS has higher resolution RAW data measurements. But, again, the differences in the error ellipses were in the 2-4 mm range.

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-06-05 Thread Mark Sims
I did Lady Heather's 48-hour precision survey on an NVS-08 receiver and collected RINEX data at the same time. The NVS was tracking GPS and SBAS satellites. The RINEX result had lat/lon/alt error estimates of .175/.153/.396 meters. The difference between Heather's precision survey results and

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-06-05 Thread Mark Sims
The tripod is a survey grade tripod on a limestone terrace (in a horrible location for an antenna). Heather's precision survey uses the receiver's reported position data. It does not take advantage of carrier phase/pseduorange/doppler data and post-processing. Unlike the simple averaging

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-06-05 Thread Mark Sims
The typical receiver default self-surveys of 30 minutes to 2 hours are not ideal. They will not include a lot of satellites or the effects of multi-path over time. A survey of at least 12 hours is needed to include all the sats. 24-48 hours is even better. The effects of things like

[time-nuts] Question about Lady Heather millisecond display

2018-06-06 Thread Mark Sims
That is exactly what it should be doing... it shows the time of arrival of the receiver time message is varying by around a millisecond. --- > However, when entering this command the three millisecond digits do appear but only alternate back and forth every several seconds between

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-05-01 Thread Mark Sims
I added some debug log info that shows how many bytes the receiver sent between time messages. The LEA-6T sends around 500-600 bytes every second. That fits easily into 9600 baud. The M8N tracking all sats and with all the raw messages enabled spews around 4000 bytes. That would require

[time-nuts] nuts about position (cheap receiver)

2018-05-01 Thread Mark Sims
There are some sellers on Ebay LEA-5T receivers on Ebay for cheap. They are pin and layout compatible with the Trimble Resolution-T devices. I bought a couple from this guy ($24 each) and they do output the RAW and SFRB messages. He also has LEA-4T and Trimble boards. There are also other

[time-nuts] nuts about position (cheap receiver)

2018-05-02 Thread Mark Sims
The goal is to make it as simple as possible and have Heather do all the receiver configuring, data capture, and RINEX making... with none of that tedious mucking about in RTKLIB Currently all I have to do is fire up Heather and tell it to write a log file with the .obs extension.

[time-nuts] nuts about position (cheap receiver)

2018-05-02 Thread Mark Sims
Well, I processed the Lady Heather .raw capture file from the $24 LEA-5T through RTKCONV and submitted it to CSRS-PPP and it worked. Using the less precise instant orbits it says the 95% sigma errors are: lat: 0.169m lon:0.148m alt: 0.399m My antenna is that Chinese L1/L2/Glonass/etc

[time-nuts] nuts about position (cheap receiver)

2018-05-02 Thread Mark Sims
For the orbits is says "Precise", so maybe not even the hourly ones. I could not find any mention of emu, emr, or igs. Heather can now spit out Rinex 3.02 files (at least for GPS/SBAS sats).I am currently feeding Heather the .raw capture file I sent to Canada and outputting a RINEX .OBS

[time-nuts] nuts about position (cheap receiver)

2018-05-02 Thread Mark Sims
I tried submitting Version 3 files to several services... none support Version 3!Heather now creates the uglier/less readable Version 2.10 RINEX, ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to

[time-nuts] nuts about position (cheap receiver)

2018-05-02 Thread Mark Sims
G... Canada lives in the dark ages and does not accept RINEX version 3... I'm now trying Australia... Version 3 is cleaner and easier to write than Version 2... ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to

[time-nuts] nuts about position (cheap receiver)

2018-05-03 Thread Mark Sims
Woohoo! Success!I sent a RINEX 2.10 formatted .obs file generated by Heather from a Ublox 5 to Canada for post-processing. The results matched those from RTKLIB processing to within 1mm. Oh, and on noth cases the post-processing used the "emu" orbit info. I haven't heard back from

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-04-26 Thread Mark Sims
You will probably have a some difficulty finding a surveyor that does geodetic/mm accuracy surveys. Most surveyors that use GPS seem to work down to inches/a few cm. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-04-30 Thread Mark Sims
Coincidentally, yesterday I tweaked up Lady Heather's Ublox code to enable all of the necessary raw data messages. Heather also enables the raw messages from Trimble TSIP speaking receivers, the NVS CSM24 receiver, and the Furuno GT87 receiver (if baud rate is >=115200). Heather can write a

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-04-30 Thread Mark Sims
Heather now requests the RAW and RAWX messages... those output carrier phase, doppler, and pseudo ranges.The M8N does not support either, but the M8T supports RAWX. Heather now requests the SFRB and SFRBX messages... those output the satellite navigation messages. All the M8's output

[time-nuts] nuts about position

2018-04-30 Thread Mark Sims
I once spent way too much time trying to get Heather to spit out a RINEX file from a Thunderbolt. I could never get any of the post-processors to accept it. The Thunderbolt's raw data needs to somehow be tweaked to be compatible and I didn't really know what I was doing. A LEA-6T seems to

[time-nuts] nuts about position (cheap receiver)

2018-05-03 Thread Mark Sims
To give an idea about the possible improvement in antenna location available by post-processing the data, I first did a 2 hour self-survey and that put the receiver into position hold mode. Then I collected RINEX data for 16 hours. The post-processed lat/lon/alt values differed around 1/1/3

[time-nuts] I've been thinking about a GPS receiver experiment

2017-10-26 Thread Mark Sims
The Thunderbolt, Star-4, Trueposition, and HP GPSDOs/Smartclocks are all known to do this. Typically the learning period is around 24 hours before the compensation is allowed to run. My HP GPSDO seems to take a week for best performance. Separating tempco and aging drift seems to me to be a

[time-nuts] I've been thinking about a GPS receiver experiment

2017-10-26 Thread Mark Sims
Many years ago I tried to add some code to Lady Heather to calculate the tempco and aging of the oscillator in a normally running Tbolt. Although the equations would theoretically work (using SVD decomposition) it seldom worked properly. Failure seemed to be caused by noise in the small

[time-nuts] Oscilloquartz OSA-4530 GPSDO

2017-12-30 Thread Mark Sims
The 4530 GPSDO arrived, but was dead. Looks like the DC-DC that makes 5V is bad. The seller sent a replacement unit that seems to be working. Also a list member sent me a copy of the 4531 manual. The commands listed are very similar to the Star-4 commands. But sending any of the 4531

[time-nuts] Oscilloquartz OSA-4350 GPSDO

2017-12-31 Thread Mark Sims
I disassembled the unit and found that +5V is shorted to ground on the top board. No shorted tantalum caps or obvious failed parts. I am beginning to think it may be power/ground planes are shorted on the four layer board (all boards are four layer)... probably wasted $20 on a DC-DC. It's

[time-nuts] Lady Heather Question

2017-12-31 Thread Mark Sims
There are two types of Oscilloquartz GPSDOs appearing on Ebay: For now, I would avoid the OSA-4530. I have been unable to talk to it. The version being sold now may have non-standard firmware. All commands return an "unknown command" error. The Oscilloquartz GPSDOs that use the Star-4

[time-nuts] HP 105B: Modern replacement for NiCad battery pack?

2018-01-05 Thread Mark Sims
Since NiMH cells typically have over twice the capacity of NiCad cells, a C/10 charger will charge them at less than C/20.It's best to trickle charge NiMH cells in the C/30 to C/40 range, but depending on the cell C/20 might be OK. Measure your charge current on a discharged pack and

[time-nuts] New product: the TAPR "PulsePuppy"

2017-12-23 Thread Mark Sims
Looks good and quite useful. If you ever re-spin the board, I would recommend including a place for range limiting resistors on the ends of the EFC adjustment pot. That way they can be low TCR resistors and the TCR effects of the pot can be minimized and the EFC adjustment can be made less

[time-nuts] New product: the TAPR "PulsePuppy"

2017-12-23 Thread Mark Sims
That's what I thought, but in a real world application I got better results with the resistors/pot. It could have just been the pots I were using. What also worked quite well was to thermally bond the pot to the OCXO case... poor man's oven stabilization. --- > When used as a

[time-nuts] TAPR "PulsePuppy" Pot Selection

2017-12-24 Thread Mark Sims
Another very irritating "feature" of pots is that over time the wiper can deform the resistance element. When you go to adjust a pot (like when making a calibration adjustment on an old piece of equipment) it can be very difficult to get (and keep) the setting where you want it to be if the

[time-nuts] Reference input on HP counters

2018-01-07 Thread Mark Sims
On the 531xx counters the priority is the external input, the OCXO option, and the (terrible) on board crystal. I seem to remember coming across a menu option for forcing a particular source. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To

[time-nuts] LED replacement screen for 53131A 53132A!!??

2018-01-07 Thread Mark Sims
I never decided on a particular display to use. I was thinking along the lines of 192x32 LCD displays. LEDs could be used, but I didn't see any alphanumeric LEDs on Ebay that were small enough. I didn't check places like Digikey. Also, doing the annunciators with LEDs adds some complexity

[time-nuts] Outdoor GPS Antenna Selection

2018-01-08 Thread Mark Sims
I have a bunch of small, cheap antennas that look like this one. I bought them for testing some Glonass capable receivers: https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-GPS-GLONASS-Antenna-car-navigation-dvd-C-receiver-Waterproof-gps-antenna-SMA/262621649740?hash=item3d25785b4c:g:OHkAAOSwglZZcC8~ They seem to

[time-nuts] LED replacement screen for 53131A 53132A!!??

2018-01-06 Thread Mark Sims
I have worked out a design for a replacement 531xx front panel that uses a micro and LCD module to emulate the VFD display. I was going to do it when my VFD died, but just bought a couple of spare VFDs off of Ebay. The 531xx front panel board basically has a bunch of elastomer switch contact

[time-nuts] Looking for a cheap low tempco EFC pot

2018-01-18 Thread Mark Sims
My adapter board for connecting an LPFRS / LPRO / OCXO to my BNC (and now SMA) connector board has a place for a 10K EFC adjustment pot (0.375 x 0.175" footprint). I'm looking for recommendations for a cheap, low-ish tempco pot. I have a few nice ones with a house number on them, but the

[time-nuts] minimalist sine to square

2018-01-20 Thread Mark Sims
If you have a TADD2-mini you can just replace the divider chip with the 10 KHz version. That doesn't get you a 10 V output, though. -- > I am trying to duplicate one channel of the TADD2 so I can bring 10Mhz down > to 10Khz. ___

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