Re: [time-nuts] LH Z3801 and XP stalling

[Chuck Harris]

Not meaning to beat this dead horse any farther than
I have to, but it worked fine under Windows XP, 7, and
Linux.  It only came to have a problem after the
Windows 10 upgrade the MS forced on the machine one
summer day.  The cure was to shut off the power saving
features.

OBTW, the hub of which I spoke is part of the motherboard
on the Dell computer.

-Chuck Harris

jimlux wrote:
> On 12/16/16 6:33 AM, Chuck Harris wrote:
>> A customer's 'doze 7 computer got auto updated to 'doze 10,
>> and with that upgrade came a usb hub that timed out, turning
>> itself off the only problem was, the keyboard and
>> mouse were on that hub, leaving no way to signal the computer
>> to turn the hub back on.
> 
> That's a non-compliant hub.  Part of the complexity in hub design is that it's
> supposed to have the ability to "turn off (most) power to downstream devices" 
> and
> "turn off (most) power to hub", but still trickle enough power through the 
> tree that
> a leaf node can send the "wakeup" message back up the tree.
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Re: [time-nuts] HP 10811 40 Hz low.

[paul swed]

Great comments.
I can confirm the oven behaviors. The out is not needed. It is controlled
from the micro and warms slowly at about 17 volts. Gets to 150 F after a
solid hour as long as its insulated other wise it has a hard time keeping
up with ambient air. The 10811 does heat quickly to the 85C. I have
measured it and it is heating to 85.
So unfortunately not my lucky day. Opamp would be a piece O-cake.
So all that said time to move on.
By injecting 10 MHz from a TBolt I hoped to get things running. Just to see.
But I think I have a second issue. HP satstat and gps control report the
OCXO warming up. Never gets to the hot point. Now the 108011 is out of
circuit and per the 10811 manual I am supplying a 3.5V signal to the cpu.
But it never changes state.
The second issue was the bad 10811 has made the DAC goes to 100%. So far no
luck in it changing. But of the ovens not warm I could see why the system
would not adjust the EFC. I am hoping away from 100%.
A system preset does tell the DAC to go to a mid range level but after some
10 or seconds it jumps back to max.
I almost might believe I would need to do a fast dance. restart and very
quickly tell it to write the data to eeprom. I am not that fast.
Have been searching th net for clues about reseting teh dac. No luck.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL

On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 3:02 PM, Bob Camp  wrote:

> Hi
>
> The “outer oven” on the Z3801 10811’s is simply a warmup heater to improve
> performance when the unit
> starts at -40C. When operated as designed, it is effectively “gone” in
> normal operation. The 10811’s normal
> oven circuit (“inner oven”) on the modified 10811 is still what does all
> of the stabilization of the crystal. The
> temperature stability of the Z3801 version is not significantly different
> than the standard 10811 when measured
> over a normal ambient range. Since our basements are rarely at -40C there
> is not a lot of value to the "outer
> oven" in the standard configuration. A proper outer oven / inner oven
> combination would be designed and
> configured very differently than what you see in the Z3801. The “boost
> heater” approach does show up in
> other gear, very little of it is in TimeNuts stuff.
>
> Why do it this way? The 10811 as built simply did not have enough power to
> warm up properly from -40. At
> the time, there was some thought that GPSDO’s would be deployed in
> un-heated enclosures (that never happened).
> To get the unit working, a number of “quick and dirty” hacks were employed
> to hook the existing OCXO into
> the Z3801 design. They were of a “fast time to market” nature rather than
> “figure it out and do it right”.
>
> Bob
>
>
> > On Dec 16, 2016, at 12:44 PM, ed breya  wrote:
> >
> > I had a reference problem on my Z3801A years ago, and ultimately found
> that the opamp that controls the 10811 oven temperature was bad. I think it
> turned out there was a bad batch of certain date codes. Replacing the IC
> with an equivalent type fixed it right up, with no other changes or
> adjustments.
> >
> > Also note that the the ovens are sequenced to avoid drawing too much
> power from cold-start. As I recall, the inner one has to get up near
> operating temperature to get things running ASAP, then its status signal
> enables the outer oven driver (a switched-mode converter on the Z3801A
> power supply board) to start - it takes longer to stabilize. I think the
> inner oven should take maybe 20-30 minutes tops, to reach the spec range,
> and the outer one gradually catches up over maybe an hour or two.
> >
> > The crystal is very sensitive to temperature until it gets to turnover,
> so the frequency can seem way out of whack compared to its normal operating
> point. The oven temperature doesn't have to be very far off to cause this,
> so a failure in the inner oven control that throws it out of range could
> cause problems.
> >
> > Ed
> >
> >
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Re: [time-nuts] LH Z3801 and XP stalling

[Chuck Harris]

Most older laptops have power saving hardware on the com ports
and the lpt ports too!

Try putting a blinky box on the port to see if the signals
stay lit through the stall.

-Chuck Harris

paul swed wrote:
> Thanks everyone.
> However on the dell laptop its an actual rs232 port. They used to include
> those. :-)
> I am thinking of trying a usb port to see if that works. It is all working
> nicely on a acer windoze vista laptop.But the machine I normally use for
> this stuff is the dell laptop.
> Regards
> Paul
> 
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 9:33 AM, Chuck Harris  wrote:
> 
>> A customer's 'doze 7 computer got auto updated to 'doze 10,
>> and with that upgrade came a usb hub that timed out, turning
>> itself off the only problem was, the keyboard and
>> mouse were on that hub, leaving no way to signal the computer
>> to turn the hub back on.  Ultimately, the customer found that
>> if he unplugged the monitor, plug and pray would restore things.
>> For a while.
>>
>> -Chuck Harris
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Re: [time-nuts] HP 10811 40 Hz low.

[Bob Camp]

Hi

The “outer oven” on the Z3801 10811’s is simply a warmup heater to improve 
performance when the unit
starts at -40C. When operated as designed, it is effectively “gone” in normal 
operation. The 10811’s normal
oven circuit (“inner oven”) on the modified 10811 is still what does all of the 
stabilization of the crystal. The 
temperature stability of the Z3801 version is not significantly different than 
the standard 10811 when measured
over a normal ambient range. Since our basements are rarely at -40C there is 
not a lot of value to the "outer
oven" in the standard configuration. A proper outer oven / inner oven 
combination would be designed and
configured very differently than what you see in the Z3801. The “boost heater” 
approach does show up in 
other gear, very little of it is in TimeNuts stuff. 

Why do it this way? The 10811 as built simply did not have enough power to warm 
up properly from -40. At
the time, there was some thought that GPSDO’s would be deployed in un-heated 
enclosures (that never happened). 
To get the unit working, a number of “quick and dirty” hacks were employed to 
hook the existing OCXO into
the Z3801 design. They were of a “fast time to market” nature rather than 
“figure it out and do it right”.

Bob


> On Dec 16, 2016, at 12:44 PM, ed breya  wrote:
> 
> I had a reference problem on my Z3801A years ago, and ultimately found that 
> the opamp that controls the 10811 oven temperature was bad. I think it turned 
> out there was a bad batch of certain date codes. Replacing the IC with an 
> equivalent type fixed it right up, with no other changes or adjustments.
> 
> Also note that the the ovens are sequenced to avoid drawing too much power 
> from cold-start. As I recall, the inner one has to get up near operating 
> temperature to get things running ASAP, then its status signal enables the 
> outer oven driver (a switched-mode converter on the Z3801A power supply 
> board) to start - it takes longer to stabilize. I think the inner oven should 
> take maybe 20-30 minutes tops, to reach the spec range, and the outer one 
> gradually catches up over maybe an hour or two.
> 
> The crystal is very sensitive to temperature until it gets to turnover, so 
> the frequency can seem way out of whack compared to its normal operating 
> point. The oven temperature doesn't have to be very far off to cause this, so 
> a failure in the inner oven control that throws it out of range could cause 
> problems.
> 
> Ed
> 
> 
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Re: [time-nuts] GALILEO online: any changes seen?

[David J Taylor]

From: Mark Sims

Fire up Lady Heather v5,   start it with the -rxu option to speak Ublox 
binary.  Enter the keyboard command SG.  That will let you see which GNSS 
systems are in use and let you change them.  My M8 (fw 3.01) lets me select 
Galileo, but I see no Galileo sats.


To get the receiver back to NMEA, use the !m keyboard command.
===

Mark,

Just so that I understand correctly, that would mean compiling and running 
LH5 on the Raspberry Pi?  I recall you said that was possible.


However, another source has told me that a firmware upgrade is required, and 
that the MAX M8Q isn't field programmable, and that the ones I have are not 
the -10 version which includes Galileo.


So I'm stymied for a while!

I've made a note of how to do it, though.

Cheers,
David
--
SatSignal Software - Quality software written to your requirements
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu
Email: david-tay...@blueyonder.co.uk
Twitter: @gm8arv 


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Re: [time-nuts] HP 10811 40 Hz low.

[ed breya]

I had a reference problem on my Z3801A years ago, and ultimately found 
that the opamp that controls the 10811 oven temperature was bad. I think 
it turned out there was a bad batch of certain date codes. Replacing the 
IC with an equivalent type fixed it right up, with no other changes or 
adjustments.


Also note that the the ovens are sequenced to avoid drawing too much 
power from cold-start. As I recall, the inner one has to get up near 
operating temperature to get things running ASAP, then its status signal 
enables the outer oven driver (a switched-mode converter on the Z3801A 
power supply board) to start - it takes longer to stabilize. I think the 
inner oven should take maybe 20-30 minutes tops, to reach the spec 
range, and the outer one gradually catches up over maybe an hour or two.


The crystal is very sensitive to temperature until it gets to turnover, 
so the frequency can seem way out of whack compared to its normal 
operating point. The oven temperature doesn't have to be very far off to 
cause this, so a failure in the inner oven control that throws it out of 
range could cause problems.


Ed


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Re: [time-nuts] LH Z3801 and XP stalling

[jimlux]

On 12/16/16 6:33 AM, Chuck Harris wrote:

A customer's 'doze 7 computer got auto updated to 'doze 10,
and with that upgrade came a usb hub that timed out, turning
itself off the only problem was, the keyboard and
mouse were on that hub, leaving no way to signal the computer
to turn the hub back on.


That's a non-compliant hub.  Part of the complexity in hub design is 
that it's supposed to have the ability to "turn off (most) power to 
downstream devices" and "turn off (most) power to hub", but still 
trickle enough power through the tree that a leaf node can send the 
"wakeup" message back up the tree.


Where the OS gets twisted around is that it has to infer the power 
management state of that whole tree, and that is imperfect - partly it's 
a problem in the USB spec - you can do perfectly legal things in terms 
of connect/disconnect that cause changes in power management state of a 
hub or node that seem not to propagate back up the tree, so the 
controlling host has no idea what's going on, short of "turn the whole 
thing on, enumerate, and then turn stuff off again".


My particular problems often come from USB devices that change their 
personality (e.g. they're a Human Interface Device (HID - think mouse) 
sometimes and a serial port sometimes, and mass storage sometimes). 
It's not clear that the USB spec contemplates this, and it's really, 
really clear that the folks writing software (particularly for Linux 
drivers) handle it cleanly.   This is a case where I've had much better 
luck with Windows (7, in my case) than with *nix.  I think it's a "mass 
market" thing - there's many more Windows computers out there and USB 
devices connected to Windows devices, so there's a bigger "test space". 
It doesn't cost Microsoft very much to "get it right" - the USB power 
management code is probably pretty small, and it really is distinct from 
other functions, so they probably have a few people whose whole job is 
fixing stuff like this.




All of the mobo mounted hubs I've run into (whether integrated into the 
giant chip, or separate and distinct) do this correctly.  Not all the 
standalone hubs do it right.  I suspect that there are some cheap and 
cheerful parts out there that were designed a while back, and they keep 
cropping up. I've got some older hubs (>10 years) that I got as 
conference/trade show giveaways, and some do it right, and some do it 
wrong.  It's sort of like the whole "high power device" management 
aspect - older devices sometimes get it wrong, and there's nothing in 
the market place that stops someone from making a very cheap copy of an 
older design and selling it.


There's no credible "USB device certification organization" that your $1 
hub mfr is going to use - they'd probably just stamp it certified 
whether it is or not.





 Ultimately, the customer found that

if he unplugged the monitor, plug and pray would restore things.
For a while.


Probably not useful in that customer's case, but spending some time with 
Device Manager and devcon would probably figure out what's going on. 
devcon, in particular, can generate copious debug information about the 
state of things.  A day of systematic testing going through the various 
sequences would probably nail it down.




-Chuck Harris

jimlux wrote:

On 12/15/16 7:08 PM, Chuck Harris wrote:

Sometimes, when one is doing a long run that goes past the
usual power save times, the USB port will shut itself off.

I believe that most motherboards have a setting in the BIOS
that controls the ability of the BIOS to power the USB port
down during quiet times.



More likely the OS configures the USB hardware.  On Win 7 (but probably also 
anything
from WinXP on, if not before) there's a whole bunch of command line tools (or 
you can
use Device Manager) to deal with the incredible complex power state behavior of 
USB
devices, and more particularly hubs.


devcon is the command line tool here
 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272

More info at:
http://www.fixedbyvonnie.com/2013/11/fix-usb-root-hub-power-management-issue-windows-7/

and at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817900

devcon is the command line tool here
 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272

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Re: [time-nuts] LH Z3801 and XP stalling

[paul swed]

Thanks everyone.
However on the dell laptop its an actual rs232 port. They used to include
those. :-)
I am thinking of trying a usb port to see if that works. It is all working
nicely on a acer windoze vista laptop.But the machine I normally use for
this stuff is the dell laptop.
Regards
Paul

On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 9:33 AM, Chuck Harris  wrote:

> A customer's 'doze 7 computer got auto updated to 'doze 10,
> and with that upgrade came a usb hub that timed out, turning
> itself off the only problem was, the keyboard and
> mouse were on that hub, leaving no way to signal the computer
> to turn the hub back on.  Ultimately, the customer found that
> if he unplugged the monitor, plug and pray would restore things.
> For a while.
>
> -Chuck Harris
>
> jimlux wrote:
> > On 12/15/16 7:08 PM, Chuck Harris wrote:
> >> Sometimes, when one is doing a long run that goes past the
> >> usual power save times, the USB port will shut itself off.
> >>
> >> I believe that most motherboards have a setting in the BIOS
> >> that controls the ability of the BIOS to power the USB port
> >> down during quiet times.
> >>
> >
> > More likely the OS configures the USB hardware.  On Win 7 (but probably
> also anything
> > from WinXP on, if not before) there's a whole bunch of command line
> tools (or you can
> > use Device Manager) to deal with the incredible complex power state
> behavior of USB
> > devices, and more particularly hubs.
> >
> >
> > devcon is the command line tool here
> >  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272
> >
> > More info at:
> > http://www.fixedbyvonnie.com/2013/11/fix-usb-root-hub-
> power-management-issue-windows-7/
> >
> > and at:
> > http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817900
> >
> > devcon is the command line tool here
> >  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272
> >
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[time-nuts] GALILEO online: any changes seen?

[Mark Sims]

Fire up Lady Heather v5,   start it with the -rxu option to speak Ublox binary. 
 Enter the keyboard command SG.  That will let you see which GNSS systems are 
in use and let you change them.  My M8 (fw 3.01) lets me select Galileo, but I 
see no Galileo sats. 

To get the receiver back to NMEA, use the !m keyboard command.

-

> The MAC M8 can receive three systems simultaneously, but what three mine are 
programmed for I don't know.  I suspect it's at least GPS & GLONASS, but the 
third?  Perhaps BeiDou?
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Re: [time-nuts] Temperature weirdness with Thunderbolt & Lady Heather 5

[Pete Stephenson]

On 12/16/2016 1:54 PM, wb6bnq wrote:
> Hi Pete,
> 
> Are you really at an altitude of 645 meters ?

Yes. That's the result of multiple surveys over a week a year or two
ago. I'm pretty sure the altitude hasn't changed since then. :)

I think Lady Heather shows the altitude as that above the WGS84 geoid
rather than above sea level, right? I'm trying to resolve some
discrepancies in reported altitude between my handheld Garmin eTrex 20,
Oncore UT+, and Thunderbolt (the Oncore and Thunderbolt share a split
signal from the same antenna).

> Also, it seems that your oscillator gain (currently at -5 Hz/v) may not
> be set right ?

That's the default for the Thunderbolt. I've tried tuning it a bit to
other values but it runs reasonably well at that value so I stick with it.

> Have you checked the power supply voltages and observed them on an
> oscilloscope to see if they are relatively clean and free of spurious
> junk ?

I've checked them with a multimeter and, while not dead-on at +5, +12,
and -12V, they're within the acceptable range mentioned in the
Thunderbolt manual. I have an oscilloscope and will probe them later
today when I get home from work.

> The available number of SATS  is quite low and could be a matter of
> concern.

The antenna is in a poor location, facing to the northwest. It's the
best I can do in this apartment, and the number of satellites seen is
typical for this location.

What's interesting is that the weird transients would occur at least
once every few hours over the last two days, but when I switched to
using a hardware serial port (as opposed to a genuine FTDI USB-to-serial
adapter connected to a hub) there hasn't been anything for the last 7
hours. I made no other changes to the setup.

The adapter had been working fine with no issues for at least a year and
I was using it for other devices as well with no problems. I had turned
off the Thunderbolt for a few months to save electricity (with my PhD
studies nearing a close I needed to focus and take time off from amateur
radio stuff) and just turned it on again in preparation for the leap second.

It's possible this may have simply been a communication error between
the Thunderbolt and the computer. I'll do more tests to find out.

Cheers!
-Pete
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Re: [time-nuts] LH Z3801 and XP stalling

[Chuck Harris]

A customer's 'doze 7 computer got auto updated to 'doze 10,
and with that upgrade came a usb hub that timed out, turning
itself off the only problem was, the keyboard and
mouse were on that hub, leaving no way to signal the computer
to turn the hub back on.  Ultimately, the customer found that
if he unplugged the monitor, plug and pray would restore things.
For a while.

-Chuck Harris

jimlux wrote:
> On 12/15/16 7:08 PM, Chuck Harris wrote:
>> Sometimes, when one is doing a long run that goes past the
>> usual power save times, the USB port will shut itself off.
>>
>> I believe that most motherboards have a setting in the BIOS
>> that controls the ability of the BIOS to power the USB port
>> down during quiet times.
>>
> 
> More likely the OS configures the USB hardware.  On Win 7 (but probably also 
> anything
> from WinXP on, if not before) there's a whole bunch of command line tools (or 
> you can
> use Device Manager) to deal with the incredible complex power state behavior 
> of USB
> devices, and more particularly hubs.
> 
> 
> devcon is the command line tool here
>  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272
> 
> More info at:
> http://www.fixedbyvonnie.com/2013/11/fix-usb-root-hub-power-management-issue-windows-7/
> 
> and at:
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817900
> 
> devcon is the command line tool here
>  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272
> 
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Re: [time-nuts] LH Z3801 and XP stalling

[jimlux]

On 12/15/16 7:08 PM, Chuck Harris wrote:

Sometimes, when one is doing a long run that goes past the
usual power save times, the USB port will shut itself off.

I believe that most motherboards have a setting in the BIOS
that controls the ability of the BIOS to power the USB port
down during quiet times.



More likely the OS configures the USB hardware.  On Win 7 (but probably 
also anything from WinXP on, if not before) there's a whole bunch of 
command line tools (or you can use Device Manager) to deal with the 
incredible complex power state behavior of USB devices, and more 
particularly hubs.



devcon is the command line tool here
 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272

More info at:
http://www.fixedbyvonnie.com/2013/11/fix-usb-root-hub-power-management-issue-windows-7/

and at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817900

devcon is the command line tool here
 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272

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Re: [time-nuts] Temperature weirdness with Thunderbolt & Lady Heather 5

[Bob Camp]

Hi

> On Dec 16, 2016, at 3:21 AM, Pete Stephenson  wrote:
> 
> On 12/15/2016 7:45 PM, Charles Steinmetz wrote:
>> Tom wrote:
>> 
>>> There's something very odd going on here, either with Pete's TBolt,
>>> and/or with Mark's Heather v5.
>>> 
>>> 2) It also shows some truly erratic behavior the last day and a half,
>>> with multiple, massive, sudden temperature drops going down several
>>> degrees. I've never seen this.
>> 
>> I think the more revealing trace is the DAC voltage.  There are ~70mV
>> plunges, to a dead quiet (at this scale), more negative value.  70mV is
>> huge, corresponding to a -35e-9 frequency shift (350mHz).  If the DAC
>> voltage actually changed that much, it would pull the OCXO so far off
>> frequency during these events that it would take much, much longer than
>> shown (indeed, much longer than the width of these events) to
>> re-stabilize.  Yet we see clean jumps within seconds, and no settling.
>> (Unfortunately, the Tbolt's estimation of frequency is not plotted on
>> the posted screen shot.)
> 
> Apologies, I did have the frequency plot turned off. I've taken some
> more screenshots with the frequency plot turned on.
> 
> screenshot.png is a close-up of one of the odd spikes, while
> screenshot2.png took place ~10 minutes later (I just scrolled to the right).
> 
> The small frequency jumps in screenshot2.png are due to satellites
> entering and leaving the field of view. Due to the setup of my
> apartment, the antenna location is decidedly sub-optimal and has a clear
> view only to the northwest.
> 
>> I find it hard to believe that LH does much processing of the reported
>> DAC voltage, so I think it's safe to say (1) the LH plot shows
>> accurately what the Tbolt is reporting (at least WRT the DAC voltage),
>> and (2) the actual DAC voltage is not doing what the Tbolt is reporting.
>> 
>> Looks like a sick Tbolt to me.
> 
> Any idea what might be the issue? I can do SMT rework to replace a bad
> temperature sensor or other faulty chips, within reason (super-fine
> pitch stuff is a pain).

With multiple things going nuts at the same time, power would be the first
thing on my list. Second would be the serial i/o stuff. In both cases things
like connectors and cables are very much on the suspect list.

Bob

> 
> Cheers!
> -Pete
> 
>> Best regards,
>> 
>> Charles
>> 
>> 
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Re: [time-nuts] Temperature weirdness with Thunderbolt & Lady Heather 5

[wb6bnq]

Hi Pete,

Are you really at an altitude of 645 meters ?

Also, it seems that your oscillator gain (currently at -5 Hz/v) may not 
be set right ?


Have you checked the power supply voltages and observed them on an 
oscilloscope to see if they are relatively clean and free of spurious junk ?


The available number of SATS  is quite low and could be a matter of concern.

BillWB6BNQ


Pete Stephenson wrote:


On 12/15/2016 7:45 PM, Charles Steinmetz wrote:
 


Tom wrote:

   


There's something very odd going on here, either with Pete's TBolt,
and/or with Mark's Heather v5.

2) It also shows some truly erratic behavior the last day and a half,
with multiple, massive, sudden temperature drops going down several
degrees. I've never seen this.
 


I think the more revealing trace is the DAC voltage.  There are ~70mV
plunges, to a dead quiet (at this scale), more negative value.  70mV is
huge, corresponding to a -35e-9 frequency shift (350mHz).  If the DAC
voltage actually changed that much, it would pull the OCXO so far off
frequency during these events that it would take much, much longer than
shown (indeed, much longer than the width of these events) to
re-stabilize.  Yet we see clean jumps within seconds, and no settling.
(Unfortunately, the Tbolt's estimation of frequency is not plotted on
the posted screen shot.)
   



Apologies, I did have the frequency plot turned off. I've taken some
more screenshots with the frequency plot turned on.

screenshot.png is a close-up of one of the odd spikes, while
screenshot2.png took place ~10 minutes later (I just scrolled to the right).

The small frequency jumps in screenshot2.png are due to satellites
entering and leaving the field of view. Due to the setup of my
apartment, the antenna location is decidedly sub-optimal and has a clear
view only to the northwest.

 


I find it hard to believe that LH does much processing of the reported
DAC voltage, so I think it's safe to say (1) the LH plot shows
accurately what the Tbolt is reporting (at least WRT the DAC voltage),
and (2) the actual DAC voltage is not doing what the Tbolt is reporting.

Looks like a sick Tbolt to me.
   



Any idea what might be the issue? I can do SMT rework to replace a bad
temperature sensor or other faulty chips, within reason (super-fine
pitch stuff is a pain).

Cheers!
-Pete

 


Best regards,

Charles


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Re: [time-nuts] HP 10811 40 Hz low.

[Bob Camp]

Hi

If it is a crystal, a broken seal on the can is a pretty good guess. Often this 
runs up
the resistance as well. 

Bob

> On Dec 15, 2016, at 8:57 PM, paul swed  wrote:
> 
> Bob
> Took your advise and did check all of the caps in teh oscillator along with
> resistors. All are as they should be. Though they do differ from the
> schematic I have for the HP 10811. But thats normal reality on HP stuff. So
> it is a sick 10811.
> So at this stage I have jacked a external 10 MHz reference into teh system
> to replace it and the rest of the Z3801 seems to be working. It needs more
> time but did acquire satellites. It hasn't locked yet and unsure it can
> with an external reference unless I use the TBOLT 10 MHz. Kind of liking
> that idea.
> Since the oscillator was bad and thats how I received it several years ago
> the DAC is at 99.99% full scale because it was 40 Hz low. Want to reset
> that to mid range.
> Also I speculate the actual gps receiver is down on sensitivity but I do
> have replacements.
> Regards
> Paul.
> 
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 7:10 PM, Bob Camp  wrote:
> 
>> Hi
>> 
>> Crystals do indeed fail. In the case of 40 Hz low, I’d look for a shorted
>> cap in series with the crystal.
>> 
>> Bob
>> 
>>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 5:23 PM, paul swed  wrote:
>>> 
>>> I have a hp z3801 that is spare parts it never worked correctly. Did some
>>> digging and at least one major issue is the actually HP 10811 is 38 Hz
>> low.
>>> It needs to be within a Hz. Checked everything feeding voltage and such
>> and
>>> they are solid at 5.7V from the regulator. The varicap works as expected.
>>> Signal levels out are clean and correct. Temp is about 82C also inline.
>>> The oscillator is actually fairly simple. Do xtals just fail after many
>>> years?
>>> May see if I can map a Piezo oven oscillator into the z3801 just to see
>>> what if anything happens. Now that I know the warm oven signal drops
>> fromm
>>> 22V to 3.8V when hot. Fake it out.
>>> Not sure the outer oven actually matters on the z3801. But even that can
>>> actually be hooked up to make any circuit that might want to know thats
>> it
>>> hot happy.
>>> Regards
>>> Paul
>>> WB8TSL
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Re: [time-nuts] GALILEO online: any changes seen?

[David J Taylor]

David, several of your satellite count graphs show a slow upward trend
throughout this calendar year, with a bump up for the month of October,
falling back down for part of November, then another step up at the
beginning of December.

http://www.satsignal.eu/mrtg/performance_gps.php?period=year

This is particularly clear on the graph labeled "u-blox MAX-M8Q" on
"RasPi-10", showing a sharp uptick since December 1.

Could this be Galileo or hard to say?

Or maybe just leaves falling off of the trees? :-)

Tim N3QE
===

Tim,

Thanks for looking!

There have been a number of antenna moves (all patch antennas located on the 
top storey of a 2-storey building) and relocations of various devices, and 
unfortunately I don't have it well enough documented to comment.


The MAC M8 can receive three systems simultaneously, but what three mine are 
programmed for I don't know.  I suspect it's at least GPS & GLONASS, but the 
third?  Perhaps BeiDou?


73,
David GM8ARV
--
SatSignal Software - Quality software written to your requirements
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu
Email: david-tay...@blueyonder.co.uk
Twitter: @gm8arv 


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Re: [time-nuts] GALILEO online: any changes seen?

[bg]

The key change is that now there is a "Service definition document" for each 
service entering Initial Services. Thus there is a Quality (or lack) of service 
defined for each signal.
--
     Björn


Sent from my smartphone.
 Original message From: Tim Shoppa  Date: 
15/12/2016  19:54  (GMT+01:00) To: Discussion of precise time and frequency 
measurement  Subject: Re: [time-nuts] GALILEO online: any 
changes seen? 
David, several of your satellite count graphs show a slow upward trend
throughout this calendar year, with a bump up for the month of October,
falling back down for part of November, then another step up at the
beginning of December.

http://www.satsignal.eu/mrtg/performance_gps.php?period=year

This is particularly clear on the graph labeled "u-blox MAX-M8Q" on
"RasPi-10", showing a sharp uptick since December 1.

Could this be Galileo or hard to say?

Or maybe just leaves falling off of the trees? :-)

Tim N3QE

On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 10:43 AM, David J Taylor <
david-tay...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

> Dear all,
> the GALILEO system is supposed to go online today (at least for initial
> operational capability). Does anybody of you has a GALILEO compatible
> receiver and sees already a difference?
>
> Best regards,
> Achim
> 
>
> Achim,
>
> I'm not sure whether the signals were turned on today, or whether they
> have been there for some time but just in a pre-operational status.
>
> I think all my receivers which /might/ be able to get Galileo need an
> update, and I've not seen any change in the number of satellites
> potentially visible according to gpsd, at least:
>
>  http://www.satsignal.eu/mrtg/performance_gps.php
>  http://www.satsignal.eu/mrtg/performance_gps.php?period=month
>  http://www.satsignal.eu/mrtg/performance_gps.php?period=year
>
> I heard that for some receivers, it was a choice of Galileo or
> GPS/GLONASS. I would be helpful if a list of Galileo receivers were
> available.  I did one mobile phone which offered Galileo - but "in a future
> update"...
>
> Cheers,
> David
> --
> SatSignal Software - Quality software written to your requirements
> Web: http://www.satsignal.eu
> Email: david-tay...@blueyonder.co.uk
> Twitter: @gm8arv
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