Re: [time-nuts] [Summary] HP 115CR Clock Powerup / Documentation

2016-12-23 Thread Bill Hawkins 
Got a 113BR clock many years ago because it looked like the clock in the
Smithsonian. Used a 103 precision OCXO for the source.

It is noisy. That's part of why it has a heavy metal case. I expect that
a rebuilt stepping motor might have been quieter. I kept it in a larger
wooden box lined with R19 fiberglass insulation. I used an insulated
wooden front door held by magnetic catches to close the box, had to
remove the door to see it.

The manual reset is a feature. If the clock stops for any reason, it
stays stopped. If it restarted by itself it would authoritatively show
you the wrong time. A battery and float charger are required if you want
to see how much it varies in a year.

If all you want is a technically attractive clock, talk to a watchmaker
about driving it with a synchronous clock motor. Or do your own 10 Hz
stepping motor (or whatever gear ratio is easy).

Best of luck
Bill Hawkins

-Original Message-
* Divider circuits need to be manually started using internal switches
[snip] Similarly the motor must be manually started.

"These clocks are not a lot of fun to live with.  They sing along quite
loudly at 1KHz."


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Re: [time-nuts] [Summary] HP 115CR Clock Powerup / Documentation

2016-12-23 Thread paul swed 
Looks like you have great advice. But I will add if the tantalums show the
corrosion do not fire it up. Unless you like smoke and other damage. A good
way to extend the time you will spend getting it going and cleaning up the
acid all over everything. Lots-O-fun.
Good luck and I have always heard the mechanics were the challenge. No real
experience.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL

On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 6:24 PM, Hugh Blemings  wrote:

> Hiya,
>
> My thanks for the various replies including to Luciano for the 115BR
> manual and Chuck for the timely advice about old caps!
>
> I'll take a put at summarising the various replies and my own observations
> now I've the 115BR Manual and the 115CR unit itself - any errors in same
> mine alone;
>
> The 115CR appears to be a slightly later device - it's 2RU rather than 3RU
> and uses plug in PCBs rather than point to point/tag strip style
> construction.
>
> Based on a quick glance at the 115BR service manual and the 115CR unit
> itself, I'd venture they are electrically and mechanically very similar,
> possibly identical.
>
> The 115CR seems to have hard wired DC input polarity relative to ground
> wheras the the BR is switchable.  The 115CR doesn't have a meter or as many
> frequency output options.
>
> Maintenance wise;
>
> * Divider circuits need to be manually started using internal switches,
> the unit has built in rack rails to support easy access.  Similarly the
> motor must be manually started.
>
> * Many of the silver can (physically larger) axial capacitors on the PCBs
> in my unit show signs of corrosion - this presumably the acid leaking out
> of the tantalum caps as Chuck alluded to.
>
> * One correspondent suggested replacing the caps right from the word go,
> another to go for broke and turn it on - not sure which way I'll go yet ;)
>
> * The mechanical odometer style display needs care not to bind up/jam.
> Attention to lubrication/grease for the motor and other bearings seems
> prudent.  Don't force any of the mechanical components.
>
> * Looks like I can get a paper manual here http://www.etestmanuals.com/Se
> arch.aspx?Search=115CR - I think this will be my next step.
>
> I'll close for now with this quote from Chuck which may dash my plans to
> have it on permanent operating display;
>
> "These clocks are not a lot of fun to live with.  They sing along
> quite loudly at 1KHz."
>
> ...so might not be ideal in the otherwise quiet lounge room after all :)
>
> Thanks again all for the input so far, will report further progress when I
> return to the device in the new year after a house move :)
>
> Cheers,
> Hugh
>
>
>
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Re: [time-nuts] [Summary] HP 115CR Clock Powerup / Documentation

2016-12-23 Thread Hugh Blemings 

Hiya,

My thanks for the various replies including to Luciano for the 115BR 
manual and Chuck for the timely advice about old caps!


I'll take a put at summarising the various replies and my own 
observations now I've the 115BR Manual and the 115CR unit itself - any 
errors in same mine alone;


The 115CR appears to be a slightly later device - it's 2RU rather than 
3RU and uses plug in PCBs rather than point to point/tag strip style 
construction.


Based on a quick glance at the 115BR service manual and the 115CR unit 
itself, I'd venture they are electrically and mechanically very similar, 
possibly identical.


The 115CR seems to have hard wired DC input polarity relative to ground 
wheras the the BR is switchable.  The 115CR doesn't have a meter or as 
many frequency output options.


Maintenance wise;

* Divider circuits need to be manually started using internal switches, 
the unit has built in rack rails to support easy access.  Similarly the 
motor must be manually started.


* Many of the silver can (physically larger) axial capacitors on the 
PCBs in my unit show signs of corrosion - this presumably the acid 
leaking out of the tantalum caps as Chuck alluded to.


* One correspondent suggested replacing the caps right from the word go, 
another to go for broke and turn it on - not sure which way I'll go yet ;)


* The mechanical odometer style display needs care not to bind up/jam. 
Attention to lubrication/grease for the motor and other bearings seems 
prudent.  Don't force any of the mechanical components.


* Looks like I can get a paper manual here 
http://www.etestmanuals.com/Search.aspx?Search=115CR - I think this will 
be my next step.


I'll close for now with this quote from Chuck which may dash my plans to 
have it on permanent operating display;


"These clocks are not a lot of fun to live with.  They sing along
quite loudly at 1KHz."

...so might not be ideal in the otherwise quiet lounge room after all :)

Thanks again all for the input so far, will report further progress when 
I return to the device in the new year after a house move :)


Cheers,
Hugh



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Re: [time-nuts] Could computers represent the timestamp differently?

2016-12-23 Thread Attila Kinali 
On Fri, 23 Dec 2016 13:10:30 +
Peter Vince  wrote:

> Would it not make sense now for the
> next generation of operating systems to do that?  Yes, those who need to
> find the elapsed time between two time-stamps would still have a problem,
> but isn't the overwhelming major requirement just to represent the
> date/time, and be able to easily show if one timestamp is before or after
> another?

You don't need to wait for the next generation of operating systems
for this. With the 2004 revision of POSIX-1[1], we got an additional
clock source called CLOCK_MONOTONIC, which is has to be monotonically
increasing, may not be set using a system call (and thus have
discontinuities) and may never jump backwards. It's starting point (epoch)
may be arbitrary, though. All current POSIX complient systems (Linux,
all BSD's, MacOSX) have CLOCK_MONOTONIC implemented since virtually forever.

On Linux (kernel 3.10 and newer) you can have some additional clock
sources[2], one of which is defined as CLOCK_TAI and is exactly what
the name says. Unfortunately, it's only set correctly if the OS knows
what TAI actually is. By default the offset between CLOCK_REALTIME
(which may or may not be the same as CLOCK_UTC) is set to 0 but a
modern ntpd can set it if it knows the offset. I am not sure whether
any of the BSDs offers something similar. Though, if I am not mistaken,
MirBSD choose to use TAI instead of UTC as the basis of their internal
clock and thus should also have a way to access it as TAI.

Attila Kinali

[1] IEEE 1003.1-2004 System Interfaces, Section 2.8.5 Clocks and Timers

[2] clock_gettime(2)
-- 
Malek's Law:
Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.
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Re: [time-nuts] Could computers represent the timestamp differently?

2016-12-23 Thread Hal Murray 

petervince1...@gmail.com said:
> It seems to me that the major problem with the leap-second is the inability
> of current computer operating systems to represent it, and this is due to
> their using a second count since 1970 rather than writing it out as we would
> by hand.

Your suggestion doesn't solve the problem.  It just pushes it over to another 
corner.

There are two things you want to do with an internal format time.  One is to 
convert it to a human friendly date/time.   The other is to do arithmetic - 
how long is it from X to Y.

You have made the conversion to human format easy.  But it is now hard to 
convert to something like TAI seconds since X so you can subtract 2 time 
stamps.


-- 
These are my opinions.  I hate spam.



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Re: [time-nuts] Could computers represent the timestamp differently?

2016-12-23 Thread Magnus Danielson 

Peter,

There is so many ways to solve this, and most of them have already been 
discussed and nothing really happend.


Letting the time-stamp represent time in TAI and do UTC as presentation 
is less intrusive way of achieving the same thing. Yet, it has not 
happen. Essentially will the POSIX standard have to be amended but they 
have been trying to avoid leap-second handling for decades. There is 
even an email-list for discussion of this, see the leapsecond email list.


God Jul, Gott Nytt År och Glad Skott-sekund!
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Leap-second!

Cheers,
Magnus

On 12/23/2016 02:10 PM, Peter Vince wrote:

It seems to me that the major problem with the leap-second is the inability
of current computer operating systems to represent it, and this is due to
their using a second count since 1970 rather than writing it out as we
would by hand.  While it doubtless made sense in the days of floppy discs
to squeeze tha date and time into a single 4-byte number, with modern
communication speeds and storage media capacities, that no longer seems to
be a requirement.  The (numerical) date and time could be packed into 24
ASCII characters, 12 if BCD was used.  Would it not make sense now for the
next generation of operating systems to do that?  Yes, those who need to
find the elapsed time between two time-stamps would still have a problem,
but isn't the overwhelming major requirement just to represent the
date/time, and be able to easily show if one timestamp is before or after
another?

Peter
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Re: [time-nuts] Could computers represent the timestamp differently?

2016-12-23 Thread Chris Albertson 
Seconds from 1970 always works.   The decision to add a leap second or not
only effects the written out time and date.

If you want to know the number of seconds between tow written out dates
then you need to know if leap seconds were introduced.   This is REALLY
hard for distance further dates.   (Quick some one tell be how many seconds
between now and January 2nd 2367)  But it is trivial to tell me how many
second it will take the seconds count to increase by one billion seconds.

Or put another way.   A seconds counter represents something about nature,
how many times some cyclic even will occur or whatever defines your
standard "second".But written out date/time is a burly human invention
the the conversion to it from seconds counting is totally arbitrary and the
details do change.   Not only is the conversion to date/time just a
convention but it is also dependent on geophysical events we can not
predict.

So the OS counts the number of cycles emitted by some maser or whatever
they use at the time as a standard.

On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 5:10 AM, Peter Vince 
wrote:

> It seems to me that the major problem with the leap-second is the inability
> of current computer operating systems to represent it, and this is due to
> their using a second count since 1970 rather than writing it out as we
> would by hand.  While it doubtless made sense in the days of floppy discs
> to squeeze tha date and time into a single 4-byte number, with modern
> communication speeds and storage media capacities, that no longer seems to
> be a requirement.  The (numerical) date and time could be packed into 24
> ASCII characters, 12 if BCD was used.  Would it not make sense now for the
> next generation of operating systems to do that?  Yes, those who need to
> find the elapsed time between two time-stamps would still have a problem,
> but isn't the overwhelming major requirement just to represent the
> date/time, and be able to easily show if one timestamp is before or after
> another?
>
> Peter
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-- 

Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California
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[time-nuts] Could computers represent the timestamp differently?

2016-12-23 Thread Peter Vince 
It seems to me that the major problem with the leap-second is the inability
of current computer operating systems to represent it, and this is due to
their using a second count since 1970 rather than writing it out as we
would by hand.  While it doubtless made sense in the days of floppy discs
to squeeze tha date and time into a single 4-byte number, with modern
communication speeds and storage media capacities, that no longer seems to
be a requirement.  The (numerical) date and time could be packed into 24
ASCII characters, 12 if BCD was used.  Would it not make sense now for the
next generation of operating systems to do that?  Yes, those who need to
find the elapsed time between two time-stamps would still have a problem,
but isn't the overwhelming major requirement just to represent the
date/time, and be able to easily show if one timestamp is before or after
another?

Peter
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Re: [time-nuts] Problem with HP 83623A 20 GHz sweep generator stepping up/down 100 Hz when not wanted.

2016-12-23 Thread Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) 
On 22 December 2016 at 20:54, Bill Byrom  wrote:

> Read about the synthesizer design of that generator here:
>
> https://ia600407.us.archive.org/10/items/Hewlett-Packard_
> Journal_Vol._42_No._2_1991-04_Hewlett-Packard/Hewlett-
> Packard_Journal_Vol._42_No._2_1991-04_Hewlett-Packard.pdf
>

Cheers, I will do that.


>
> Dave, looking at the graph you posted it appears to me that the shift is
> 10 Hz, not 100 Hz. It appears to me that is an audio spectrogram. I have
> no idea if the frequency shift is in the generator or receiver.
>

Well done!. I thought I was told it was 100 Hz, but looking at the diagram,
it is closer to about 10~15 Hz. The setup his end is a software defined
radio, so the measurement of frequency is being done at audio.
Unfortunately, I've been unable to get a response by phone, so I can't seem
to get much in the way of technical details at this minute.

I have an HP 5342A -- 10Hz to 18GHz Microwave Frequency Counter with 1 Hz
resolution, but I belive this is moving (it is is), is quicker than the
time it would take to measure to 10 GHz to 1 Hz. I can lock that to GPS
easy enough, so the signal generator would be fed from the same reference
as the frequency counter, but I don't think that would help.

It would appear that measuring such small changes at microwave frequencies
is not easy. Mixing with very good quality signal generator or known
performance would probably be ok, but even old 20 GHz units are expensive.
To get a good quality new signal generator would be a small fortune.

I don't think even sending this to Keysight for calibration would achieve
anything useful. I have not looked at the specification in detail, but
phase noise is specification is -76 dBc at 10 kHz offset at 20 GHz. The
calibration of this is high too ($1600 in the USA).

>
> Bill Byrom N5BB
>

Dave
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Re: [time-nuts] Problem with HP 83623A 20 GHz sweep generator stepping up/down 100 Hz when not wanted.

2016-12-23 Thread Bob Camp 
Hi

On a sweep generator with a magnet tuned YIG, supply ripple is a very common 
issue ….

Bob

> On Dec 22, 2016, at 9:00 PM, n2lym  wrote:
> 
> Hi Bob,
> 
> I don't have issues at 60, 120, or 180Hz in a 60Hz country. Even with a 500KV 
> line a few thousand feet away. I can hear the corona on the ham bands at 
> times.
> 
> 
> Mike
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 05:15 PM, Bob Camp wrote:
> 
>> Hi
>> 
>> 
>> In a country with 50 Hz power lines, figuring out anything at 50, 100 or 150 
>> Hz
>> is going to be a bit exciting.
>> 
>> Bob
>> 
>>> On Dec 22, 2016, at 4:04 PM, n2lym  wrote:
>>> 
>>> Dave,
>>> 
>>> Look at it with a narrow band SA and see if it's modulated by 100Hz.
>>> 
>>> 73,
>>> 
>>> Mike N2LYM
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 07:39 AM, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) 
>>> wrote:
>>> 
 On 22 December 2016 at 03:17, paul swed
>>> wrote:
 
> Dave Congratulations on 10 Ghz SSB.
> 
 
 This was not a QSO at all. It was simply a one way transmission from a
 signal generator at my end to a receiver at his end. No QSO was attempted.
 
 
> Now to your question. I will fully believe you are seeing normal behavior
> of the generators. Even if its dithering 100 Hz thats pretty amazing. 
> Sweep
> gens simply are not stable enough for narrow work like you are trying.
> Now I am sure comments will prove me totally wrong.
> 
 
 But I find it a bit odd that HP would have a 1 Hz software option on this
 instrument, if the instrument jumped up/down 100 Hz.
 
 Now I don't yet have the 1 Hz option programmed in, and it might well
 change the behavior completely, but I'd still like to find a way, if one
 exists, of checking this with the equipment I have.
 
 The signal generator is no longer supported, but I could try my luck seeing
 if there are any known problems with this unit, or firmware upgrades
 available - currently revision 29, May 1991.
 
 
 
> But I don't think so. (Have been on 10G SSB over the years also. Only 60
> watts plus. Nothing fancy. ;-)  )
> Regards
> Paul
> WB8TSL
> 
 
 60 W is clearly some setup. I also know a lot of people run portable stuff
 on 10 GHz, where achieving frequency stability is more of a challenge,
 although less so with GPS. But this is a laboratory instrument, from a
 reputable manufacturer. I personally would not expected this behavior. I
 actually purchased this very cheaply (£650 GBP, which would have been about
 $900 at the time), but they are not cheap to buy now.
 
 
 Dave
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Re: [time-nuts] Problem with HP 83623A 20 GHz sweep generator stepping up/down 100 Hz when not wanted.

2016-12-23 Thread Scott McGrath 
I think case #1 tells you that the frequency step is not occurring on the 
sweeper as both The source and receiver are locked to GPS and no trace of the 
step effect is seen 

 I would be much more inclined to think that the transverter is encountering 
some type of power supply related artifact.

As to the tuned receiver mode yes it's VERY poorly documented but I use it in 
conjunction with an Anechoic chamber to characterize antennas

> On Dec 22, 2016, at 5:45 PM, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave Ltd) 
>  wrote:
> 
>> On 22 December 2016 at 02:54, Scott McGrath  wrote:
>> 
>> Can you use the VNA as a receiver? And determine whether the 100Hz shift
>> is also seen on the VNA
> 
> The VNA has what's called "tuned receiver" mode, but it is very poorly
> documented - or at least I've never seen it well documented.
> 
> 
> I tried a few different things.
> 
> 1) Put the sweep generator into the VNA using tuned-receiver mode. Both
> were locked to GPS. The signal generator appears in the middle of the
> screen, and whilst one can't say a lot about the quality, there's no doubt
> that the position of the peak never moves `100 Hz.
> 
> 2) Put the signal generator into the spectrum analyzer. This does show some
> odd results sometimes, but I'm always a bit concerned that these might
> internally generated signals, as whatever source on connects to the SA, it
> brings up a lot of spurious signals. There's currently no preselector on
> this, although I do have one in a box.
> 
> But there is some evidence that maybe the oscillator is moving. But I'm not
> 100% convinced.
> 
> 3) Connected the source output of the VNA to the spectrum analyzer. The SA
> shows the source is far from clean - much poorer than the signal
> generator.  So I think I can conclude that the source in the VNA is quite
> poor, which is what I expected to be honest. There is not even a
> specification for phase noise on this.
> 
> So any thoughts of mixing the VNA source with the signal generator will be
> a complete waste of time.
> 
> I think I can conclude that attempting to use the VNA in any source of
> measurement or as a signal source will just not work.
> 
> 
> Dave
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [time-nuts] HP 115CR Clock Powerup / Documentation

2016-12-23 Thread Eric Scace 
Hello Hugh & Luciano —

   Luciano: Hugh said his clock was a 115CR, not BR. The CR has the mechanical 
digital display.

   I have a 115BR that I want to bring back on the air after about 30 years of 
power-off in my father’s lab. The state of any electrolytic and tantalum 
capacitors after that much time has me concerned. I would be very happy to hear 
details of your experience in servicing the -115BR.

   Thank you.

— Eric

> On 2016 Dec 23, at 03:05 , timeok  wrote:
> 
> 
>   Hi,
>   I have the complete manual of the HP115BR. Pse contact me directly to send 
> you the file.
>   If you need I can suggest some service activity normally are needed by this 
> old clock.
>   Luciano,
>   tim...@timeok.it
> 
> 
>   From "time-nuts" time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
>   To time-nuts@febo.com
>   Cc
>   Date Fri, 23 Dec 2016 10:29:01 +1100
>   Subject [time-nuts] HP 115CR Clock Powerup / Documentation
>   Hi,
> 
>   I've been fortunate enough to acquire a HP 115CR Frequency
>   Divider/Digital Clock - it's electromechanical and I suspect built in
>   the mid/late 60s - just slightly older than your humble correspondent.
> 
>   It's similar though not identical to the 115CR shown here
>   http://www.leapsecond.com/hpclocks/
> 
>   I'd like to fire it up - given it's age my thought was to use a current
>   limited 24V bench supply and slowly ramp up the voltage the first time -
>   would welcome any thoughts on this. I gather from the supporting
>   documentation for the powersupply it's rated at drawing ~250mA
> 
>   I've been unable to locate a scan of the owners manual or service manual
>   online. Have looked at time-nuts archives, leapsecond.com and hparchive
>   to no avail. There does appear to be a hardcopy available for purchase
>   - happy to fall back to this if necessary, but any pointers welcome.
> 
>   My goal ultimately is to have it on display running, synchronised to a
>   GPS disciplied 10MHz source :)
> 
>   Any thoughts and feedback welcome - this is my first foray into old
>   clocks :)
> 
>   Kind Regards,
>   Hugh
>   VK3YYZ/AD5RV
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Re: [time-nuts] HP 115CR Clock Powerup / Documentation

2016-12-23 Thread Chuck Harris 
They are fun little (ha, ha) clocks.  There really is no need
to ramp up power.  Go for broke, and turn it on.

The only issue you will find in these is a host of wet tantalum
caps that may, or may not be bad.  They are on terminal strips,
and are the caps in silver plated metal cans with teflon seals
on the large end.  The failure is sulfuric acid leaking out of
the lead on the teflon end.

The other failure issue is the ball bearings on the motor.  The
grease is all but certain to be hardened by now.  You might be
able to work some light motor oil between the shaft bushing and
the seal.

The motor will *not* start by itself.  You have to open the clock,
press a couple of buttons to start the dividers, and give the
knurled knob on the motor's shaft a spin.

Be careful when setting the odometer display, as it is quite
possible to lock it up.  I don't remember how that happens
anymore, but it can.

These clocks are not a lot of fun to live with.  They sing along
quite loudly at 1KHz.

-Chuck Harris

Hugh Blemings wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I've been fortunate enough to acquire a HP 115CR Frequency Divider/Digital 
> Clock -
> it's electromechanical and I suspect built in the mid/late 60s - just 
> slightly older
> than your humble correspondent.
> 
> It's similar though not identical to the 115CR shown here
> http://www.leapsecond.com/hpclocks/
> 
> I'd like to fire it up - given it's age my thought was to use a current 
> limited 24V
> bench supply and slowly ramp up the voltage the first time - would welcome any
> thoughts on this.  I gather from the supporting documentation for the 
> powersupply
> it's rated at drawing ~250mA
> 
> I've been unable to locate a scan of the owners manual or service manual 
> online. 
> Have looked at time-nuts archives, leapsecond.com and hparchive to no avail.  
> There
> does appear to be a hardcopy available for purchase - happy to fall back to 
> this if
> necessary, but any pointers welcome.
> 
> My goal ultimately is to have it on display running, synchronised to a GPS 
> disciplied
> 10MHz source :)
> 
> Any thoughts and feedback welcome - this is my first foray into old clocks :)
> 
> Kind Regards,
> Hugh
> VK3YYZ/AD5RV
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Re: [time-nuts] HP 115CR Clock Powerup / Documentation

2016-12-23 Thread timeok 

   Hi,
   I have the complete manual of the HP115BR. Pse contact me directly to send 
you the file.
   If you need I can suggest some service activity normally are needed by this 
old clock.
   Luciano,
   tim...@timeok.it


   From "time-nuts" time-nuts-boun...@febo.com
   To time-nuts@febo.com
   Cc
   Date Fri, 23 Dec 2016 10:29:01 +1100
   Subject [time-nuts] HP 115CR Clock Powerup / Documentation
   Hi,

   I've been fortunate enough to acquire a HP 115CR Frequency
   Divider/Digital Clock - it's electromechanical and I suspect built in
   the mid/late 60s - just slightly older than your humble correspondent.

   It's similar though not identical to the 115CR shown here
   http://www.leapsecond.com/hpclocks/

   I'd like to fire it up - given it's age my thought was to use a current
   limited 24V bench supply and slowly ramp up the voltage the first time -
   would welcome any thoughts on this. I gather from the supporting
   documentation for the powersupply it's rated at drawing ~250mA

   I've been unable to locate a scan of the owners manual or service manual
   online. Have looked at time-nuts archives, leapsecond.com and hparchive
   to no avail. There does appear to be a hardcopy available for purchase
   - happy to fall back to this if necessary, but any pointers welcome.

   My goal ultimately is to have it on display running, synchronised to a
   GPS disciplied 10MHz source :)

   Any thoughts and feedback welcome - this is my first foray into old
   clocks :)

   Kind Regards,
   Hugh
   VK3YYZ/AD5RV
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Re: [time-nuts] Problem with HP 83623A 20 GHz sweep generator stepping up/down 100 Hz when not wanted.

2016-12-23 Thread n2lym 

Hi Bob,

I don't have issues at 60, 120, or 180Hz in a 60Hz country. Even with a 
500KV line a few thousand feet away. I can hear the corona on the ham 
bands at times.



Mike




On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 05:15 PM, Bob Camp wrote:


Hi


In a country with 50 Hz power lines, figuring out anything at 50, 100 
or 150 Hz

is going to be a bit exciting.

Bob


On Dec 22, 2016, at 4:04 PM, n2lym  wrote:

Dave,

Look at it with a narrow band SA and see if it's modulated by 100Hz.

73,

Mike N2LYM




On Thu, Dec 22, 2016 at 07:39 AM, Dr. David Kirkby (Kirkby Microwave 
Ltd) wrote:



On 22 December 2016 at 03:17, paul swed

wrote:



Dave Congratulations on 10 Ghz SSB.



This was not a QSO at all. It was simply a one way transmission from 
a
signal generator at my end to a receiver at his end. No QSO was 
attempted.



Now to your question. I will fully believe you are seeing normal 
behavior
of the generators. Even if its dithering 100 Hz thats pretty 
amazing. Sweep
gens simply are not stable enough for narrow work like you are 
trying.

Now I am sure comments will prove me totally wrong.



But I find it a bit odd that HP would have a 1 Hz software option on 
this

instrument, if the instrument jumped up/down 100 Hz.

Now I don't yet have the 1 Hz option programmed in, and it might 
well
change the behavior completely, but I'd still like to find a way, if 
one

exists, of checking this with the equipment I have.

The signal generator is no longer supported, but I could try my luck 
seeing

if there are any known problems with this unit, or firmware upgrades
available - currently revision 29, May 1991.



But I don't think so. (Have been on 10G SSB over the years also. 
Only 60

watts plus. Nothing fancy. ;-)  )
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL



60 W is clearly some setup. I also know a lot of people run portable 
stuff
on 10 GHz, where achieving frequency stability is more of a 
challenge,
although less so with GPS. But this is a laboratory instrument, from 
a
reputable manufacturer. I personally would not expected this 
behavior. I
actually purchased this very cheaply (£650 GBP, which would have 
been about

$900 at the time), but they are not cheap to buy now.


Dave
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