Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi First of a few more data plots (sorry if any are duplicates): This is the TDEV of a 3810 against a 5071 and a 3801 run at the same time against the same cesium standard. At its current filter setting, the 3810 is doing a bit better than the 3801 long term. The 3801 is beating the 3810 by a bit around 100 seconds. Both are better than the 5071 at 1 second. tdev on two.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi So here’s the same data on the 15 MHz and 10 MHz output’s on a single box. The phase plot shows that there is indeed some sort of spur coming and going on at least one of the inputs. Based on the plot of the 10 MHz output from a couple weeks back, it’s a good bet that the spur is on 10 MHz. It also shows that there would be “good times” and “bad times” to use the 10 MHz output. Your results using this as a reference would be very different around 3,000 seconds compared to around 5,000 seconds. Bob phase 15 vs 10.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Ok, this one is a little different. It’s the ADEV between the 10 MHz and 15 MHz outputs on the same box. If both were a perfect multiplication of the 5 MHz OCXO, the plot would be much lower from 0.1 to 10 seconds. There’s something getting in the way of perfection. Bob adev 15 vs 10.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Here’s a comparison of the EBSCTM, the 3801 and the 3811 all on one page. Everything inside 10 seconds is the 5071 that is the comparison standard. Bob adev on three.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
HI This one is one of the more significant ones. It shows two Z3810/11/12’s each running against the 5071. It also shows the two running against each other. All are on the 15 MHz output. There are two pretty obvious conclusions: 1) From 0.3 to about 30 seconds the GPSDO’s are better than the 5071. The 5071 is a *great* box, it’s just not as good in this region. 2) Over the region that the 5071 is better than the GPSDO’s, their ADEV does appear (by eyeball) to sum as the square root of the ADEV’s. If number 2 is correct and it applies to the 1 to 10 second region, over much of the range, the GPSDO’s are doing =1x10^-12. That’s pretty darn good. This one is a low res JPEG. The PDF version was a bit large. Bob ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Bob, how is the PN? Glad that after 100s of emails about the serial port on this unit finally someone is finally posting some real data. Still surprised that the ADEV is not as good as the 58503A units I got on eBay. Sent From iPhone On Nov 17, 2014, at 8:22, Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org wrote: Hi Here’s a comparison of the EBSCTM, the 3801 and the 3811 all on one page. Everything inside 10 seconds is the 5071 that is the comparison standard. Bob adev on three.pdf ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi This one is the frequency difference between the 10 MHz and 15 MHz output on one Z3810/11/12 box. It’s a direct result of the phase changes seen on another plot earlier in this series. Any time you have phase modulation, you have frequency modulation …. Just to be very clear- there is no additional reference in this case, it’s just looking at the two outputs. Bob freq 15 vs 10.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi I *think* I posted the phase noise plots earlier. I’ll dig them up and post if I forgot. To many years and not enough coffee …. Check the last JPEG image. It takes out the ADEV from the 5071 that is part of the earlier plots. Bob On Nov 17, 2014, at 11:47 AM, Said Jackson via time-nuts time-nuts@febo.com wrote: Bob, how is the PN? Glad that after 100s of emails about the serial port on this unit finally someone is finally posting some real data. Still surprised that the ADEV is not as good as the 58503A units I got on eBay. Sent From iPhone On Nov 17, 2014, at 8:22, Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org wrote: Hi Here’s a comparison of the EBSCTM, the 3801 and the 3811 all on one page. Everything inside 10 seconds is the 5071 that is the comparison standard. Bob adev on three.pdf ___ 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Ok, so I *forgot* to post the phase noise plots. At least a quick check does not show them on my copy of posts back from the list. First one is the phase noise on the 10 MHz output. To say the least, it’s pretty rotten. There are a bunch of spurs out to at least 10 KHz. The reference is a ULN, so the data is all real. Bob 10 MHz phase noise vs ULN.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Here’s the phase noise on the 15 MHz. There are a few spurs, and an very real hump out at the likely frequency of the Lucent switcher. The 15 MHz is pretty clean compared to most /all of the other units I’ve seen on the surplus market. I would not multiply this up to 40 GHz with a broadband multiplier. I would be quite happy to run it into a PLL with a rational bandwidth. You will beat the noise on the output with a fairly simple VHF VCXO past 100 Hz. No reason to have a bandwidth outside the 20 to 80 Hz range. Math: 15 MHz to 150 MHz - 20 log (N) - 20 db. -140 dbc / Hz shown below at 100 Hz offset - -120 dbc/Hz You can get numbers better than -120 dbc/Hz at 100 Hz offset out of a number of pretty simple VHF VCXO circuits. Bert has one that seems to work fine for him. Bob 15 MHz phase noise vs ULN.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi A few more details to add: The serial com coming out of the GPS has several standard Motorola headers in it: @@Eanormal position message @@EnTRAIM / sawtooth status timing status message @@Bb Visible satellites message @@Bo UTC offset message The first two make sense for a GPSDO. The third is probably for the :SYSTEM:STATUS? display. The last one makes very little sense for a CDMA basestation GPSDO. On Nov 4, 2014, at 4:38 AM, Stewart Cobb stewart.c...@gmail.com wrote: A wiring diagram of the Z3809A cable interconnect cable was published earlier on this list. That information appears to be incorrect. The cable is actually wired pin 1 to pin 15, pin 2 to pin 14, etc. Another way to describe it is that for each wire in the cable, the pin numbers on each end of the cable add up to 16. A mated pair of these units is running in my lab with a scratch-built interconnect cable following the above rules. This scratch-built cable allowed access to the interconnect signals while the system was operating happily. No lights were lit except the green ON light on the Ref-0 unit (Z3812A, no GPS) and the yellow STBY light on the Ref-1 unit (Z3911A with GPS receiver). The following signals were observed on the interconnect (pin numbers given for the J5 interconnect socket on the Ref-1 unit): Pin 1: 9600 baud serial data (described below) Pin 1 is an open drain output. The pull up is supplied by pin 15. Pin 2: logic low (0.11V) Pin 2 is part of the negotiation process. It goes high and low as the boxes sort out who is who. It appears to be some sort of open drain with pull up arrangement. Pulling pin 2 low briefly will take the GPS unit out of standby status in a single box configuration if pin 3 is grounded. Pin 3: Ground (0.00V) Presence detect? (see below) Pin 4: logic high (4.79V) Pin 4 is also part of the “chat” process. It is not an open drain with pull up. It appears to be a legit CMOS output, possibly with a series resistor. Pin 5: inverted Motorola PPS, high (5V) for 800ms, low for 200ms Pin 5 is an open drain output. The pull up is supplied on pin 11. Pin 6: 17 / 23 dBm signal from Ref-0 unit (see below) Pin 7: logic high (4.48V) Pin 8: Ground (0.00V) Pin 9: logic low (0.11V) Pin 10: 17 / 23 dBm signal from Ref-1 unit (see below) Pin 11: inverted PPS, low 400us, high (5V) otherwise This pin is driven by pin 5 on the other end of the cable. It looks like a CMOS input with a pull up. Pin 12: logic low (0.12V) Pin 12 is part of a wired OR / open drain / pull up combination. It gets used to work out which box is doing what. Pin 13: Ground (0.00V) Pin 14: logic low (0.08V) Pin 14 may also be part of the “who is doing what” back and forth between the boxes. Pin 15: logic high (4.78V) Pins 3, 8, and 13 appear to be firmly connected to Ground. (Note that these are the three pins which are clipped short on the HP interconnect cable.) On an unpowered, disconnected box (either Ref-0 or Ref-1), pins 8 and 13 are connected to Ground (low resistance) and pin 3 is high impedance. Presumably pin 3 on each box (connected to the grounded pin 13 on the other box) is used to sense the presence of the other box and/or the interconnect cable. The timing of the PPS signal on pin 11 matches precisely the timing of the PPS signal available on pins 1 and 6 of J6 (RS422/PPS) on the active Ref-0 unit. Presumably this signal is coming across the cable from the Ref-0 unit. Note: when the system is coming up from a cold start, SatStat on the unit with the GPS receiver (Ref-1) will show [Ext 1PPS valid] in the space where it shows [GPS 1PPS valid] after the survey is complete. It appears that the Ref-1 unit timing system is locking its oscillator to the PPS coming from the Ref-0 unit during this time. The timing of the PPS signal on pin 5 matches the timing of the PPS output described in the Motorola OnCore manual. Presumably this signal is sourced by the Ref-1 unit to allow the Ref-0 unit to lock to GPS. The edges of this PPS signal look very dirty compared to the signal on pin 11. This may be an artifact of the homemade cable used for this experiment. The HP cable clearly has an overall shield (visible through the cable sheath) and may have internal coax or twisted pair for these PPS signals. When pin 5 and pin 11 are observed together, the usual GPS sawtooth pattern is evident. Someone discovered earlier that the both units will blink their green ON lights if the front-panel switch on either unit is set to 23 dBm vice the normal 17. Obviously each unit can communicate its switch status to the other unit. They use pins 6 and 10 to do that. Pin 10 (on the Ref-1 unit) is high (~5V) if the switch on the Ref-1 unit is in the 17 dBm position, and low in the 23 dBm position. Pin 6 (on the Ref-1 unit) gives the same indications for the switch on the Ref-0
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
A wiring diagram of the Z3809A cable interconnect cable was published earlier on this list. That information appears to be incorrect. The cable is actually wired pin 1 to pin 15, pin 2 to pin 14, etc. Another way to describe it is that for each wire in the cable, the pin numbers on each end of the cable add up to 16. A mated pair of these units is running in my lab with a scratch-built interconnect cable following the above rules. This scratch-built cable allowed access to the interconnect signals while the system was operating happily. No lights were lit except the green ON light on the Ref-0 unit (Z3812A, no GPS) and the yellow STBY light on the Ref-1 unit (Z3911A with GPS receiver). The following signals were observed on the interconnect (pin numbers given for the J5 interconnect socket on the Ref-1 unit): Pin 1: 9600 baud serial data (described below) Pin 2: logic low (0.11V) Pin 3: Ground (0.00V) Presence detect? (see below) Pin 4: logic high (4.79V) Pin 5: inverted Motorola PPS, high (5V) for 800ms, low for 200ms Pin 6: 17 / 23 dBm signal from Ref-0 unit (see below) Pin 7: logic high (4.48V) Pin 8: Ground (0.00V) Pin 9: logic low (0.11V) Pin 10: 17 / 23 dBm signal from Ref-1 unit (see below) Pin 11: inverted PPS, low 400us, high (5V) otherwise Pin 12: logic low (0.12V) Pin 13: Ground (0.00V) Pin 14: logic low (0.08V) Pin 15: logic high (4.78V) Pins 3, 8, and 13 appear to be firmly connected to Ground. (Note that these are the three pins which are clipped short on the HP interconnect cable.) On an unpowered, disconnected box (either Ref-0 or Ref-1), pins 8 and 13 are connected to Ground (low resistance) and pin 3 is high impedance. Presumably pin 3 on each box (connected to the grounded pin 13 on the other box) is used to sense the presence of the other box and/or the interconnect cable. The timing of the PPS signal on pin 11 matches precisely the timing of the PPS signal available on pins 1 and 6 of J6 (RS422/PPS) on the active Ref-0 unit. Presumably this signal is coming across the cable from the Ref-0 unit. Note: when the system is coming up from a cold start, SatStat on the unit with the GPS receiver (Ref-1) will show [Ext 1PPS valid] in the space where it shows [GPS 1PPS valid] after the survey is complete. It appears that the Ref-1 unit timing system is locking its oscillator to the PPS coming from the Ref-0 unit during this time. The timing of the PPS signal on pin 5 matches the timing of the PPS output described in the Motorola OnCore manual. Presumably this signal is sourced by the Ref-1 unit to allow the Ref-0 unit to lock to GPS. The edges of this PPS signal look very dirty compared to the signal on pin 11. This may be an artifact of the homemade cable used for this experiment. The HP cable clearly has an overall shield (visible through the cable sheath) and may have internal coax or twisted pair for these PPS signals. When pin 5 and pin 11 are observed together, the usual GPS sawtooth pattern is evident. Someone discovered earlier that the both units will blink their green ON lights if the front-panel switch on either unit is set to 23 dBm vice the normal 17. Obviously each unit can communicate its switch status to the other unit. They use pins 6 and 10 to do that. Pin 10 (on the Ref-1 unit) is high (~5V) if the switch on the Ref-1 unit is in the 17 dBm position, and low in the 23 dBm position. Pin 6 (on the Ref-1 unit) gives the same indications for the switch on the Ref-0 unit. The serial data on pin 1 is transmitted at 9600 baud, with a burst of data every second. The signal idles at logic low (near 0V) and rises to logic high (near 5V) during the burst. This may be the standard for TTL (not RS-232) transmission of serial data, or it may be inverted. The first few characters of one burst were hand-decoded from a scope trace as 0x40, 0x40, 0x45, 0x61, 0x0B, or ASCII @@Ea. This appears to be the Motorola Oncore binary data format, although Ea does not appear to be a valid Motorola command or response. Perhaps the hand-decoding was in error. One can use SatStat, talking to the Ref-0 (non-GPS) box, to issue queries and commands to the GPS receiver. The results are inconsistent, but it seems that at least some of the queries get through and trigger responses. If the Ref-0 box is actually talking to the GPS receiver, it must be doing so through the interconnect cable. The specific wire in the cable used for this (if any) has not yet been identified. An earlier post speculated that the computer in each unit only had two UARTs. This does not seem possible. Clearly each unit uses one UART to communicate with the J8 diagnostic port. The Ref-1 unit needs another UART to communicate with the GPS receiver. And both units need to be able to transmit the legacy Lucent timecode message out the J6 (RS422/1PPS) port. Perhaps there is a transmit-only UART coded into the FPGA, or perhaps one of the UARTs is timeshared with the Lucent
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
stewart.c...@gmail.com said: Perhaps there is a transmit-only UART coded into the FPGA, or perhaps one of the UARTs is timeshared with the Lucent message, or perhaps there is another UART chip hidden somewhere on the board. There is a UART in the MC68301. Page 51 of the data sheet. (They call it SCI. It probably doesn't have all the features of a modern UART.) I think the MC68692 is a dual UART, but I didn't find a data sheet. -- These are my opinions. I hate spam. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Ok so the correct pairs should be: A 1 15 B 2 14 C 3 13 D 4 12 E 5 11 F 6 10 G 7 11 ground 8 8 Bob On Nov 4, 2014, at 4:38 AM, Stewart Cobb stewart.c...@gmail.com wrote: A wiring diagram of the Z3809A cable interconnect cable was published earlier on this list. That information appears to be incorrect. The cable is actually wired pin 1 to pin 15, pin 2 to pin 14, etc. Another way to describe it is that for each wire in the cable, the pin numbers on each end of the cable add up to 16. A mated pair of these units is running in my lab with a scratch-built interconnect cable following the above rules. This scratch-built cable allowed access to the interconnect signals while the system was operating happily. No lights were lit except the green ON light on the Ref-0 unit (Z3812A, no GPS) and the yellow STBY light on the Ref-1 unit (Z3911A with GPS receiver). The following signals were observed on the interconnect (pin numbers given for the J5 interconnect socket on the Ref-1 unit): Pin 1: 9600 baud serial data (described below) Pin 2: logic low (0.11V) Pin 3: Ground (0.00V) Presence detect? (see below) Pin 4: logic high (4.79V) Pin 5: inverted Motorola PPS, high (5V) for 800ms, low for 200ms Pin 6: 17 / 23 dBm signal from Ref-0 unit (see below) Pin 7: logic high (4.48V) Pin 8: Ground (0.00V) Pin 9: logic low (0.11V) Pin 10: 17 / 23 dBm signal from Ref-1 unit (see below) Pin 11: inverted PPS, low 400us, high (5V) otherwise Pin 12: logic low (0.12V) Pin 13: Ground (0.00V) Pin 14: logic low (0.08V) Pin 15: logic high (4.78V) Pins 3, 8, and 13 appear to be firmly connected to Ground. (Note that these are the three pins which are clipped short on the HP interconnect cable.) On an unpowered, disconnected box (either Ref-0 or Ref-1), pins 8 and 13 are connected to Ground (low resistance) and pin 3 is high impedance. Presumably pin 3 on each box (connected to the grounded pin 13 on the other box) is used to sense the presence of the other box and/or the interconnect cable. The timing of the PPS signal on pin 11 matches precisely the timing of the PPS signal available on pins 1 and 6 of J6 (RS422/PPS) on the active Ref-0 unit. Presumably this signal is coming across the cable from the Ref-0 unit. Note: when the system is coming up from a cold start, SatStat on the unit with the GPS receiver (Ref-1) will show [Ext 1PPS valid] in the space where it shows [GPS 1PPS valid] after the survey is complete. It appears that the Ref-1 unit timing system is locking its oscillator to the PPS coming from the Ref-0 unit during this time. The timing of the PPS signal on pin 5 matches the timing of the PPS output described in the Motorola OnCore manual. Presumably this signal is sourced by the Ref-1 unit to allow the Ref-0 unit to lock to GPS. The edges of this PPS signal look very dirty compared to the signal on pin 11. This may be an artifact of the homemade cable used for this experiment. The HP cable clearly has an overall shield (visible through the cable sheath) and may have internal coax or twisted pair for these PPS signals. When pin 5 and pin 11 are observed together, the usual GPS sawtooth pattern is evident. Someone discovered earlier that the both units will blink their green ON lights if the front-panel switch on either unit is set to 23 dBm vice the normal 17. Obviously each unit can communicate its switch status to the other unit. They use pins 6 and 10 to do that. Pin 10 (on the Ref-1 unit) is high (~5V) if the switch on the Ref-1 unit is in the 17 dBm position, and low in the 23 dBm position. Pin 6 (on the Ref-1 unit) gives the same indications for the switch on the Ref-0 unit. The serial data on pin 1 is transmitted at 9600 baud, with a burst of data every second. The signal idles at logic low (near 0V) and rises to logic high (near 5V) during the burst. This may be the standard for TTL (not RS-232) transmission of serial data, or it may be inverted. The first few characters of one burst were hand-decoded from a scope trace as 0x40, 0x40, 0x45, 0x61, 0x0B, or ASCII @@Ea. This appears to be the Motorola Oncore binary data format, although Ea does not appear to be a valid Motorola command or response. Perhaps the hand-decoding was in error. One can use SatStat, talking to the Ref-0 (non-GPS) box, to issue queries and commands to the GPS receiver. The results are inconsistent, but it seems that at least some of the queries get through and trigger responses. If the Ref-0 box is actually talking to the GPS receiver, it must be doing so through the interconnect cable. The specific wire in the cable used for this (if any) has not yet been identified. An earlier post speculated that the computer in
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
J5 (interconnect) pins are routed to the kathode of smd-ics labeled Z2upperindex3. These look like z-diodes to protect further circuitry from transients. The following pins are routed this way: 1,2,3,4,9,10,11,12,14,15 cheers Götz Am 04.11.2014 13:43, : Hi Ok so the correct pairs should be: A 1 15 B 2 14 C 3 13 D 4 12 E 5 11 F 6 10 G 7 11 ground 8 8 Bob On Nov 4, 2014, at 4:38 AM, Stewart Cobb stewart.c...@gmail.com wrote: A wiring diagram of the Z3809A cable interconnect cable was published earlier on this list. That information appears to be incorrect. The cable is actually wired pin 1 to pin 15, pin 2 to pin 14, etc. Another way to describe it is that for each wire in the cable, the pin numbers on each end of the cable add up to 16. A mated pair of these units is running in my lab with a scratch-built interconnect cable following the above rules. This scratch-built cable allowed access to the interconnect signals while the system was operating happily. No lights were lit except the green ON light on the Ref-0 unit (Z3812A, no GPS) and the yellow STBY light on the Ref-1 unit (Z3911A with GPS receiver). The following signals were observed on the interconnect (pin numbers given for the J5 interconnect socket on the Ref-1 unit): Pin 1: 9600 baud serial data (described below) Pin 2: logic low (0.11V) Pin 3: Ground (0.00V) Presence detect? (see below) Pin 4: logic high (4.79V) Pin 5: inverted Motorola PPS, high (5V) for 800ms, low for 200ms Pin 6: 17 / 23 dBm signal from Ref-0 unit (see below) Pin 7: logic high (4.48V) Pin 8: Ground (0.00V) Pin 9: logic low (0.11V) Pin 10: 17 / 23 dBm signal from Ref-1 unit (see below) Pin 11: inverted PPS, low 400us, high (5V) otherwise Pin 12: logic low (0.12V) Pin 13: Ground (0.00V) Pin 14: logic low (0.08V) Pin 15: logic high (4.78V) Pins 3, 8, and 13 appear to be firmly connected to Ground. (Note that these are the three pins which are clipped short on the HP interconnect cable.) On an unpowered, disconnected box (either Ref-0 or Ref-1), pins 8 and 13 are connected to Ground (low resistance) and pin 3 is high impedance. Presumably pin 3 on each box (connected to the grounded pin 13 on the other box) is used to sense the presence of the other box and/or the interconnect cable. The timing of the PPS signal on pin 11 matches precisely the timing of the PPS signal available on pins 1 and 6 of J6 (RS422/PPS) on the active Ref-0 unit. Presumably this signal is coming across the cable from the Ref-0 unit. Note: when the system is coming up from a cold start, SatStat on the unit with the GPS receiver (Ref-1) will show [Ext 1PPS valid] in the space where it shows [GPS 1PPS valid] after the survey is complete. It appears that the Ref-1 unit timing system is locking its oscillator to the PPS coming from the Ref-0 unit during this time. The timing of the PPS signal on pin 5 matches the timing of the PPS output described in the Motorola OnCore manual. Presumably this signal is sourced by the Ref-1 unit to allow the Ref-0 unit to lock to GPS. The edges of this PPS signal look very dirty compared to the signal on pin 11. This may be an artifact of the homemade cable used for this experiment. The HP cable clearly has an overall shield (visible through the cable sheath) and may have internal coax or twisted pair for these PPS signals. When pin 5 and pin 11 are observed together, the usual GPS sawtooth pattern is evident. Someone discovered earlier that the both units will blink their green ON lights if the front-panel switch on either unit is set to 23 dBm vice the normal 17. Obviously each unit can communicate its switch status to the other unit. They use pins 6 and 10 to do that. Pin 10 (on the Ref-1 unit) is high (~5V) if the switch on the Ref-1 unit is in the 17 dBm position, and low in the 23 dBm position. Pin 6 (on the Ref-1 unit) gives the same indications for the switch on the Ref-0 unit. The serial data on pin 1 is transmitted at 9600 baud, with a burst of data every second. The signal idles at logic low (near 0V) and rises to logic high (near 5V) during the burst. This may be the standard for TTL (not RS-232) transmission of serial data, or it may be inverted. The first few characters of one burst were hand-decoded from a scope trace as 0x40, 0x40, 0x45, 0x61, 0x0B, or ASCII @@Ea. This appears to be the Motorola Oncore binary data format, although Ea does not appear to be a valid Motorola command or response. Perhaps the hand-decoding was in error. One can use SatStat, talking to the Ref-0 (non-GPS) box, to issue queries and commands to the GPS receiver. The results are inconsistent, but it seems that at least some of the queries get through and trigger responses. If the Ref-0 box is actually talking to the GPS receiver, it must be doing so through the
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Am 29.10.2014 04:41, : Until you have the two units tied together and GPS ok and the Fault light out, you won't see the 15 MHz signal. You should see a 5 volt pp square wave of sorts coming out of the 10 MHz port. I found a clean 10 MHz signal on the collector of Q208 and several other points. These are on the back side of the board, near the 15 MHz connector. I am trying to find out how they triple the 5 MHz to get 15 MHz. Maybe it can be changed to just double to 10 MHz. There are a few inductors on the board and that may make for a filter. I don't yet have a computer connected. Does the SatStat program run under windows? Regards, Tom Output from Q208 in 10MHz a sinusoid signal. This is fed to pin 1 of U206, a 74xxx14-type schmitt-trigger. This shapes the output to rectangular TTL level. The duty cycle of the 10MHz TTL signal is determined by the trigger level of the 74act14 and may vary for different specimens of REF0 or REF1. Mine is nearly perfect 1:1. Götz ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Stewart: @@Ea see: http://www.prc68.com/I/AtAt.htm VP CMC2003 M12 GT+ UT+ Description PC Cmd Cmd RplyPC Cmd Cmd RplyPC Cmd Cmd RplyPC Cmd Cmd RplyPC Cmd Cmd Rply Position-Status-Data Out Messageps8 Ea Ea ps12Ha Ha ps12Ha Ha ps8 Ea Ea ps8 Ea Ea UARTs are not mandatory, a simple transistor level shifting circuit is all that's needed for TTL/RS-232 levels. Once I receive the Ref-0 and Ref-1 boxes and cable I'll start filling in my web page: http://www.prc68.com/I/KS-24361.html Mail_Attachment -- Have Fun, Brooke Clarke. N6GCE http://www.PRC68.com http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html Stewart Cobb wrote: A wiring diagram of the Z3809A cable interconnect cable was published earlier on this list. That information appears to be incorrect. The cable is actually wired pin 1 to pin 15, pin 2 to pin 14, etc. Another way to describe it is that for each wire in the cable, the pin numbers on each end of the cable add up to 16. A mated pair of these units is running in my lab with a scratch-built interconnect cable following the above rules. This scratch-built cable allowed access to the interconnect signals while the system was operating happily. No lights were lit except the green ON light on the Ref-0 unit (Z3812A, no GPS) and the yellow STBY light on the Ref-1 unit (Z3911A with GPS receiver). The following signals were observed on the interconnect (pin numbers given for the J5 interconnect socket on the Ref-1 unit): Pin 1: 9600 baud serial data (described below) Pin 2: logic low (0.11V) Pin 3: Ground (0.00V) Presence detect? (see below) Pin 4: logic high (4.79V) Pin 5: inverted Motorola PPS, high (5V) for 800ms, low for 200ms Pin 6: 17 / 23 dBm signal from Ref-0 unit (see below) Pin 7: logic high (4.48V) Pin 8: Ground (0.00V) Pin 9: logic low (0.11V) Pin 10: 17 / 23 dBm signal from Ref-1 unit (see below) Pin 11: inverted PPS, low 400us, high (5V) otherwise Pin 12: logic low (0.12V) Pin 13: Ground (0.00V) Pin 14: logic low (0.08V) Pin 15: logic high (4.78V) Pins 3, 8, and 13 appear to be firmly connected to Ground. (Note that these are the three pins which are clipped short on the HP interconnect cable.) On an unpowered, disconnected box (either Ref-0 or Ref-1), pins 8 and 13 are connected to Ground (low resistance) and pin 3 is high impedance. Presumably pin 3 on each box (connected to the grounded pin 13 on the other box) is used to sense the presence of the other box and/or the interconnect cable. The timing of the PPS signal on pin 11 matches precisely the timing of the PPS signal available on pins 1 and 6 of J6 (RS422/PPS) on the active Ref-0 unit. Presumably this signal is coming across the cable from the Ref-0 unit. Note: when the system is coming up from a cold start, SatStat on the unit with the GPS receiver (Ref-1) will show [Ext 1PPS valid] in the space where it shows [GPS 1PPS valid] after the survey is complete. It appears that the Ref-1 unit timing system is locking its oscillator to the PPS coming from the Ref-0 unit during this time. The timing of the PPS signal on pin 5 matches the timing of the PPS output described in the Motorola OnCore manual. Presumably this signal is sourced by the Ref-1 unit to allow the Ref-0 unit to lock to GPS. The edges of this PPS signal look very dirty compared to the signal on pin 11. This may be an artifact of the homemade cable used for this experiment. The HP cable clearly has an overall shield (visible through the cable sheath) and may have internal coax or twisted pair for these PPS signals. When pin 5 and pin 11 are observed together, the usual GPS sawtooth pattern is evident. Someone discovered earlier that the both units will blink their green ON lights if the front-panel switch on either unit is set to 23 dBm vice the normal 17. Obviously each unit can communicate its switch status to the other unit. They use pins 6 and 10 to do that. Pin 10 (on the Ref-1 unit) is high (~5V) if the switch on the Ref-1 unit is in the 17 dBm position, and low in the 23 dBm position. Pin 6 (on the Ref-1 unit) gives the same indications for the switch on the Ref-0 unit. The serial data on pin 1 is transmitted at 9600 baud, with a burst of data every second. The signal idles at logic low (near 0V) and rises to logic high (near 5V) during the burst. This may be the standard for TTL (not RS-232) transmission of serial data, or it may be inverted. The first few characters of one burst were hand-decoded from a scope trace as 0x40, 0x40, 0x45, 0x61, 0x0B, or ASCII @@Ea. This appears to be the Motorola Oncore binary data format, although Ea does not appear to be a valid Motorola command or response. Perhaps the hand-decoding was in error. One
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
bro...@pacific.net said: UARTs are not mandatory, a simple transistor level shifting circuit is all that's needed for TTL/RS-232 levels. I think you are confusing UARTs with level shifters. In the old days, transistors were expensive enough that a 68000 class CPU was all that could fit on a chip. All memory and peripherals were off chip. While not quite mandatory, most of the time it made sense to use a UART chip. If you had a FPGA, you could put a simple UART in there. (But back then, FPGAs weren't very big either.) If the CPU was idle, you could bit-bang things. -- These are my opinions. I hate spam. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Hal: Yes for level shifting. Most micro controllers have the UART built-in so that's all that's needed. I haven't got my boxes so don't know what chips are in them. Mail_Attachment -- Have Fun, Brooke Clarke http://www.PRC68.com http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html Hal Murray wrote: bro...@pacific.net said: UARTs are not mandatory, a simple transistor level shifting circuit is all that's needed for TTL/RS-232 levels. I think you are confusing UARTs with level shifters. In the old days, transistors were expensive enough that a 68000 class CPU was all that could fit on a chip. All memory and peripherals were off chip. While not quite mandatory, most of the time it made sense to use a UART chip. If you had a FPGA, you could put a simple UART in there. (But back then, FPGAs weren't very big either.) If the CPU was idle, you could bit-bang things. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hello all: A little more digging provides the system name: it's a FLEXENT. The reference and a document list are in: http://www.prtc.net/~dixonvaldes/CDMA%20Lazyan2.htm If I go to alcatel/lucent, I arrive at the following site for the flexent system: https://support.alcatel-lucent.com/portal/productContent.do?productId=nullentryId=1-02115 there are indications that documents, including the one we seek, are available, behind the golden key. Anybody have an alcatel account? We're close! And thanks to (lost in the big list of emails) whoever came up with the document name! Don -- The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -George Bernard Shaw Dr. Don Latham AJ7LL Six Mile Systems LLC 17850 Six Mile Road Huson, MT, 59846 mail: POBox 404 Frenchtown MT 59834-0404 VOX 406-626-4304 Skype: buffler2 www.lightningforensics.com www.sixmilesystems.com ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Alcatel Lucent. I did go to the site and do have an account. But the documentation is only available to those with a paid subscription or hardware under warranty. Regards Paul WB8TSL On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 5:41 PM, Don Latham d...@montana.com wrote: Hello all: A little more digging provides the system name: it's a FLEXENT. The reference and a document list are in: http://www.prtc.net/~dixonvaldes/CDMA%20Lazyan2.htm If I go to alcatel/lucent, I arrive at the following site for the flexent system: https://support.alcatel-lucent.com/portal/productContent.do?productId=nullentryId=1-02115 there are indications that documents, including the one we seek, are available, behind the golden key. Anybody have an alcatel account? We're close! And thanks to (lost in the big list of emails) whoever came up with the document name! Don -- The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -George Bernard Shaw Dr. Don Latham AJ7LL Six Mile Systems LLC 17850 Six Mile Road Huson, MT, 59846 mail: POBox 404 Frenchtown MT 59834-0404 VOX 406-626-4304 Skype: buffler2 www.lightningforensics.com www.sixmilesystems.com ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Well, we got these new in the box. Maybe we are in warranty !!! Bob On Nov 4, 2014, at 7:31 PM, paul swed paulsw...@gmail.com wrote: Alcatel Lucent. I did go to the site and do have an account. But the documentation is only available to those with a paid subscription or hardware under warranty. Regards Paul WB8TSL On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 5:41 PM, Don Latham d...@montana.com wrote: Hello all: A little more digging provides the system name: it's a FLEXENT. The reference and a document list are in: http://www.prtc.net/~dixonvaldes/CDMA%20Lazyan2.htm If I go to alcatel/lucent, I arrive at the following site for the flexent system: https://support.alcatel-lucent.com/portal/productContent.do?productId=nullentryId=1-02115 there are indications that documents, including the one we seek, are available, behind the golden key. Anybody have an alcatel account? We're close! And thanks to (lost in the big list of emails) whoever came up with the document name! Don -- The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -George Bernard Shaw Dr. Don Latham AJ7LL Six Mile Systems LLC 17850 Six Mile Road Huson, MT, 59846 mail: POBox 404 Frenchtown MT 59834-0404 VOX 406-626-4304 Skype: buffler2 www.lightningforensics.com www.sixmilesystems.com ___ 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
OK I will just go try that right out. Maybe not. Funny thing warranties do tend to run from the Install date. Regards Paul WB8TSL On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 8:13 PM, Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org wrote: Hi Well, we got these new in the box. Maybe we are in warranty !!! Bob On Nov 4, 2014, at 7:31 PM, paul swed paulsw...@gmail.com wrote: Alcatel Lucent. I did go to the site and do have an account. But the documentation is only available to those with a paid subscription or hardware under warranty. Regards Paul WB8TSL On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 5:41 PM, Don Latham d...@montana.com wrote: Hello all: A little more digging provides the system name: it's a FLEXENT. The reference and a document list are in: http://www.prtc.net/~dixonvaldes/CDMA%20Lazyan2.htm If I go to alcatel/lucent, I arrive at the following site for the flexent system: https://support.alcatel-lucent.com/portal/productContent.do?productId=nullentryId=1-02115 there are indications that documents, including the one we seek, are available, behind the golden key. Anybody have an alcatel account? We're close! And thanks to (lost in the big list of emails) whoever came up with the document name! Don -- The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -George Bernard Shaw Dr. Don Latham AJ7LL Six Mile Systems LLC 17850 Six Mile Road Huson, MT, 59846 mail: POBox 404 Frenchtown MT 59834-0404 VOX 406-626-4304 Skype: buffler2 www.lightningforensics.com www.sixmilesystems.com ___ 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 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Yes, I would find it very strange if there is any warranty on these at all other from the auction seller. I’d bet they got sold off as scrap with lots of bold print about Lucent not wanting anything to do with them ever again. —— That said - has anybody contacted the auction seller(s) and asked if any doc’s might have floated along with these units? I’ve seen a few cases where the docs are in one big box and it gets ignored because “it’s just paper”. Might be worth an email …. Bob On Nov 4, 2014, at 8:27 PM, paul swed paulsw...@gmail.com wrote: OK I will just go try that right out. Maybe not. Funny thing warranties do tend to run from the Install date. Regards Paul WB8TSL On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 8:13 PM, Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org wrote: Hi Well, we got these new in the box. Maybe we are in warranty !!! Bob On Nov 4, 2014, at 7:31 PM, paul swed paulsw...@gmail.com wrote: Alcatel Lucent. I did go to the site and do have an account. But the documentation is only available to those with a paid subscription or hardware under warranty. Regards Paul WB8TSL On Tue, Nov 4, 2014 at 5:41 PM, Don Latham d...@montana.com wrote: Hello all: A little more digging provides the system name: it's a FLEXENT. The reference and a document list are in: http://www.prtc.net/~dixonvaldes/CDMA%20Lazyan2.htm If I go to alcatel/lucent, I arrive at the following site for the flexent system: https://support.alcatel-lucent.com/portal/productContent.do?productId=nullentryId=1-02115 there are indications that documents, including the one we seek, are available, behind the golden key. Anybody have an alcatel account? We're close! And thanks to (lost in the big list of emails) whoever came up with the document name! Don -- The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -George Bernard Shaw Dr. Don Latham AJ7LL Six Mile Systems LLC 17850 Six Mile Road Huson, MT, 59846 mail: POBox 404 Frenchtown MT 59834-0404 VOX 406-626-4304 Skype: buffler2 www.lightningforensics.com www.sixmilesystems.com ___ 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 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 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I've been able to get the GPS unit running standalone by attaching J5-P2 to J5-P8 with a 470 ohm resistor and J5-P3 directly to J5-P8. I am still completely stumped getting any data out of J6 or J8 into a PC serial port. With a scope on the Rx and Tx lines of the RS232 to RS422 cable, I can see commands being sent and can capture the data coming back, but can't get the PC to pick up any of the signals, so I know the unit is not at fault. Hopefully I'll have success with the RS422 to RS232 convertor I've ordered. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Anthony Roby Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 9:12 PM To: Bob Stewart; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Yes I did, with XP running in VirtualBox on Win7 with COM1 mapped to the hardware port and a serial cable connected to another cable that does the pin conversion. I also tried it via a USB cable connected to an FTDI serial to USB convertor. I'll play around with it some more this weekend. Anthony Original message From: Bob Stewart b...@evoria.net Date: 2014/10/30 21:04 (GMT-06:00) To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi Anthony, When you ran Satstat, did you open the serial port? Click Commport-Settings and set it 9600,8,N,1. Then click Commport-Port open. Works OK under XP for me. I haven't tried it under Wine as I'm out of serial ports on the server and have the laptop to use. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 8:17 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I was finally able to get my units to lock and behave as described below. I am still unable to get any data into the PC, either via the RS422 to RS232 hack or through Götz Romahn's modification of the RS422 output. This issue must be to do with the voltage levels. I did connect my scope up to the RS422/1PPS output and was able to capture the serial data coming out of that (see the screenshot at http://goo.gl/87e8GG). I could see two of the numbers incrementing every second, so that must be a timestamp. I have ordered a USB to RS422 cable, so hopefully that will resolve the issue of communicating via J8. Thanks Bob for letting me know that the active J8 is on the unit with the green ON light illuminated. Anthony ___ 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I've been able to get the GPS unit running standalone by attaching J5-P2 to J5-P8 with a 470 ohm resistor and J5-P3 directly to J5-P8. I am still completely stumped getting any data out of J6 or J8 into a PC serial port. With a scope on the Rx and Tx lines of the RS232 to RS422 cable, I can see commands being sent and can capture the data coming back, but can't get the PC to pick up any of the signals, so I know the unit is not at fault. Hopefully I'll have success with the RS422 to RS232 convertor I've ordered. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Anthony Roby Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 9:12 PM To: Bob Stewart; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Yes I did, with XP running in VirtualBox on Win7 with COM1 mapped to the hardware port and a serial cable connected to another cable that does the pin conversion. I also tried it via a USB cable connected to an FTDI serial to USB convertor. I'll play around with it some more this weekend. Anthony Original message From: Bob Stewart b...@evoria.net Date: 2014/10/30 21:04 (GMT-06:00) To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi Anthony, When you ran Satstat, did you open the serial port? Click Commport-Settings and set it 9600,8,N,1. Then click Commport-Port open. Works OK under XP for me. I haven't tried it under Wine as I'm out of serial ports on the server and have the laptop to use. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 8:17 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I was finally able to get my units to lock and behave as described below. I am still unable to get any data into the PC, either via the RS422 to RS232 hack or through Götz Romahn's modification of the RS422 output. This issue must be to do with the voltage levels. I did connect my scope up to the RS422/1PPS output and was able to capture the serial data coming out of that (see the screenshot at http://goo.gl/87e8GG). I could see two of the numbers incrementing every second, so that must be a timestamp. I have ordered a USB to RS422 cable, so hopefully that will resolve the issue of communicating via J8. Thanks Bob for letting me know that the active J8 is on the unit with the green ON light illuminated. Anthony ___ 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I have now tested 3 pairs of these units (full Z3810AS system), always in pairs. One Z3811 box was DOA. It drew power at the appropriate level, but the lights did not light up and there was no response on the SatStat port. AECI quickly swapped it for a working unit, and even paid return shipping for the dud. Can't complain about the service. One pair was built in the US in approximately March 1999; it has serial numbers in the old HP style: 3844A41xxx. The others were built later, in Korea, and have new-style serial numbers like KR92840xxx. They all seem to have the same software. My lab uses a dual USB-to-serial converter to talk to both boxes at once. This does not use FTDI chips. One side seems to talk perfectly both ways through the RS-422 hack wiring; the other side seems to receive perfectly but the GPSDO complains about erroneous commands about once or twice an hour. If anyone wants to duplicate my setup, the converter comes from Microconnectors and can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Micro-Connectors-Serial-Adapter-E07-162/dp/B0032325LE (Link provided for information only; I have no connection with any of these people.) It is NOT TRUE that only the box with the green light on will talk over its diagnostic port. Both boxes can be interrogated simultaneously with SatStat, starting immediately after power-up. The J8 diagnostic ports on both units speak only when spoken to. If you're using a scope to look for activity on the diagnostic port, you won't see any unless a PC is connected. If you're switching one serial cable back and forth between two boxes, be sure to close the port (menu CommPort/PortOpen unchecked) before removing the cable from the first box, and open the port again (menu CommPort/PortOpen checked) after connecting the cable to the second box. The PortOpen command seems to do more than merely opening the serial port; it seems to be necessary to get communications going with the box. If you watch the window title, you can see that it's sending a *IDN? command and interpreting the results, but it may be doing other things as well. On the Z3812A, the front panel 10 MHz test point J1 connects to a group of three 100-ohm SMT (0805?) resistors and one SMT (0805 again?) ceramic capacitor. These are next to U206, a 74ACT14 in a SO-14 package, on the bottom of the board behind J6. On the Z3811A, these three resistors and one capacitor are missing. It is quite probable that adding them would send a 10 MHz signal to the SMA jack footprint buried under the GPS antenna input TNC jack. One could presumably solder a small coax cable to that footprint and route it around to a convenient location on the front panel. (The capacitor is not marked with a value, but it's probably small. It connects from the 10 MHz output to ground, and its purpose is probably just to slow down the edge rates of the 10 MHz output to reduce EMI.) The 10 MHz output seems to have a duty cycle of about 55% high / 45% low. This may be related to the synthesis technique, or it may simply be due to asymmetrical thresholds in the 74ACT14 schmitt-trigger driver. The firmware in the Z3811 and Z3812 boxes appears to be exactly the same. The PCBs are stuffed slightly differently, and of course the Z3812 has no GPS receiver. It is possible that one could add a GPS receiver speaking the correct protocol to a Z3812, and turn it into a GPSDO. It would be necessary to find out how the firmware detects what sort of box it is. Perhaps it simply looks for a GPS receiver, or perhaps there is a pullup resistor somewhere on the board that is only stuffed on one version of the box. The GPS receivers in these boxes use fairly old technology. In particular, they can only track 8 channels at a time, and they cannot make use of the WAAS signals. WAAS transmits corrections for satellite ephemeris errors and for the changing ionosphere. These are two of the most prominent error sources for GPS timing. (The others are antenna position error and multipath, both of which are potentially under the control of the user, and troposphere delay, which is small but can't easily be measured or removed.) It is theoretically possible to build a plug-compatible board carrying a modern GPS timing receiver and a small microcontroller to translate its communications into Motorola Oncore language. With a well-sited antenna, such a system might display noticeably improved performance. The current GPS receivers in these boxes take a remarkably long time to settle down after power-up. The GPS satellites transmit their full almanac every 12.5 minutes, which is normally all the time required for a GPS receiver to become completely happy. These receivers seem to require over an hour to become happy enough to START their self-survey, and several more hours to complete it. The old rubidium RFTG units could take 24 hours or more to become fully operational; these units seem to take 4 to 12 hours, depending on GPS antenna quality
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Here’s a thought: If you are going to “fit” a unit with a more modern GPS and translate it to “Lucent speak”, are you better off simply starting with an outboard GPS? The main GPS talks to the second box over the 15 pin connector. One would guess that what comes over is a pretty abbreviated set of information rather than the whole chat back and forth to initialize and survey the GPS. About all you would really need is the PPS and GPS status. You *might* even do that without ever sending any serial strings over to the second box at all. First check would be to see if there is GPS data on the 15 pin connector. More or less what I’m suggesting: 1) Feed the 3812 a pps from your “new” GPS (it’s going to need that) 2) Feed the 3812 a dummy status message / status signals 3) Once it’s convinced that all is well, it should lock up to the PPS. My assumption is that doing this would be easier than all the gyrations involved it taking a new GPS and translating all the messages. The box really does not need to know very much to just lock up. If it’s just status lines, not much at all to do. If it’s a serial message, shoot up a cheap PIC to generate dummy messages. Bob On Nov 2, 2014, at 4:42 AM, Stewart Cobb stewart.c...@gmail.com wrote: I have now tested 3 pairs of these units (full Z3810AS system), always in pairs. One Z3811 box was DOA. It drew power at the appropriate level, but the lights did not light up and there was no response on the SatStat port. AECI quickly swapped it for a working unit, and even paid return shipping for the dud. Can't complain about the service. One pair was built in the US in approximately March 1999; it has serial numbers in the old HP style: 3844A41xxx. The others were built later, in Korea, and have new-style serial numbers like KR92840xxx. They all seem to have the same software. My lab uses a dual USB-to-serial converter to talk to both boxes at once. This does not use FTDI chips. One side seems to talk perfectly both ways through the RS-422 hack wiring; the other side seems to receive perfectly but the GPSDO complains about erroneous commands about once or twice an hour. If anyone wants to duplicate my setup, the converter comes from Microconnectors and can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Micro-Connectors-Serial-Adapter-E07-162/dp/B0032325LE (Link provided for information only; I have no connection with any of these people.) It is NOT TRUE that only the box with the green light on will talk over its diagnostic port. Both boxes can be interrogated simultaneously with SatStat, starting immediately after power-up. The J8 diagnostic ports on both units speak only when spoken to. If you're using a scope to look for activity on the diagnostic port, you won't see any unless a PC is connected. If you're switching one serial cable back and forth between two boxes, be sure to close the port (menu CommPort/PortOpen unchecked) before removing the cable from the first box, and open the port again (menu CommPort/PortOpen checked) after connecting the cable to the second box. The PortOpen command seems to do more than merely opening the serial port; it seems to be necessary to get communications going with the box. If you watch the window title, you can see that it's sending a *IDN? command and interpreting the results, but it may be doing other things as well. On the Z3812A, the front panel 10 MHz test point J1 connects to a group of three 100-ohm SMT (0805?) resistors and one SMT (0805 again?) ceramic capacitor. These are next to U206, a 74ACT14 in a SO-14 package, on the bottom of the board behind J6. On the Z3811A, these three resistors and one capacitor are missing. It is quite probable that adding them would send a 10 MHz signal to the SMA jack footprint buried under the GPS antenna input TNC jack. One could presumably solder a small coax cable to that footprint and route it around to a convenient location on the front panel. (The capacitor is not marked with a value, but it's probably small. It connects from the 10 MHz output to ground, and its purpose is probably just to slow down the edge rates of the 10 MHz output to reduce EMI.) The 10 MHz output seems to have a duty cycle of about 55% high / 45% low. This may be related to the synthesis technique, or it may simply be due to asymmetrical thresholds in the 74ACT14 schmitt-trigger driver. The firmware in the Z3811 and Z3812 boxes appears to be exactly the same. The PCBs are stuffed slightly differently, and of course the Z3812 has no GPS receiver. It is possible that one could add a GPS receiver speaking the correct protocol to a Z3812, and turn it into a GPSDO. It would be necessary to find out how the firmware detects what sort of box it is. Perhaps it simply looks for a GPS receiver, or perhaps there is a pullup resistor somewhere on the board that is only stuffed on one version of the box. The
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi On Nov 2, 2014, at 4:42 AM, Stewart Cobb stewart.c...@gmail.com wrote: I have now tested 3 pairs of these units (full Z3810AS system), always in pairs. One Z3811 box was DOA. It drew power at the appropriate level, but the lights did not light up and there was no response on the SatStat port. AECI quickly swapped it for a working unit, and even paid return shipping for the dud. Can't complain about the service. One pair was built in the US in approximately March 1999; it has serial numbers in the old HP style: 3844A41xxx. The others were built later, in Korea, and have new-style serial numbers like KR92840xxx. They all seem to have the same software. My lab uses a dual USB-to-serial converter to talk to both boxes at once. This does not use FTDI chips. One side seems to talk perfectly both ways through the RS-422 hack wiring; the other side seems to receive perfectly but the GPSDO complains about erroneous commands about once or twice an hour. If anyone wants to duplicate my setup, the converter comes from Microconnectors and can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/Micro-Connectors-Serial-Adapter-E07-162/dp/B0032325LE (Link provided for information only; I have no connection with any of these people.) It is NOT TRUE that only the box with the green light on will talk over its diagnostic port. Both boxes can be interrogated simultaneously with SatStat, starting immediately after power-up. The J8 diagnostic ports on both units speak only when spoken to. If you're using a scope to look for activity on the diagnostic port, you won't see any unless a PC is connected. If you're switching one serial cable back and forth between two boxes, be sure to close the port (menu CommPort/PortOpen unchecked) before removing the cable from the first box, and open the port again (menu CommPort/PortOpen checked) after connecting the cable to the second box. The PortOpen command seems to do more than merely opening the serial port; it seems to be necessary to get communications going with the box. If you watch the window title, you can see that it's sending a *IDN? command and interpreting the results, but it may be doing other things as well. On the Z3812A, the front panel 10 MHz test point J1 connects to a group of three 100-ohm SMT (0805?) resistors and one SMT (0805 again?) ceramic capacitor. These are next to U206, a 74ACT14 in a SO-14 package, on the bottom of the board behind J6. On the Z3811A, these three resistors and one capacitor are missing. It is quite probable that adding them would send a 10 MHz signal to the SMA jack footprint buried under the GPS antenna input TNC jack. One could presumably solder a small coax cable to that footprint and route it around to a convenient location on the front panel. (The capacitor is not marked with a value, but it's probably small. It connects from the 10 MHz output to ground, and its purpose is probably just to slow down the edge rates of the 10 MHz output to reduce EMI.) The 10 MHz output seems to have a duty cycle of about 55% high / 45% low. This may be related to the synthesis technique, or it may simply be due to asymmetrical thresholds in the 74ACT14 schmitt-trigger driver. The firmware in the Z3811 and Z3812 boxes appears to be exactly the same. The PCBs are stuffed slightly differently, and of course the Z3812 has no GPS receiver. It is possible that one could add a GPS receiver speaking the correct protocol to a Z3812, and turn it into a GPSDO. It would be necessary to find out how the firmware detects what sort of box it is. Perhaps it simply looks for a GPS receiver, or perhaps there is a pullup resistor somewhere on the board that is only stuffed on one version of the box. The GPS receivers in these boxes use fairly old technology. In particular, they can only track 8 channels at a time, and they cannot make use of the WAAS signals. WAAS transmits corrections for satellite ephemeris errors and for the changing ionosphere. These are two of the most prominent error sources for GPS timing. (The others are antenna position error and multipath, both of which are potentially under the control of the user, and troposphere delay, which is small but can't easily be measured or removed.) It is theoretically possible to build a plug-compatible board carrying a modern GPS timing receiver and a small microcontroller to translate its communications into Motorola Oncore language. With a well-sited antenna, such a system might display noticeably improved performance. The current GPS receivers in these boxes take a remarkably long time to settle down after power-up. The GPS satellites transmit their full almanac every 12.5 minutes, which is normally all the time required for a GPS receiver to become completely happy. These receivers seem to require over an hour to become happy enough to START their self-survey, and several more hours to complete
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
System has been fired up for about 48 hours and seems to have settled down a bit by watching scope trace movement between Lucent and thunderbolt (has been on for months). I hooked up Lucent to input of 3586 (sync with thundebolt) and measured 15625 khz with spectrum lab for 8 hours - sample every 15 min. In the excel printout of 15625 data I subtracted 15625 to get hz error. Totaled hz error for all samples - divided total by number of samples and got average hz error. Then divided 10 MHZ by the average error and got an error of 1.6x10-11. This computed error also includes pc sound card error. Just wondering - if sound card error were corrected would this procedure be close to measuring the difference between two GPS units? If so - how close would two GPS units be in FX? Any ideas on getting better control of the pc sound card osc via SL? PC has been on for 24 hours and am measuring 15625 from gps locked 3336 into SL just to see how bad sound card osc is. I sure do appreciate all the info on our toys. 73, Bill, WA2DVU Cape May --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Here's another reference on driving 10-ish MHz square wave outputs via digital chips. A few years ago I hacked my HP Z3816 to covert its 4 - 19.6608 MHz square wave outputs to be 4 more 10 MHz outputs. In the process I reverse engineered some of what was there. I found each of these outputs came from one 74ACT040 inverter chip per output connector with several gates in parallel through 100 ohm resistors to give low impedance drive. Maybe all the parallel gates are overkill for most needs, but anyway, in the process I drew a schematic of the arrangement that was found there. You can find the schematic picture, labeled One of the 19.6608 MHz Outputs, near the middle of this page for the whole hacking project: http://www.xertech.net/Projects/Z3816/3816_mod.html Bob, I might add parenthetically, that while your responses always seem accurate and informative, many times they are presented in such a sketchy bullet-point way that only those who already understand what you are describing can accurately follow what you are trying to share. Maybe it is just my less-than-expert point of view, but I think a lot of your posts would benefit if you could give a bit more detail or maybe a link to some kind of example or explanation. I appreciate all you offer, it takes time to read and reply, but I think often you are preaching to the choir when a little more detail could reach the whole congregation. Change or not, please keep posting. Even the cryptic stuff contains meaning, perhaps a spur to dig deeper. Bruce, when posting here, used to baffle me too, but he often shared links to papers or schematics to aid in following the details of what he was describing. On 10/31/2014 5:02 PM, Bob Camp wrote: Hi A $0.15 each dual / quad / hex / octal buffer IC’s will get you 15 dbm per pair of gates. For under $10 in active parts you can have 30 or 40 outputs. I suspect that if you look inside the 3812 that’s exactly how they are generating the 10 MHz you are looking at. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 7:01 PM, Graham / KE9H ke9h.gra...@gmail.com wrote: Bill: On cable TV systems, 50 MHz to 500 (or higher) are the forward channel. (Head-end to client.) Below 30 MHz is the reverse channel, for data going from the client to the cable company. The band 30 to 50 is a cross over zone for the band splitting filters. It is designed to not amplify the forward direction below 50 MHz. --- Graham == On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 4:07 PM, Bill Riches bill.ric...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Bob, I connected 10 MHZ test jack output to a 15 db el-cheepo CATV amp and the output of that to a 4 way splitter. Splitter outputs went to 3336-3586 and counter. All seem to like the ref signal. Output of the amp takes makes the semi-square wave into a sick saw tooth. Amp is only rated from 50 to 500 mhz so strange things are happening with 10 MHZ input. Other CATV amps do have better low fx response - will play with that later. I have 10 mhz pulse from Lucent into trigger input of 465 scope and Thunderbolt gps output into vertical input of scope. Time base is set for .01 Usec per div. I notice that trace moves right to left then left to right about every 5 min or so. Moves about 3 div before changing directions. Why? Is the Lucent still making a list? It has only been on for a few hours. It takes about 10 min for GPS to go out from a cold start. (My Thunderbolt and RB do not change direction when using one as trigger and the other for vert input to scope) I ordered a USB to RS422 converter cable - will be here next week. What program is sort of working? Using Windoze 7 64bit and have an old XP machine available. Sure do appreciate all the info from our time nuts gurus! 73, Bill, WA2DVU Cape May, NJ ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Bob et al, I don't understand the direction this question about the supercap has taken. It's connected to pin 1 of the GPS receiver. It looks to be a UT+, so that's the battery backup power. According to my UT+ manual the current draw on this pin is between 5uA (at 2.5V) and 100uA (at 5V)? How many hours will a .022F supercap keep at least 2.5V at that sort of discharge rate? Unless the cap has gone bad, it seems more likely that Bob's comment about it doing a fast survey and then doing a slower one in the background probably has merit. In fact, my unit goes through its survey mode pretty quickly on power up. So do those current/voltage figures imply several hours on the cap? Bob From: Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 9:22 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi I sort of doubt that a GPS aux supply is quite that low current. I have seen some RTC’s that won’t last a month on a coin cell. My recollection is that the Oncore backup is closer to that category than the “many years on a cap” group. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 9:26 PM, Brooke Clarke bro...@pacific.net wrote: Hi Bob: When HP came out with the 300 series Rocky Mountain Basic computers they were fitted with a super cap to power the RTC. I will keep time for some months. http://www.prc68.com/I/HPIB.shtml#300 Mail_Attachment -- Have Fun, Brooke Clarke http://www.PRC68.com http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html Bob Camp wrote: Hi The ultra cap is a pretty small one (physical small). You might be able to find a larger (more farads) one that would fit in the same space. It’s not going to help for a hours and hours sort of outage. It might get you from dying in 15 minutes to dying in a half hour. Bob ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Arthur, Now that you mention it, yes, I do remember your post. Thanks for the reminder! Bob From: Arthur Dent golgarfrinc...@gmail.com To: time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 9:20 PM Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Bob Stewart bob at evoria.net “…I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby….” Bob Camp kb8tq at n1k.org “I suspect that somebody will have to figure out what the 15 pin connector / jumper is doing. On previous RFTG units there was a way to re-wire the crossover interface to fake out the slave detect process. That would let you run a single GPS equipped box and have it behave correctly. Without the fake wires trick none of them played nice without the slave being present….” ++ Reposting what I had posted over a week ago, in case you missed it…. Arthur Dent golgarfrincham at gmail.com Wed Oct 22 13:59:48 EDT 2014 “…Way back on Fri Jun 11 16:48:43 UTC 2010 I posted about using one of these units I had modified but at the time there wasn't a single person who was interested. I have been using the RFTG-u REF1 since then and it is a nice unit. The modifications I added (including a power supply -see photo) allows the lights to cycle through their normal sequence on warm-up and the second unit isn't needed at all….” -Arthur ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Arthur, Found your original picture/post. TNX! http://s906.photobucket.com/user/rjb1998/media/RFTG-uREF1photo1_zps87c505ca.jpg.html Would you share what you did for a 5 MHz buffer? Mike On 10/31/2014 10:20 PM, Arthur Dent wrote: Bob Stewart bob at evoria.net “…I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby….” Bob Camp kb8tq at n1k.org “I suspect that somebody will have to figure out what the 15 pin connector / jumper is doing. On previous RFTG units there was a way to re-wire the crossover interface to fake out the slave detect process. That would let you run a single GPS equipped box and have it behave correctly. Without the fake wires trick none of them played nice without the slave being present….” ++ Reposting what I had posted over a week ago, in case you missed it…. Arthur Dent golgarfrincham at gmail.com Wed Oct 22 13:59:48 EDT 2014 “…Way back on Fri Jun 11 16:48:43 UTC 2010 I posted about using one of these units I had modified but at the time there wasn't a single person who was interested. I have been using the RFTG-u REF1 since then and it is a nice unit. The modifications I added (including a power supply -see photo) allows the lights to cycle through their normal sequence on warm-up and the second unit isn't needed at all….” -Arthur ___ 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. -- 73, Mike, N1JEZ A closed mouth gathers no feet ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi On Oct 31, 2014, at 10:20 PM, Arthur Dent golgarfrinc...@gmail.com wrote: Bob Stewart bob at evoria.net “…I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby….” Bob Camp kb8tq at n1k.org “I suspect that somebody will have to figure out what the 15 pin connector / jumper is doing. On previous RFTG units there was a way to re-wire the crossover interface to fake out the slave detect process. That would let you run a single GPS equipped box and have it behave correctly. Without the fake wires trick none of them played nice without the slave being present….” ++ Reposting what I had posted over a week ago, in case you missed it…. Arthur Dent golgarfrincham at gmail.com Wed Oct 22 13:59:48 EDT 2014 “…Way back on Fri Jun 11 16:48:43 UTC 2010 I posted about using one of these units I had modified but at the time there wasn't a single person who was interested. I have been using the RFTG-u REF1 since then and it is a nice unit. The modifications I added (including a power supply -see photo) It’s the “see photo” part that I was having a hard time with. For what ever reason, the link in your original post did not work for me. Bob allows the lights to cycle through their normal sequence on warm-up and the second unit isn't needed at all….” -Arthur ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Well Q = CV. If delta V = 1 and C = 0.022 then Q = 0.022. That’s 22 ma for 1 second or 22 ua for 1,000 seconds. At 5 ua you would get to about an hour. If the delta V is 2X that, the times would all double. If the current is 10X lower than the spec (it might be …) then you could get out to around a day. Bob On Nov 1, 2014, at 12:38 AM, Bob Stewart b...@evoria.net wrote: Hi Bob et al, I don't understand the direction this question about the supercap has taken. It's connected to pin 1 of the GPS receiver. It looks to be a UT+, so that's the battery backup power. According to my UT+ manual the current draw on this pin is between 5uA (at 2.5V) and 100uA (at 5V)? How many hours will a .022F supercap keep at least 2.5V at that sort of discharge rate? Unless the cap has gone bad, it seems more likely that Bob's comment about it doing a fast survey and then doing a slower one in the background probably has merit. In fact, my unit goes through its survey mode pretty quickly on power up. So do those current/voltage figures imply several hours on the cap? Bob From: Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 9:22 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi I sort of doubt that a GPS aux supply is quite that low current. I have seen some RTC’s that won’t last a month on a coin cell. My recollection is that the Oncore backup is closer to that category than the “many years on a cap” group. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 9:26 PM, Brooke Clarke bro...@pacific.net wrote: Hi Bob: When HP came out with the 300 series Rocky Mountain Basic computers they were fitted with a super cap to power the RTC. I will keep time for some months. http://www.prc68.com/I/HPIB.shtml#300 Mail_Attachment -- Have Fun, Brooke Clarke http://www.PRC68.com http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html Bob Camp wrote: Hi The ultra cap is a pretty small one (physical small). You might be able to find a larger (more farads) one that would fit in the same space. It’s not going to help for a hours and hours sort of outage. It might get you from dying in 15 minutes to dying in a half hour. Bob ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Quick question - What about the other pins? Do they hook up in the same manner? If so, what happens to the odd pin? Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 10:41 PM, Tom Miller tmiller11...@verizon.net wrote: Task 1 complete. Pin-1 - Pin-15 Pin-2 - Pin- 14 Pin-3 - Pin- 13 ... ... Pin-14 - Pin- 2 Pin-15 - Pin-1 Shell - Shell Regards, Tom - Original Message - From: Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org To: n1...@burlingtontelecom.net; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 8:27 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A,Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi I suspect that somebody will have to figure out what the 15 pin connector / jumper is doing. On previous RFTG units there was a way to re-wire the crossover interface to fake out the slave detect process. That would let you run a single GPS equipped box and have it behave correctly. Without the fake wires trick none of them played nice without the slave being present. Yes that seems like it violates the spirit of redundancy. No I didn’t design it. Yes the guy who did spec it to work that way probably knew a whole lot more about exactly what they were after in the design. I suppose the first task would be to figure out if the jumper cable is a straight through or not…. Bob ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
For those who missed it, Arthur's post is at https://www.febo.com/pipermail/time-nuts/2010-June/047825.html and the photo is at http://i906.photobucket.com/albums/ac262/rjb1998/RFTG-uREF1photo1_zps87c505ca.jpg Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Dent Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 9:20 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Bob Stewart bob at evoria.net ?? ? I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby ? . ?? Bob Camp kb8tq at n1k.org ??I suspect that somebody will have to figure out what the 15 pin connector / jumper is doing. On previous RFTG units there was a way to re-wire the crossover interface to fake out the slave detect process. That would let you run a single GPS equipped box and have it behave correctly. Without the fake wires trick none of them played nice without the slave being present ? . ?? ++ Reposting what I had posted over a week ago, in case you missed it ? . Arthur Dent golgarfrincham at gmail.com Wed Oct 22 13:59:48 EDT 2014 ?? ? Way back on Fri Jun 11 16:48:43 UTC 2010 I posted about using one of these units I had modified but at the time there wasn't a single person who was interested. I have been using the RFTG-u REF1 since then and it is a nice unit. The modifications I added (including a power supply -see photo) allows the lights to cycle through their normal sequence on warm-up and the second unit isn't needed at all ? . ?? -Arthur ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Bob: When we received new computers from HP and plugged them in the date/time was correct. I believe the DS32xx series of RTCs, like those in wrist watches run on almost no power. The trick is in getting a super cap with low leakage and low resistance. The super caps designed to keep memory chips alive may not power anything needing more than a microamp. Mail_Attachment -- Have Fun, Brooke Clarke http://www.PRC68.com http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html Bob Camp wrote: Hi I sort of doubt that a GPS aux supply is quite that low current. I have seen some RTC’s that won’t last a month on a coin cell. My recollection is that the Oncore backup is closer to that category than the “many years on a cap” group. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 9:26 PM, Brooke Clarke bro...@pacific.net wrote: Hi Bob: When HP came out with the 300 series Rocky Mountain Basic computers they were fitted with a super cap to power the RTC. I will keep time for some months. http://www.prc68.com/I/HPIB.shtml#300 Mail_Attachment -- Have Fun, Brooke Clarke http://www.PRC68.com http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html Bob Camp wrote: Hi The ultra cap is a pretty small one (physical small). You might be able to find a larger (more farads) one that would fit in the same space. It’s not going to help for a hours and hours sort of outage. It might get you from dying in 15 minutes to dying in a half hour. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 12:42 PM, Tom Miller tmiller11...@verizon.net wrote: I thought so too. There is an ultracap in each unit. Tom - Original Message - From: Mike Seguin n1...@burlingtontelecom.net To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 12:19 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby. I am using GPSCon to monitor and it appears to work fine. One thing on my units, when I power cycled them, it started a 'survey' over! I didn't expect that. Are others seeing this. There must be a way to store the surveyed position Tnx, Mike On 10/30/2014 3:59 PM, Bob Stewart wrote: Hi Anthony, Did you power cycle both units as part of connecting them together at J5 to J5? And can you remind me whether you are using the supplied interface cable, or are you using something else? After warmup, the ON light is on for the REF-0 unit and the STBY light is on for the REF-1 unit. While running, there is no output from J8 on the unit marked STBY. J8 works on the unit marked ON. There is a timestamp coming from J6, and I think a 1PPS signal on some pin or other. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:24 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony ___ 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. -- 73, Mike, N1JEZ A closed mouth gathers no feet ___ 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 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 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 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 mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Bob: AFAICR on the old 6-channel Motorola GPS boards there was an option for a backup battery. Without the backup battery if there was any power interruption the memory would erase and you needed to do a cold start. Having the almanac and ephemeris, even if from a year ago has the effect of greatly reducing start-up time. In this case the purpose of the super cap is to prevent memory loss because of a power glitch not for long term power failure. Mail_Attachment -- Have Fun, Brooke Clarke http://www.PRC68.com http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html Bob Camp wrote: Hi Well Q = CV. If delta V = 1 and C = 0.022 then Q = 0.022. That’s 22 ma for 1 second or 22 ua for 1,000 seconds. At 5 ua you would get to about an hour. If the delta V is 2X that, the times would all double. If the current is 10X lower than the spec (it might be …) then you could get out to around a day. Bob On Nov 1, 2014, at 12:38 AM, Bob Stewart b...@evoria.net wrote: Hi Bob et al, I don't understand the direction this question about the supercap has taken. It's connected to pin 1 of the GPS receiver. It looks to be a UT+, so that's the battery backup power. According to my UT+ manual the current draw on this pin is between 5uA (at 2.5V) and 100uA (at 5V)? How many hours will a .022F supercap keep at least 2.5V at that sort of discharge rate? Unless the cap has gone bad, it seems more likely that Bob's comment about it doing a fast survey and then doing a slower one in the background probably has merit. In fact, my unit goes through its survey mode pretty quickly on power up. So do those current/voltage figures imply several hours on the cap? Bob From: Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 9:22 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi I sort of doubt that a GPS aux supply is quite that low current. I have seen some RTC’s that won’t last a month on a coin cell. My recollection is that the Oncore backup is closer to that category than the “many years on a cap” group. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 9:26 PM, Brooke Clarke bro...@pacific.net wrote: Hi Bob: When HP came out with the 300 series Rocky Mountain Basic computers they were fitted with a super cap to power the RTC. I will keep time for some months. http://www.prc68.com/I/HPIB.shtml#300 Mail_Attachment -- Have Fun, Brooke Clarke http://www.PRC68.com http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html Bob Camp wrote: Hi The ultra cap is a pretty small one (physical small). You might be able to find a larger (more farads) one that would fit in the same space. It’s not going to help for a hours and hours sort of outage. It might get you from dying in 15 minutes to dying in a half hour. Bob ___ 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi I think if you look at the math, the 0.022 F cap isn’t going to take care of the rated 20 uA current drain for very long. Bob On Nov 1, 2014, at 4:59 PM, Brooke Clarke bro...@pacific.net wrote: Hi Bob: When we received new computers from HP and plugged them in the date/time was correct. I believe the DS32xx series of RTCs, like those in wrist watches run on almost no power. The trick is in getting a super cap with low leakage and low resistance. The super caps designed to keep memory chips alive may not power anything needing more than a microamp. Mail_Attachment -- Have Fun, Brooke Clarke http://www.PRC68.com http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html Bob Camp wrote: Hi I sort of doubt that a GPS aux supply is quite that low current. I have seen some RTC’s that won’t last a month on a coin cell. My recollection is that the Oncore backup is closer to that category than the “many years on a cap” group. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 9:26 PM, Brooke Clarke bro...@pacific.net wrote: Hi Bob: When HP came out with the 300 series Rocky Mountain Basic computers they were fitted with a super cap to power the RTC. I will keep time for some months. http://www.prc68.com/I/HPIB.shtml#300 Mail_Attachment -- Have Fun, Brooke Clarke http://www.PRC68.com http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html Bob Camp wrote: Hi The ultra cap is a pretty small one (physical small). You might be able to find a larger (more farads) one that would fit in the same space. It’s not going to help for a hours and hours sort of outage. It might get you from dying in 15 minutes to dying in a half hour. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 12:42 PM, Tom Miller tmiller11...@verizon.net wrote: I thought so too. There is an ultracap in each unit. Tom - Original Message - From: Mike Seguin n1...@burlingtontelecom.net To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 12:19 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby. I am using GPSCon to monitor and it appears to work fine. One thing on my units, when I power cycled them, it started a 'survey' over! I didn't expect that. Are others seeing this. There must be a way to store the surveyed position Tnx, Mike On 10/30/2014 3:59 PM, Bob Stewart wrote: Hi Anthony, Did you power cycle both units as part of connecting them together at J5 to J5? And can you remind me whether you are using the supplied interface cable, or are you using something else? After warmup, the ON light is on for the REF-0 unit and the STBY light is on for the REF-1 unit. While running, there is no output from J8 on the unit marked STBY. J8 works on the unit marked ON. There is a timestamp coming from J6, and I think a 1PPS signal on some pin or other. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:24 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony ___ 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. -- 73, Mike, N1JEZ A closed mouth gathers no feet ___ 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 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 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 mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby. I am using GPSCon to monitor and it appears to work fine. One thing on my units, when I power cycled them, it started a 'survey' over! I didn't expect that. Are others seeing this. There must be a way to store the surveyed position Tnx, Mike On 10/30/2014 3:59 PM, Bob Stewart wrote: Hi Anthony, Did you power cycle both units as part of connecting them together at J5 to J5? And can you remind me whether you are using the supplied interface cable, or are you using something else? After warmup, the ON light is on for the REF-0 unit and the STBY light is on for the REF-1 unit. While running, there is no output from J8 on the unit marked STBY. J8 works on the unit marked ON. There is a timestamp coming from J6, and I think a 1PPS signal on some pin or other. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:24 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony ___ 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. -- 73, Mike, N1JEZ A closed mouth gathers no feet ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Mike, I've noticed the same. In looking at the Satstat program, it appears that when you enter a location, that's only treated as a hint. There is also a value you can set to zero that supposedly tells it to come up with the last hold value. It didn't seem to work for me. I've finally got my location and power cords in more or less permanent locations, but things happen. And, I won't be getting a UPS for it for quite some time. Maybe someone else has the secret sauce. Bob From: Mike Seguin n1...@burlingtontelecom.net To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 11:19 AM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby. I am using GPSCon to monitor and it appears to work fine. One thing on my units, when I power cycled them, it started a 'survey' over! I didn't expect that. Are others seeing this. There must be a way to store the surveyed position Tnx, Mike On 10/30/2014 3:59 PM, Bob Stewart wrote: Hi Anthony, Did you power cycle both units as part of connecting them together at J5 to J5? And can you remind me whether you are using the supplied interface cable, or are you using something else? After warmup, the ON light is on for the REF-0 unit and the STBY light is on for the REF-1 unit. While running, there is no output from J8 on the unit marked STBY. J8 works on the unit marked ON. There is a timestamp coming from J6, and I think a 1PPS signal on some pin or other. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:24 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony ___ 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. -- 73, Mike, N1JEZ A closed mouth gathers no feet ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I thought so too. There is an ultracap in each unit. Tom - Original Message - From: Mike Seguin n1...@burlingtontelecom.net To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 12:19 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby. I am using GPSCon to monitor and it appears to work fine. One thing on my units, when I power cycled them, it started a 'survey' over! I didn't expect that. Are others seeing this. There must be a way to store the surveyed position Tnx, Mike On 10/30/2014 3:59 PM, Bob Stewart wrote: Hi Anthony, Did you power cycle both units as part of connecting them together at J5 to J5? And can you remind me whether you are using the supplied interface cable, or are you using something else? After warmup, the ON light is on for the REF-0 unit and the STBY light is on for the REF-1 unit. While running, there is no output from J8 on the unit marked STBY. J8 works on the unit marked ON. There is a timestamp coming from J6, and I think a 1PPS signal on some pin or other. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:24 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony ___ 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. -- 73, Mike, N1JEZ A closed mouth gathers no feet ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system (Bob Camp)
I have modified Ulrich's executable for the Z3811 and it works fine. Email me if you want a copy. Does anyone have pinout information for these? Mike 73 DE N2LYM Message: 1 Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 21:49:06 -0400 From: Bob Camp To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Message-ID: 7c7537c3-d3cb-490f-99f3-d54af04e9...@n1k.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Hi I wonder if anybody has a copy of Ulrich’s source code? If so, there might be somebody on the list willing to rework it for the 3810 series and the more modern operating systems. Bob On Oct 30, 2014, at 1:25 PM, Götz Romahn wrote: and here comes another trick: Ulrich's Z38XX can be persuaded to accept the Z3811 instead of an Z3805. For this to happen search with an Hex-editor in Z38XX twice for the string z3805 and replace this z3805 with z3811, save the changes and enjoy the various Views Ulrich provided. Götz Am 30.10.2014 18:13, : Just a hint: I tried successfully Ulrichs Z38XX software (http://www.ulrich-bangert.de/html/downloads.html) in Windows7-32. At least the Manual Command Entry and the Debug Window should work. regards Götz Am 29.10.2014 23:55, : Hi One thing that might help others who are having issues with these units: Which pins did power go to? Which pins do you see RX (and maybe TX) data on? Which cables went where (and their pinout) to interconnect this or that? What software are you using? Yes, One could make some pretty quick guesses at most of this. It’s often a quick guess gone wrong that messes people up … Bob ___ 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Bob, I connected 10 MHZ test jack output to a 15 db el-cheepo CATV amp and the output of that to a 4 way splitter. Splitter outputs went to 3336-3586 and counter. All seem to like the ref signal. Output of the amp takes makes the semi-square wave into a sick saw tooth. Amp is only rated from 50 to 500 mhz so strange things are happening with 10 MHZ input. Other CATV amps do have better low fx response - will play with that later. I have 10 mhz pulse from Lucent into trigger input of 465 scope and Thunderbolt gps output into vertical input of scope. Time base is set for .01 Usec per div. I notice that trace moves right to left then left to right about every 5 min or so. Moves about 3 div before changing directions. Why? Is the Lucent still making a list? It has only been on for a few hours. It takes about 10 min for GPS to go out from a cold start. (My Thunderbolt and RB do not change direction when using one as trigger and the other for vert input to scope) I ordered a USB to RS422 converter cable - will be here next week. What program is sort of working? Using Windoze 7 64bit and have an old XP machine available. Sure do appreciate all the info from our time nuts gurus! 73, Bill, WA2DVU Cape May, NJ --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system (Bob Camp)
Hi Since you asked, pinouts: Standard numbering on all connectors. The P connector is numbered “backwards” from the J connectors as viewed from the front of the unit. If that does not make sense, check a DB-9-M and DB-9-F diagram. The numbers are on the parts in *really* small print if you really want to go crazy. P1, Power pin 1 + supply into the unit pin 2 supply return out of the unit all other pins - no connect Supply is 18 to 36V. After warmup the pair of units pull about 1A at 28V. At turn on they pull more than 2A. The supply inputs are fully floating at DC relative to the chassis. J8 - Diagnostics Pins 3 and 7 ground Pin 4 RX+ Pin 8 RX- Pin 5 TX+ Pin 9 TX- all others no connect J6 PPS Pins 3 and 7 ground Pin 4 RX+ Pin 8 RX- Pin 5 TX+ Pin 9 TX- Pin 1 PPS+ Pin 6 PPS - all others no connect J3 Alarm all pins no connect All signals for RX and TX are RS-422. Data on J8 is at 9600 baud 8N1. RX is into the box, TX is out of the box. Data format on the Diag connector looks like the older RFTG’s: byteuse values 1 talker 0 = ref 0, 1 = ref 1 2 status 0 = active, 1 = inactive 4 mode0 = warmup, 1 = gps, 2 = holdover, 3 = fault 9,10timehours in this mode 11 to 18GPS timeseconds since GPS start in 1980 19 to 22FirmwareRom version 23,23 checksum The string starts with a : All the bytes not listed above read as zero No idea about the diag port. I haven’t gotten that far. One hint: If you have “GPS” trouble on the slave unit, wiggle the interface cable. Apparently the 15 year old cable contacts aren’t quite as shiny as they should be. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 2:09 PM, n2lym n2...@optonline.net wrote: I have modified Ulrich's executable for the Z3811 and it works fine. Email me if you want a copy. Does anyone have pinout information for these? Mike 73 DE N2LYM Message: 1 Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 21:49:06 -0400 From: Bob Camp To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Message-ID: 7c7537c3-d3cb-490f-99f3-d54af04e9...@n1k.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Hi I wonder if anybody has a copy of Ulrich’s source code? If so, there might be somebody on the list willing to rework it for the 3810 series and the more modern operating systems. Bob On Oct 30, 2014, at 1:25 PM, Götz Romahn wrote: and here comes another trick: Ulrich's Z38XX can be persuaded to accept the Z3811 instead of an Z3805. For this to happen search with an Hex-editor in Z38XX twice for the string z3805 and replace this z3805 with z3811, save the changes and enjoy the various Views Ulrich provided. Götz Am 30.10.2014 18:13, : Just a hint: I tried successfully Ulrichs Z38XX software (http://www.ulrich-bangert.de/html/downloads.html) in Windows7-32. At least the Manual Command Entry and the Debug Window should work. regards Götz Am 29.10.2014 23:55, : Hi One thing that might help others who are having issues with these units: Which pins did power go to? Which pins do you see RX (and maybe TX) data on? Which cables went where (and their pinout) to interconnect this or that? What software are you using? Yes, One could make some pretty quick guesses at most of this. It’s often a quick guess gone wrong that messes people up … Bob ___ 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 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi On Oct 31, 2014, at 5:07 PM, Bill Riches bill.ric...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Bob, I connected 10 MHZ test jack output to a 15 db el-cheepo CATV amp and the output of that to a 4 way splitter. Splitter outputs went to 3336-3586 and counter. All seem to like the ref signal. Output of the amp takes makes the semi-square wave into a sick saw tooth. Feeding a square wave into an analog amp probably isn’t the best thing to do. Since it’s already a logic signal, buffering it with gates would make more sense. Amp is only rated from 50 to 500 mhz so strange things are happening with 10 MHZ input. Other CATV amps do have better low fx response - will play with that later. I have 10 mhz pulse from Lucent into trigger input of 465 scope and Thunderbolt gps output into vertical input of scope. Time base is set for .01 Usec per div. I notice that trace moves right to left then left to right about every 5 min or so. Moves about 3 div before changing directions. Why? Is the Lucent still making a list? It has only been on for a few hours. It likely will take a couple of weeks before everything settles in. The 3810’s have been off power a *long* time. It takes about 10 min for GPS to go out from a cold start. (My Thunderbolt and RB do not change direction when using one as trigger and the other for vert input to scope) I ordered a USB to RS422 converter cable - will be here next week. Let us all know if you find one that works well Bob What program is sort of working? Using Windoze 7 64bit and have an old XP machine available. Sure do appreciate all the info from our time nuts gurus! 73, Bill, WA2DVU Cape May, NJ --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Bill: On cable TV systems, 50 MHz to 500 (or higher) are the forward channel. (Head-end to client.) Below 30 MHz is the reverse channel, for data going from the client to the cable company. The band 30 to 50 is a cross over zone for the band splitting filters. It is designed to not amplify the forward direction below 50 MHz. --- Graham == On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 4:07 PM, Bill Riches bill.ric...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Bob, I connected 10 MHZ test jack output to a 15 db el-cheepo CATV amp and the output of that to a 4 way splitter. Splitter outputs went to 3336-3586 and counter. All seem to like the ref signal. Output of the amp takes makes the semi-square wave into a sick saw tooth. Amp is only rated from 50 to 500 mhz so strange things are happening with 10 MHZ input. Other CATV amps do have better low fx response - will play with that later. I have 10 mhz pulse from Lucent into trigger input of 465 scope and Thunderbolt gps output into vertical input of scope. Time base is set for .01 Usec per div. I notice that trace moves right to left then left to right about every 5 min or so. Moves about 3 div before changing directions. Why? Is the Lucent still making a list? It has only been on for a few hours. It takes about 10 min for GPS to go out from a cold start. (My Thunderbolt and RB do not change direction when using one as trigger and the other for vert input to scope) I ordered a USB to RS422 converter cable - will be here next week. What program is sort of working? Using Windoze 7 64bit and have an old XP machine available. Sure do appreciate all the info from our time nuts gurus! 73, Bill, WA2DVU Cape May, NJ --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
b...@evoria.net said: I've noticed the same. In looking at the Satstat program, it appears that when you enter a location, that's only treated as a hint. There is also a value you can set to zero that supposedly tells it to come up with the last hold value. It didn't seem to work for me. I've finally got my location and power cords in more or less permanent locations, but things happen. And, I won't be getting a UPS for it for quite some time. Maybe someone else has the secret sauce. There are several ideas tangled up in this area. If the GPS receiver has a recent enough almanac and you tell it the time and/or location, it can get started much quicker. The satellites broadcast on a known frequency, but the Doppler pushes that a long distance relative to the bandwidth. The almanac and time+location lets it compute which satellites are visible and the frequencies to listen on. That shortens a long search. Most/many GPS receivers have a watch crystal and clock and battery (or supercap) for this purpose. GPSDOs are usually used at fixed locations. If it saves the surveyed location it can avoid another survey on power up. You can save the surveyed location in flash so a battery isn't required. Some GPSDOs automatically save the results of a survey. Some don't. The Z3801A does an automatic save. The TBolt requires a command to save it. It can also save the GPS-UTC offset so it can deliver correct time in UTC without waiting to get that info from a satellite. -- These are my opinions. I hate spam. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi A $0.15 each dual / quad / hex / octal buffer IC’s will get you 15 dbm per pair of gates. For under $10 in active parts you can have 30 or 40 outputs. I suspect that if you look inside the 3812 that’s exactly how they are generating the 10 MHz you are looking at. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 7:01 PM, Graham / KE9H ke9h.gra...@gmail.com wrote: Bill: On cable TV systems, 50 MHz to 500 (or higher) are the forward channel. (Head-end to client.) Below 30 MHz is the reverse channel, for data going from the client to the cable company. The band 30 to 50 is a cross over zone for the band splitting filters. It is designed to not amplify the forward direction below 50 MHz. --- Graham == On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 4:07 PM, Bill Riches bill.ric...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Bob, I connected 10 MHZ test jack output to a 15 db el-cheepo CATV amp and the output of that to a 4 way splitter. Splitter outputs went to 3336-3586 and counter. All seem to like the ref signal. Output of the amp takes makes the semi-square wave into a sick saw tooth. Amp is only rated from 50 to 500 mhz so strange things are happening with 10 MHZ input. Other CATV amps do have better low fx response - will play with that later. I have 10 mhz pulse from Lucent into trigger input of 465 scope and Thunderbolt gps output into vertical input of scope. Time base is set for .01 Usec per div. I notice that trace moves right to left then left to right about every 5 min or so. Moves about 3 div before changing directions. Why? Is the Lucent still making a list? It has only been on for a few hours. It takes about 10 min for GPS to go out from a cold start. (My Thunderbolt and RB do not change direction when using one as trigger and the other for vert input to scope) I ordered a USB to RS422 converter cable - will be here next week. What program is sort of working? Using Windoze 7 64bit and have an old XP machine available. Sure do appreciate all the info from our time nuts gurus! 73, Bill, WA2DVU Cape May, NJ --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com ___ 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi The ultra cap is a pretty small one (physical small). You might be able to find a larger (more farads) one that would fit in the same space. It’s not going to help for a hours and hours sort of outage. It might get you from dying in 15 minutes to dying in a half hour. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 12:42 PM, Tom Miller tmiller11...@verizon.net wrote: I thought so too. There is an ultracap in each unit. Tom - Original Message - From: Mike Seguin n1...@burlingtontelecom.net To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 12:19 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby. I am using GPSCon to monitor and it appears to work fine. One thing on my units, when I power cycled them, it started a 'survey' over! I didn't expect that. Are others seeing this. There must be a way to store the surveyed position Tnx, Mike On 10/30/2014 3:59 PM, Bob Stewart wrote: Hi Anthony, Did you power cycle both units as part of connecting them together at J5 to J5? And can you remind me whether you are using the supplied interface cable, or are you using something else? After warmup, the ON light is on for the REF-0 unit and the STBY light is on for the REF-1 unit. While running, there is no output from J8 on the unit marked STBY. J8 works on the unit marked ON. There is a timestamp coming from J6, and I think a 1PPS signal on some pin or other. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:24 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony ___ 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. -- 73, Mike, N1JEZ A closed mouth gathers no feet ___ 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi I suspect that somebody will have to figure out what the 15 pin connector / jumper is doing. On previous RFTG units there was a way to re-wire the crossover interface to fake out the slave detect process. That would let you run a single GPS equipped box and have it behave correctly. Without the fake wires trick none of them played nice without the slave being present. Yes that seems like it violates the spirit of redundancy. No I didn’t design it. Yes the guy who did spec it to work that way probably knew a whole lot more about exactly what they were after in the design. I suppose the first task would be to figure out if the jumper cable is a straight through or not…. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Mike Seguin n1...@burlingtontelecom.net wrote: I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby. I am using GPSCon to monitor and it appears to work fine. One thing on my units, when I power cycled them, it started a 'survey' over! I didn't expect that. Are others seeing this. There must be a way to store the surveyed position Tnx, Mike On 10/30/2014 3:59 PM, Bob Stewart wrote: Hi Anthony, Did you power cycle both units as part of connecting them together at J5 to J5? And can you remind me whether you are using the supplied interface cable, or are you using something else? After warmup, the ON light is on for the REF-0 unit and the STBY light is on for the REF-1 unit. While running, there is no output from J8 on the unit marked STBY. J8 works on the unit marked ON. There is a timestamp coming from J6, and I think a 1PPS signal on some pin or other. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:24 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony ___ 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. -- 73, Mike, N1JEZ A closed mouth gathers no feet ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system (Bob Camp)
On 10/31/2014 6:14 PM, Bob Camp wrote: check a DB-9-M and DB-9-F ITYM DE-9-P and DE-9-S. Sorry, it's a pet peeve. 'taint no such thing as a DB-9, and the gender is Pin or Socket because male and female are ambiguous given the physical construction. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi One other possibility: The GPS does a fast survey to get going. Then it starts a long / precision survey. It only stores the result if it finishes the precision survey. A good survey might be 10, 24, 48 or 72 hours…. Sure would be nice to have some basic info on these beasts …. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 7:35 PM, Hal Murray hmur...@megapathdsl.net wrote: b...@evoria.net said: I've noticed the same. In looking at the Satstat program, it appears that when you enter a location, that's only treated as a hint. There is also a value you can set to zero that supposedly tells it to come up with the last hold value. It didn't seem to work for me. I've finally got my location and power cords in more or less permanent locations, but things happen. And, I won't be getting a UPS for it for quite some time. Maybe someone else has the secret sauce. There are several ideas tangled up in this area. If the GPS receiver has a recent enough almanac and you tell it the time and/or location, it can get started much quicker. The satellites broadcast on a known frequency, but the Doppler pushes that a long distance relative to the bandwidth. The almanac and time+location lets it compute which satellites are visible and the frequencies to listen on. That shortens a long search. Most/many GPS receivers have a watch crystal and clock and battery (or supercap) for this purpose. GPSDOs are usually used at fixed locations. If it saves the surveyed location it can avoid another survey on power up. You can save the surveyed location in flash so a battery isn't required. Some GPSDOs automatically save the results of a survey. Some don't. The Z3801A does an automatic save. The TBolt requires a command to save it. It can also save the GPS-UTC offset so it can deliver correct time in UTC without waiting to get that info from a satellite. -- These are my opinions. I hate spam. ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Bob: When HP came out with the 300 series Rocky Mountain Basic computers they were fitted with a super cap to power the RTC. I will keep time for some months. http://www.prc68.com/I/HPIB.shtml#300 Mail_Attachment -- Have Fun, Brooke Clarke http://www.PRC68.com http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html Bob Camp wrote: Hi The ultra cap is a pretty small one (physical small). You might be able to find a larger (more farads) one that would fit in the same space. It’s not going to help for a hours and hours sort of outage. It might get you from dying in 15 minutes to dying in a half hour. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 12:42 PM, Tom Miller tmiller11...@verizon.net wrote: I thought so too. There is an ultracap in each unit. Tom - Original Message - From: Mike Seguin n1...@burlingtontelecom.net To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 12:19 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby. I am using GPSCon to monitor and it appears to work fine. One thing on my units, when I power cycled them, it started a 'survey' over! I didn't expect that. Are others seeing this. There must be a way to store the surveyed position Tnx, Mike On 10/30/2014 3:59 PM, Bob Stewart wrote: Hi Anthony, Did you power cycle both units as part of connecting them together at J5 to J5? And can you remind me whether you are using the supplied interface cable, or are you using something else? After warmup, the ON light is on for the REF-0 unit and the STBY light is on for the REF-1 unit. While running, there is no output from J8 on the unit marked STBY. J8 works on the unit marked ON. There is a timestamp coming from J6, and I think a 1PPS signal on some pin or other. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:24 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony ___ 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. -- 73, Mike, N1JEZ A closed mouth gathers no feet ___ 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 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi I sort of doubt that a GPS aux supply is quite that low current. I have seen some RTC’s that won’t last a month on a coin cell. My recollection is that the Oncore backup is closer to that category than the “many years on a cap” group. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 9:26 PM, Brooke Clarke bro...@pacific.net wrote: Hi Bob: When HP came out with the 300 series Rocky Mountain Basic computers they were fitted with a super cap to power the RTC. I will keep time for some months. http://www.prc68.com/I/HPIB.shtml#300 Mail_Attachment -- Have Fun, Brooke Clarke http://www.PRC68.com http://www.end2partygovernment.com/2012Issues.html http://www.prc68.com/I/DietNutrition.html Bob Camp wrote: Hi The ultra cap is a pretty small one (physical small). You might be able to find a larger (more farads) one that would fit in the same space. It’s not going to help for a hours and hours sort of outage. It might get you from dying in 15 minutes to dying in a half hour. Bob On Oct 31, 2014, at 12:42 PM, Tom Miller tmiller11...@verizon.net wrote: I thought so too. There is an ultracap in each unit. Tom - Original Message - From: Mike Seguin n1...@burlingtontelecom.net To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 12:19 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I have both of my units sitting on the bench. I found that I needed to connect them together to get the REF1 unit to come out of standby. I am using GPSCon to monitor and it appears to work fine. One thing on my units, when I power cycled them, it started a 'survey' over! I didn't expect that. Are others seeing this. There must be a way to store the surveyed position Tnx, Mike On 10/30/2014 3:59 PM, Bob Stewart wrote: Hi Anthony, Did you power cycle both units as part of connecting them together at J5 to J5? And can you remind me whether you are using the supplied interface cable, or are you using something else? After warmup, the ON light is on for the REF-0 unit and the STBY light is on for the REF-1 unit. While running, there is no output from J8 on the unit marked STBY. J8 works on the unit marked ON. There is a timestamp coming from J6, and I think a 1PPS signal on some pin or other. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:24 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony ___ 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. -- 73, Mike, N1JEZ A closed mouth gathers no feet ___ 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 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 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Task 1 complete. Pin-1 - Pin-15 Pin-2 - Pin- 14 Pin-3 - Pin- 13 ... ... Pin-14 - Pin- 2 Pin-15 - Pin-1 Shell - Shell Regards, Tom - Original Message - From: Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org To: n1...@burlingtontelecom.net; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 8:27 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A,Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi I suspect that somebody will have to figure out what the 15 pin connector / jumper is doing. On previous RFTG units there was a way to re-wire the crossover interface to fake out the slave detect process. That would let you run a single GPS equipped box and have it behave correctly. Without the fake wires trick none of them played nice without the slave being present. Yes that seems like it violates the spirit of redundancy. No I didn’t design it. Yes the guy who did spec it to work that way probably knew a whole lot more about exactly what they were after in the design. I suppose the first task would be to figure out if the jumper cable is a straight through or not…. Bob ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Just a hint: I tried successfully Ulrichs Z38XX software (http://www.ulrich-bangert.de/html/downloads.html) in Windows7-32. At least the Manual Command Entry and the Debug Window should work. regards Götz Am 29.10.2014 23:55, : Hi One thing that might help others who are having issues with these units: Which pins did power go to? Which pins do you see RX (and maybe TX) data on? Which cables went where (and their pinout) to interconnect this or that? What software are you using? Yes, One could make some pretty quick guesses at most of this. It’s often a quick guess gone wrong that messes people up … Bob ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
and here comes another trick: Ulrich's Z38XX can be persuaded to accept the Z3811 instead of an Z3805. For this to happen search with an Hex-editor in Z38XX twice for the string z3805 and replace this z3805 with z3811, save the changes and enjoy the various Views Ulrich provided. Götz Am 30.10.2014 18:13, : Just a hint: I tried successfully Ulrichs Z38XX software (http://www.ulrich-bangert.de/html/downloads.html) in Windows7-32. At least the Manual Command Entry and the Debug Window should work. regards Götz Am 29.10.2014 23:55, : Hi One thing that might help others who are having issues with these units: Which pins did power go to? Which pins do you see RX (and maybe TX) data on? Which cables went where (and their pinout) to interconnect this or that? What software are you using? Yes, One could make some pretty quick guesses at most of this. It’s often a quick guess gone wrong that messes people up … Bob ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I also tried Steward Cobbs RS422 - Rs232 hack but with no joy in the beginning. First I had used the standard RS232 com1 port of my computer with no success. Later I tried my Prolific USB-to Serial adapter and things got better. After some measurments and looking at the pinout of the RS422/1PPS connector I've found somewhere on the Net, I made some additions to Stewards hack at the RS422 male plug: connect pin3 (Ground) to pin4 (Rx+) and add an 150 resistor from pin 3 to pin 5 (Tx+). This works reliable to the the Prolific but not reliable with the standard com1 port. The reason seems to be that the Tx- (pin 9) voltage swing re Ground is only abt. 3.5 V. This could explain the mixed success of other members. hope this helps Götz btw: will the RFTG-REF1 unit I have work standalone? I still have the STBY-led blinking after more than 24 hours and 3 to 8 satellites in view, all other leds off. Am 30.10.2014 01:11, : HI There are a few possible variations: 1) Different power supply voltages 2) Cheating RS-232 versus a proper RS-422 converter 3) The “right” interface cable (what ever it’s pinout is) versus a VGA cable ( or no cable at all…) 4) The HP interface versus the Lucent one 5) Windows 3.11 versus Windows 10 beta (or maybe something in-between). I’m only observing that some have had more luck with these than others. Since they are all NOS, they should all work. That suggests one or another hookup issue. I don’t think there is any need for ultra long detail lists. Stu took care a lot of that. I don’t have one, so at this point I’m just an observer on the sidelines. Bob Most time-nuts want to see more than a pretty green light. The old RFTG series allowed you to hook up a PC to the RS422/PPS port and peek under the hood with a diagnostic program. The program is available on the KO4BB website. It is written for an old version of Windows, and I had no luck getting it to run under Windows 7. It does run under WINE (the Windows emulator for Linux) on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. To use it, you need to make an adapter cable to connect the oddball RS-422 pinout to a conventional PC RS-232 pinout. The adapter cable looks like this: RFTG PC DE-9P DE-9S 7 -- 5 8 -- 3 9 -- 2 (According to the official specs, this is cheating, because you're connecting the negative side of the differential RS-422 signals to the RS-232, and ignoring the positive side of the differential signals. However, it's a standard hack, and it's worked every time I've tried 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Bill Riches Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 4:10 PM To: 'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement' Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system My system arrived today in original unopened boxes. Hooked up 24 volts and a gps antenna and it locked in about an hour and 10 MHZ output as compared with thunderbolt GPS seems to be working just great. No trace movement on scope using thunderbolt as trigger and looking at Lucent 10 MHZ output. Strange output pulse! Looking forward to 10 MHZ sine wave output mod that the gurus on the list will discover. Wonder what these units cost new when they were built? 73, Bill, WA2DVU Cape May, NJ ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Anthony, Did you power cycle both units as part of connecting them together at J5 to J5? And can you remind me whether you are using the supplied interface cable, or are you using something else? After warmup, the ON light is on for the REF-0 unit and the STBY light is on for the REF-1 unit. While running, there is no output from J8 on the unit marked STBY. J8 works on the unit marked ON. There is a timestamp coming from J6, and I think a 1PPS signal on some pin or other. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:24 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
The fault light will come on until both oscillators have locked. It takes a long while, at least on mine. I think it needs to establish the position before everything is stable. - Original Message - From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 3:24 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A,Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Bill Riches Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 4:10 PM To: 'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement' Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system My system arrived today in original unopened boxes. Hooked up 24 volts and a gps antenna and it locked in about an hour and 10 MHZ output as compared with thunderbolt GPS seems to be working just great. No trace movement on scope using thunderbolt as trigger and looking at Lucent 10 MHZ output. Strange output pulse! Looking forward to 10 MHZ sine wave output mod that the gurus on the list will discover. Wonder what these units cost new when they were built? 73, Bill, WA2DVU Cape May, NJ ___ 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi It looks like the power bricks are labeled 1.9A. This is at 18V. At 24V max current is probably 1.3A or so. It’s also labeled 25W. That is a good indication the 1.3 might be a little high. It’s a good bet that the -15V output has nearly zero load, so the “real” max should be below 1A at 24V per box or 2A for a pair of them. Once the OCXO cuts back, the + 15 should not be loaded very heavily. Yes, that’s very much what a TBolt power supply drain looks like. Bob On Oct 30, 2014, at 3:59 PM, Bob Stewart b...@evoria.net wrote: Hi Anthony, Did you power cycle both units as part of connecting them together at J5 to J5? And can you remind me whether you are using the supplied interface cable, or are you using something else? After warmup, the ON light is on for the REF-0 unit and the STBY light is on for the REF-1 unit. While running, there is no output from J8 on the unit marked STBY. J8 works on the unit marked ON. There is a timestamp coming from J6, and I think a 1PPS signal on some pin or other. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:24 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I'm still having no luck with mine. When I power on, the LEDs cycle, the Fault light is on and the No GPS and Standby lights flash. When I connect my GPS antenna, the No GPS light stops flashing and stays on. After several minutes only the Standby light is on. When I connect both the Ref1 and Ref0 together with the interface cable, the Fault lights on both units are illuminated. Do you see the same? I don't know what to infer from the Fault light since there is no supplemental data to work from. Anthony ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi On Oct 28, 2014, at 11:41 PM, Tom Miller tmiller11...@verizon.net wrote: Until you have the two units tied together and GPS ok and the Fault light out, you won't see the 15 MHz signal. You should see a 5 volt pp square wave of sorts coming out of the 10 MHz port. I found a clean 10 MHz signal on the collector of Q208 and several other points. These are on the back side of the board, near the 15 MHz connector. I am trying to find out how they triple the 5 MHz to get 15 MHz. In the earlier Lucent boxes, they used a PLD multiplier and a canned bandpass filter. That does not seem to be how it was done in these boxes. The big question is - did they use 15 MHz to clock the CPU? If so, you would still need to generate it to keep the firmware happy. If they don’t use the 15 MHz, then fiddling with it is much easier. A quick and (relatively) easy mod would be to unhook the 15 MHz amp and drive it with 5 MHz. Swap out the coils and tune it to work there. 5 MHz may not be as useful as 10, but a lot of gear will accept it as a reference. Bob Maybe it can be changed to just double to 10 MHz. There are a few inductors on the board and that may make for a filter. I don't yet have a computer connected. Does the SatStat program run under windows? Regards, Tom - Original Message - From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 10:52 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I played around today with these interfaces and couldn't get anything out of them. I still don't have my GPS connected, but I would have thought I'd see something out of one of the ports. I tested the serial port on my PC and that is working, but I don't see anything of note coming off the RFTGs. I have not connected both together through J5 - maybe that's the next thing to try. Any particular reason why the -ve side of the RS422 signal is used vs. the +ve? I was able also to get SatStat and the RFTG software running on Windows XP under VirtualBox. Hopefully once I get a signal out of the units, that software will be stable. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Stewart Cobb Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2014 11:53 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Once you have applied power, connect the Z3809A cable between the jacks labeled INTERFACE J5 on each unit. The earlier RFTG units used a special cable between two DE-9 connectors, and it mattered which end of the cable connected to which unit. The interconnect for these units is a high-density DE-15 connector (like a VGA plug). The Z3809A cable is so short that the two units need to be stacked one above the other, or the cable won't reach. It doesn't seem to matter which end of the cable goes to which unit. I don't know whether it's a straight-through cable, or whether you could use a VGA cable as a substitute. When you apply power, all the LEDs on the front panel will flash. The NO GPS light will continue flashing until you connect a GPS antenna. Once it sees a satellite, the light will stop flashing and remain on. The unit will conduct a self-survey for several hours. Eventually, if all is well, the Z3812A (REF 0 on its front panel) will show one green ON light and the Z3811A (REF 1) will show one yellow STBY light. This means that the Z3812A is actually transmitting its 15MHz output, and the other one is silently waiting to take over if it fails. Most time-nuts want to see more than a pretty green light. The old RFTG series allowed you to hook up a PC to the RS422/PPS port and peek under the hood with a diagnostic program. The program is available on the KO4BB website. It is written for an old version of Windows, and I had no luck getting it to run under Windows 7. It does run under WINE (the Windows emulator for Linux) on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. To use it, you need to make an adapter cable to connect the oddball RS-422 pinout to a conventional PC RS-232 pinout. The adapter cable looks like this: RFTG PC DE-9P DE-9S 7 -- 5 8 -- 3 9 -- 2 (According to the official specs, this is cheating, because you're connecting the negative side of the differential RS-422 signals to the RS-232, and ignoring the positive side of the differential signals. However, it's a standard hack, and it's worked every time I've tried it.) With that adapter, you can see the periodic timetag reports from the unit. The RFTG program will interpret these timetags when it starts up in normal mode. However, when I try to use any of the diagnostic features built into the program, it crashes WINE
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I was finally able to get my units to lock and behave as described below. I am still unable to get any data into the PC, either via the RS422 to RS232 hack or through Götz Romahn's modification of the RS422 output. This issue must be to do with the voltage levels. I did connect my scope up to the RS422/1PPS output and was able to capture the serial data coming out of that (see the screenshot at http://goo.gl/87e8GG). I could see two of the numbers incrementing every second, so that must be a timestamp. I have ordered a USB to RS422 cable, so hopefully that will resolve the issue of communicating via J8. Thanks Bob for letting me know that the active J8 is on the unit with the green ON light illuminated. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Bob Stewart Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 2:59 PM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi Anthony, Did you power cycle both units as part of connecting them together at J5 to J5? And can you remind me whether you are using the supplied interface cable, or are you using something else? After warmup, the ON light is on for the REF-0 unit and the STBY light is on for the REF-1 unit. While running, there is no output from J8 on the unit marked STBY. J8 works on the unit marked ON. There is a timestamp coming from J6, and I think a 1PPS signal on some pin or other. Bob ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi I wonder if anybody has a copy of Ulrich’s source code? If so, there might be somebody on the list willing to rework it for the 3810 series and the more modern operating systems. Bob On Oct 30, 2014, at 1:25 PM, Götz Romahn go...@g-romahn.de wrote: and here comes another trick: Ulrich's Z38XX can be persuaded to accept the Z3811 instead of an Z3805. For this to happen search with an Hex-editor in Z38XX twice for the string z3805 and replace this z3805 with z3811, save the changes and enjoy the various Views Ulrich provided. Götz Am 30.10.2014 18:13, : Just a hint: I tried successfully Ulrichs Z38XX software (http://www.ulrich-bangert.de/html/downloads.html) in Windows7-32. At least the Manual Command Entry and the Debug Window should work. regards Götz Am 29.10.2014 23:55, : Hi One thing that might help others who are having issues with these units: Which pins did power go to? Which pins do you see RX (and maybe TX) data on? Which cables went where (and their pinout) to interconnect this or that? What software are you using? Yes, One could make some pretty quick guesses at most of this. It’s often a quick guess gone wrong that messes people up … Bob ___ 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 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Anthony, When you ran Satstat, did you open the serial port? Click Commport-Settings and set it 9600,8,N,1. Then click Commport-Port open. Works OK under XP for me. I haven't tried it under Wine as I'm out of serial ports on the server and have the laptop to use. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 8:17 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I was finally able to get my units to lock and behave as described below. I am still unable to get any data into the PC, either via the RS422 to RS232 hack or through Götz Romahn's modification of the RS422 output. This issue must be to do with the voltage levels. I did connect my scope up to the RS422/1PPS output and was able to capture the serial data coming out of that (see the screenshot at http://goo.gl/87e8GG). I could see two of the numbers incrementing every second, so that must be a timestamp. I have ordered a USB to RS422 cable, so hopefully that will resolve the issue of communicating via J8. Thanks Bob for letting me know that the active J8 is on the unit with the green ON light illuminated. Anthony ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Yes I did, with XP running in VirtualBox on Win7 with COM1 mapped to the hardware port and a serial cable connected to another cable that does the pin conversion. I also tried it via a USB cable connected to an FTDI serial to USB convertor. I'll play around with it some more this weekend. Anthony Original message From: Bob Stewart b...@evoria.net Date: 2014/10/30 21:04 (GMT-06:00) To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi Anthony, When you ran Satstat, did you open the serial port? Click Commport-Settings and set it 9600,8,N,1. Then click Commport-Port open. Works OK under XP for me. I haven't tried it under Wine as I'm out of serial ports on the server and have the laptop to use. Bob From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 8:17 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I was finally able to get my units to lock and behave as described below. I am still unable to get any data into the PC, either via the RS422 to RS232 hack or through Götz Romahn's modification of the RS422 output. This issue must be to do with the voltage levels. I did connect my scope up to the RS422/1PPS output and was able to capture the serial data coming out of that (see the screenshot at http://goo.gl/87e8GG). I could see two of the numbers incrementing every second, so that must be a timestamp. I have ordered a USB to RS422 cable, so hopefully that will resolve the issue of communicating via J8. Thanks Bob for letting me know that the active J8 is on the unit with the green ON light illuminated. Anthony ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
tmiller11...@verizon.net said: I am trying to find out how they triple the 5 MHz to get 15 MHz. Maybe it can be changed to just double to 10 MHz. There are a few inductors on the board and that may make for a filter. The Fourier expansion of a square wave is odd harmonics. To get 15 from 5, turn the 5 into a square wave, filter out everything but 15, and amplify what's left. I don't yet have a computer connected. Does the SatStat program run under windows? Yes. -- These are my opinions. I hate spam. ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I'll keep plugging away and see if I can get anything out of the DB9 connectors. My adapter for the GPS input should arrive today. Thanks for the info on the 10MHz points. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Tom Miller Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 10:42 PM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Until you have the two units tied together and GPS ok and the Fault light out, you won't see the 15 MHz signal. You should see a 5 volt pp square wave of sorts coming out of the 10 MHz port. I found a clean 10 MHz signal on the collector of Q208 and several other points. These are on the back side of the board, near the 15 MHz connector. I am trying to find out how they triple the 5 MHz to get 15 MHz. Maybe it can be changed to just double to 10 MHz. There are a few inductors on the board and that may make for a filter. I don't yet have a computer connected. Does the SatStat program run under windows? Regards, Tom - Original Message - From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 10:52 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I played around today with these interfaces and couldn't get anything out of them. I still don't have my GPS connected, but I would have thought I'd see something out of one of the ports. I tested the serial port on my PC and that is working, but I don't see anything of note coming off the RFTGs. I have not connected both together through J5 - maybe that's the next thing to try. Any particular reason why the -ve side of the RS422 signal is used vs. the +ve? I was able also to get SatStat and the RFTG software running on Windows XP under VirtualBox. Hopefully once I get a signal out of the units, that software will be stable. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Stewart Cobb Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2014 11:53 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Once you have applied power, connect the Z3809A cable between the jacks labeled INTERFACE J5 on each unit. The earlier RFTG units used a special cable between two DE-9 connectors, and it mattered which end of the cable connected to which unit. The interconnect for these units is a high-density DE-15 connector (like a VGA plug). The Z3809A cable is so short that the two units need to be stacked one above the other, or the cable won't reach. It doesn't seem to matter which end of the cable goes to which unit. I don't know whether it's a straight-through cable, or whether you could use a VGA cable as a substitute. When you apply power, all the LEDs on the front panel will flash. The NO GPS light will continue flashing until you connect a GPS antenna. Once it sees a satellite, the light will stop flashing and remain on. The unit will conduct a self-survey for several hours. Eventually, if all is well, the Z3812A (REF 0 on its front panel) will show one green ON light and the Z3811A (REF 1) will show one yellow STBY light. This means that the Z3812A is actually transmitting its 15MHz output, and the other one is silently waiting to take over if it fails. Most time-nuts want to see more than a pretty green light. The old RFTG series allowed you to hook up a PC to the RS422/PPS port and peek under the hood with a diagnostic program. The program is available on the KO4BB website. It is written for an old version of Windows, and I had no luck getting it to run under Windows 7. It does run under WINE (the Windows emulator for Linux) on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. To use it, you need to make an adapter cable to connect the oddball RS-422 pinout to a conventional PC RS-232 pinout. The adapter cable looks like this: RFTG PC DE-9P DE-9S 7 -- 5 8 -- 3 9 -- 2 (According to the official specs, this is cheating, because you're connecting the negative side of the differential RS-422 signals to the RS-232, and ignoring the positive side of the differential signals. However, it's a standard hack, and it's worked every time I've tried it.) With that adapter, you can see the periodic timetag reports from the unit. The RFTG program will interpret these timetags when it starts up in normal mode. However, when I try to use any of the diagnostic features built into the program, it crashes WINE. The timetag output was required for compatibility, but I suspect that HP didn't bother to implement the Lucent diagnostics. Instead, they added a connector which is not on the previous RFTG series. That connector
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
My system arrived today in original unopened boxes. Hooked up 24 volts and a gps antenna and it locked in about an hour and 10 MHZ output as compared with thunderbolt GPS seems to be working just great. No trace movement on scope using thunderbolt as trigger and looking at Lucent 10 MHZ output. Strange output pulse! Looking forward to 10 MHZ sine wave output mod that the gurus on the list will discover. Wonder what these units cost new when they were built? 73, Bill, WA2DVU Cape May, NJ --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi I think it’s safe to guess that the full 3810 (3811 + 3812) cost in the vicinity of $2K when new in 2001. Bob On Oct 29, 2014, at 5:09 PM, Bill Riches bill.ric...@verizon.net wrote: My system arrived today in original unopened boxes. Hooked up 24 volts and a gps antenna and it locked in about an hour and 10 MHZ output as compared with thunderbolt GPS seems to be working just great. No trace movement on scope using thunderbolt as trigger and looking at Lucent 10 MHZ output. Strange output pulse! Looking forward to 10 MHZ sine wave output mod that the gurus on the list will discover. Wonder what these units cost new when they were built? 73, Bill, WA2DVU Cape May, NJ --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi One thing that might help others who are having issues with these units: Which pins did power go to? Which pins do you see RX (and maybe TX) data on? Which cables went where (and their pinout) to interconnect this or that? What software are you using? Yes, One could make some pretty quick guesses at most of this. It’s often a quick guess gone wrong that messes people up … Bob On Oct 29, 2014, at 5:09 PM, Bill Riches bill.ric...@verizon.net wrote: My system arrived today in original unopened boxes. Hooked up 24 volts and a gps antenna and it locked in about an hour and 10 MHZ output as compared with thunderbolt GPS seems to be working just great. No trace movement on scope using thunderbolt as trigger and looking at Lucent 10 MHZ output. Strange output pulse! Looking forward to 10 MHZ sine wave output mod that the gurus on the list will discover. Wonder what these units cost new when they were built? 73, Bill, WA2DVU Cape May, NJ --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Bob, Most of the answers were covered with Stu Cobb's original message from 10/20/14 copied below. - Original Message - From: Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 6:55 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A,Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi One thing that might help others who are having issues with these units: Which pins did power go to? Which pins do you see RX (and maybe TX) data on? Which cables went where (and their pinout) to interconnect this or that? What software are you using? Yes, One could make some pretty quick guesses at most of this. It’s often a quick guess gone wrong that messes people up … Bob Fellow time-nuts, This (long) post is a review of the HP/Symmetricom Z3810A (or Z3810AS) GPSDO system built for Lucent circa 2000. I wrote it because I looked for more information before I bought one, and couldn't find much. It's relevant because (as of this writing), you can buy a full system on the usual auction site for about $150 plus shipping. For those of you lamenting the dearth of cheap Thunderbolts, this looks like one of the best deals going. The description of these objects does not include GPSDO, so time-nuts may have missed it. Search for one of the part numbers in the subject line and you should find it. So what is it? It's a dual GPSDO built by HP as a reference (Redundant Frequency and Time Generator, or RFTG) for a Lucent cell-phone base station, built to Lucent's spec KS-24361. Internally, it's a close cousin of a later-model Z3805A. Externally, it looks to be almost a drop-in replacement for the earlier RFTG system built to Lucent's spec KS-24019. That was a redundant system containing one rubidium (LPRO, in the one I have) and one OCXO in two almost-identical boxes. That spec went through several revisions with slightly different nameplates and presumably slightly different internals. You can generally find one or two examples on the auction site (search for RFTG or KS-24019). This system is similar, but the two boxes each contain a Milliren (MTI) 260-0624-C 5.000MHz DOCXO, and neither contains a rubidium. The Milliren DOXCO is the same one used in the later models of the HP Z3805A / 58503A. It's a very high-performance DOCXO, in the same class as the legendary HP 10811, and better than the one in most surplus Thunderbolts. The 5 MHz output is multiplied up to 10 MHz in at least one unit, and 15 MHz in both units. I don't have the ability to measure phase noise on these outputs, but I'd be interested to see the results if someone could. Nomenclature: The Z3810AS (there always seems to be an S at the end) is a system consisting of the Z3811A (the unit containing a GPS receiver), the Z3812A (the unit with no GPS receiver), and the Z3809A (a stupid little interconnect cable). The GPS receiver inside the Z3811A is a Motorola device, presumably some version of an OnCore. Where the Z3811A has a TNC GPS antenna input, the Z3812A has an SMA connector labeled 10MHz TP. That is indeed a 10 MHz output. It comes active as soon as power is applied to the unit, and its frequency follows the warmup curve of the OCXO. The two units have identical PCBs (stuffed slightly differently), and I have no doubt that someone can figure out how to add a 10 MHz output to the Z3811A as well. Operation: From the outside, these units are broadly similar to earlier units in the Lucent RFTG series. The (extremely valuable) website run by Didier, KO4BB, has a lot of information on those earlier units, much of which still applies here. The purpose of these units was to provide a reliable source of frequency and timing information to the cell-site electronics. The 15 MHz outputs from both units were connected to a power combiner/splitter and directed to various parts of the transmitter. The units negotiate with each other so that only one 15 MHz output is active at a time. The outputs labeled RS422/1PPS contained a 4800 baud (?) serial time code as well as the PPS signal, which were sent to the control computer. Power is applied to the connector labeled +24VDC and P1, in exactly the same way as the earlier RFTG units. Apply +24V to pin 1 and the other side of the power supply (GND or RTN) to pin 2. In these units, that power supply goes directly to an isolated Lucent DC/DC converter brick labeled IN: DC 18-36, 1.9A. Presumably you can run both units with a 4-amp supply. Once you have applied power, connect the Z3809A cable between the jacks labeled INTERFACE J5 on each unit. The earlier RFTG units used a special cable between two DE-9 connectors, and it mattered which end of the cable connected to which unit. The interconnect for these units is a high-density DE-15 connector (like a VGA plug). The Z3809A cable is so short that the two units need to be stacked one above
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
HI There are a few possible variations: 1) Different power supply voltages 2) Cheating RS-232 versus a proper RS-422 converter 3) The “right” interface cable (what ever it’s pinout is) versus a VGA cable ( or no cable at all…) 4) The HP interface versus the Lucent one 5) Windows 3.11 versus Windows 10 beta (or maybe something in-between). I’m only observing that some have had more luck with these than others. Since they are all NOS, they should all work. That suggests one or another hookup issue. I don’t think there is any need for ultra long detail lists. Stu took care a lot of that. I don’t have one, so at this point I’m just an observer on the sidelines. Bob On Oct 29, 2014, at 7:33 PM, Tom Miller tmiller11...@verizon.net wrote: Hi Bob, Most of the answers were covered with Stu Cobb's original message from 10/20/14 copied below. - Original Message - From: Bob Camp kb...@n1k.org To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2014 6:55 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A,Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi One thing that might help others who are having issues with these units: Which pins did power go to? Which pins do you see RX (and maybe TX) data on? Which cables went where (and their pinout) to interconnect this or that? What software are you using? Yes, One could make some pretty quick guesses at most of this. It’s often a quick guess gone wrong that messes people up … Bob Fellow time-nuts, This (long) post is a review of the HP/Symmetricom Z3810A (or Z3810AS) GPSDO system built for Lucent circa 2000. I wrote it because I looked for more information before I bought one, and couldn't find much. It's relevant because (as of this writing), you can buy a full system on the usual auction site for about $150 plus shipping. For those of you lamenting the dearth of cheap Thunderbolts, this looks like one of the best deals going. The description of these objects does not include GPSDO, so time-nuts may have missed it. Search for one of the part numbers in the subject line and you should find it. So what is it? It's a dual GPSDO built by HP as a reference (Redundant Frequency and Time Generator, or RFTG) for a Lucent cell-phone base station, built to Lucent's spec KS-24361. Internally, it's a close cousin of a later-model Z3805A. Externally, it looks to be almost a drop-in replacement for the earlier RFTG system built to Lucent's spec KS-24019. That was a redundant system containing one rubidium (LPRO, in the one I have) and one OCXO in two almost-identical boxes. That spec went through several revisions with slightly different nameplates and presumably slightly different internals. You can generally find one or two examples on the auction site (search for RFTG or KS-24019). This system is similar, but the two boxes each contain a Milliren (MTI) 260-0624-C 5.000MHz DOCXO, and neither contains a rubidium. The Milliren DOXCO is the same one used in the later models of the HP Z3805A / 58503A. It's a very high-performance DOCXO, in the same class as the legendary HP 10811, and better than the one in most surplus Thunderbolts. The 5 MHz output is multiplied up to 10 MHz in at least one unit, and 15 MHz in both units. I don't have the ability to measure phase noise on these outputs, but I'd be interested to see the results if someone could. Nomenclature: The Z3810AS (there always seems to be an S at the end) is a system consisting of the Z3811A (the unit containing a GPS receiver), the Z3812A (the unit with no GPS receiver), and the Z3809A (a stupid little interconnect cable). The GPS receiver inside the Z3811A is a Motorola device, presumably some version of an OnCore. Where the Z3811A has a TNC GPS antenna input, the Z3812A has an SMA connector labeled 10MHz TP. That is indeed a 10 MHz output. It comes active as soon as power is applied to the unit, and its frequency follows the warmup curve of the OCXO. The two units have identical PCBs (stuffed slightly differently), and I have no doubt that someone can figure out how to add a 10 MHz output to the Z3811A as well. Operation: From the outside, these units are broadly similar to earlier units in the Lucent RFTG series. The (extremely valuable) website run by Didier, KO4BB, has a lot of information on those earlier units, much of which still applies here. The purpose of these units was to provide a reliable source of frequency and timing information to the cell-site electronics. The 15 MHz outputs from both units were connected to a power combiner/splitter and directed to various parts of the transmitter. The units negotiate with each other so that only one 15 MHz output is active at a time. The outputs labeled RS422/1PPS contained a 4800 baud (?) serial time code
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
I played around today with these interfaces and couldn't get anything out of them. I still don't have my GPS connected, but I would have thought I'd see something out of one of the ports. I tested the serial port on my PC and that is working, but I don't see anything of note coming off the RFTGs. I have not connected both together through J5 - maybe that's the next thing to try. Any particular reason why the -ve side of the RS422 signal is used vs. the +ve? I was able also to get SatStat and the RFTG software running on Windows XP under VirtualBox. Hopefully once I get a signal out of the units, that software will be stable. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Stewart Cobb Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2014 11:53 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Once you have applied power, connect the Z3809A cable between the jacks labeled INTERFACE J5 on each unit. The earlier RFTG units used a special cable between two DE-9 connectors, and it mattered which end of the cable connected to which unit. The interconnect for these units is a high-density DE-15 connector (like a VGA plug). The Z3809A cable is so short that the two units need to be stacked one above the other, or the cable won't reach. It doesn't seem to matter which end of the cable goes to which unit. I don't know whether it's a straight-through cable, or whether you could use a VGA cable as a substitute. When you apply power, all the LEDs on the front panel will flash. The NO GPS light will continue flashing until you connect a GPS antenna. Once it sees a satellite, the light will stop flashing and remain on. The unit will conduct a self-survey for several hours. Eventually, if all is well, the Z3812A (REF 0 on its front panel) will show one green ON light and the Z3811A (REF 1) will show one yellow STBY light. This means that the Z3812A is actually transmitting its 15MHz output, and the other one is silently waiting to take over if it fails. Most time-nuts want to see more than a pretty green light. The old RFTG series allowed you to hook up a PC to the RS422/PPS port and peek under the hood with a diagnostic program. The program is available on the KO4BB website. It is written for an old version of Windows, and I had no luck getting it to run under Windows 7. It does run under WINE (the Windows emulator for Linux) on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. To use it, you need to make an adapter cable to connect the oddball RS-422 pinout to a conventional PC RS-232 pinout. The adapter cable looks like this: RFTG PC DE-9P DE-9S 7 -- 5 8 -- 3 9 -- 2 (According to the official specs, this is cheating, because you're connecting the negative side of the differential RS-422 signals to the RS-232, and ignoring the positive side of the differential signals. However, it's a standard hack, and it's worked every time I've tried it.) With that adapter, you can see the periodic timetag reports from the unit. The RFTG program will interpret these timetags when it starts up in normal mode. However, when I try to use any of the diagnostic features built into the program, it crashes WINE. The timetag output was required for compatibility, but I suspect that HP didn't bother to implement the Lucent diagnostics. Instead, they added a connector which is not on the previous RFTG series. That connector is labeled, logically enough, J8-DIAGNOSTIC. It too is wired with RS-422, so you need to use the same adapter cable as before. Once you do, you'll find that this connector speaks the usual HP SCPI command set (Hooray!). I used the official SATSTAT program (again under WINE on 12.04 LTS), but I'm sure that other programs written for this command set will work as well. The default SATSTAT serial port settings of 9600-8-N-1 worked for me. ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
More on the 10 MHz output. The duty cycle is 60/40%, ground referenced waveform (bottom of waveform at 0 volts). It wants to see 50 ohms for termination. Syncronis with the 15 MHz sine output and seems to come from a divide by 1.5 divider. I have more digging to do but it's late. Regards, Tom ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Until you have the two units tied together and GPS ok and the Fault light out, you won't see the 15 MHz signal. You should see a 5 volt pp square wave of sorts coming out of the 10 MHz port. I found a clean 10 MHz signal on the collector of Q208 and several other points. These are on the back side of the board, near the 15 MHz connector. I am trying to find out how they triple the 5 MHz to get 15 MHz. Maybe it can be changed to just double to 10 MHz. There are a few inductors on the board and that may make for a filter. I don't yet have a computer connected. Does the SatStat program run under windows? Regards, Tom - Original Message - From: Anthony Roby ar...@antamy.com To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2014 10:52 PM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system I played around today with these interfaces and couldn't get anything out of them. I still don't have my GPS connected, but I would have thought I'd see something out of one of the ports. I tested the serial port on my PC and that is working, but I don't see anything of note coming off the RFTGs. I have not connected both together through J5 - maybe that's the next thing to try. Any particular reason why the -ve side of the RS422 signal is used vs. the +ve? I was able also to get SatStat and the RFTG software running on Windows XP under VirtualBox. Hopefully once I get a signal out of the units, that software will be stable. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Stewart Cobb Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2014 11:53 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Once you have applied power, connect the Z3809A cable between the jacks labeled INTERFACE J5 on each unit. The earlier RFTG units used a special cable between two DE-9 connectors, and it mattered which end of the cable connected to which unit. The interconnect for these units is a high-density DE-15 connector (like a VGA plug). The Z3809A cable is so short that the two units need to be stacked one above the other, or the cable won't reach. It doesn't seem to matter which end of the cable goes to which unit. I don't know whether it's a straight-through cable, or whether you could use a VGA cable as a substitute. When you apply power, all the LEDs on the front panel will flash. The NO GPS light will continue flashing until you connect a GPS antenna. Once it sees a satellite, the light will stop flashing and remain on. The unit will conduct a self-survey for several hours. Eventually, if all is well, the Z3812A (REF 0 on its front panel) will show one green ON light and the Z3811A (REF 1) will show one yellow STBY light. This means that the Z3812A is actually transmitting its 15MHz output, and the other one is silently waiting to take over if it fails. Most time-nuts want to see more than a pretty green light. The old RFTG series allowed you to hook up a PC to the RS422/PPS port and peek under the hood with a diagnostic program. The program is available on the KO4BB website. It is written for an old version of Windows, and I had no luck getting it to run under Windows 7. It does run under WINE (the Windows emulator for Linux) on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. To use it, you need to make an adapter cable to connect the oddball RS-422 pinout to a conventional PC RS-232 pinout. The adapter cable looks like this: RFTG PC DE-9P DE-9S 7 -- 5 8 -- 3 9 -- 2 (According to the official specs, this is cheating, because you're connecting the negative side of the differential RS-422 signals to the RS-232, and ignoring the positive side of the differential signals. However, it's a standard hack, and it's worked every time I've tried it.) With that adapter, you can see the periodic timetag reports from the unit. The RFTG program will interpret these timetags when it starts up in normal mode. However, when I try to use any of the diagnostic features built into the program, it crashes WINE. The timetag output was required for compatibility, but I suspect that HP didn't bother to implement the Lucent diagnostics. Instead, they added a connector which is not on the previous RFTG series. That connector is labeled, logically enough, J8-DIAGNOSTIC. It too is wired with RS-422, so you need to use the same adapter cable as before. Once you do, you'll find that this connector speaks the usual HP SCPI command set (Hooray!). I used the official SATSTAT program (again under WINE on 12.04 LTS), but I'm sure that other programs written for this command set will work as well. The default SATSTAT serial port settings of 9600-8-N-1 worked for me. ___ time-nuts mailing list
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Stu, Many thanks for the heads-up on htese units. Great deals. Can you advise the size of these units? Are they full-size 19 rack mount or the half-size units like the Z3801A? Can the REF-1 unit (the one with the GPS receiver) be operated separately from the REF-0 unit? There is a mod on Didier's site to add the 10 MHz output to the RFTGm unit at http://www.ko4bb.com/manuals/download.php?file=05)_GPS_Timing/Lucent_RFTGm_RFTGm-II-XO_GPSDO_modification_to_add_10MHz.pdf. I don't know if the mod will apply to the units on Ebay right now, but it's quite possible that it does. Cheers, Dave M Stewart Cobb wrote: Fellow time-nuts, This (long) post is a review of the HP/Symmetricom Z3810A (or Z3810AS) GPSDO system built for Lucent circa 2000. I wrote it because I looked for more information before I bought one, and couldn't find much. It's relevant because (as of this writing), you can buy a full system on the usual auction site for about $150 plus shipping. For those of you lamenting the dearth of cheap Thunderbolts, this looks like one of the best deals going. The description of these objects does not include GPSDO, so time-nuts may have missed it. Search for one of the part numbers in the subject line and you should find it. So what is it? It's a dual GPSDO built by HP as a reference (Redundant Frequency and Time Generator, or RFTG) for a Lucent cell-phone base station, built to Lucent's spec KS-24361. Internally, it's a close cousin of a later-model Z3805A. Externally, it looks to be almost a drop-in replacement for the earlier RFTG system built to Lucent's spec KS-24019. That was a redundant system containing one rubidium (LPRO, in the one I have) and one OCXO in two almost-identical boxes. That spec went through several revisions with slightly different nameplates and presumably slightly different internals. You can generally find one or two examples on the auction site (search for RFTG or KS-24019). ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Dave, The seller is offering the REF-0 and REF-1 units at $75 each plus shipping. When I searched for Lucent KS-24361, I found the original item with both, as well as the individual units. --Glen Hoag h...@hiwaay.net At 10:22 AM 10/20/2014, you wrote: Stu, Many thanks for the heads-up on htese units. Great deals. Can you advise the size of these units? Are they full-size 19 rack mount or the half-size units like the Z3801A? Can the REF-1 unit (the one with the GPS receiver) be operated separately from the REF-0 unit? There is a mod on Didier's site to add the 10 MHz output to the RFTGm unit at http://www.ko4bb.com/manuals/download.php?file=05)_GPS_Timing/Lucent_RFTGm_RFTGm-II-XO_GPSDO_modification_to_add_10MHz.pdf. I don't know if the mod will apply to the units on Ebay right now, but it's quite possible that it does. Cheers, Dave M Stewart Cobb wrote: Fellow time-nuts, This (long) post is a review of the HP/Symmetricom Z3810A (or Z3810AS) GPSDO system built for Lucent circa 2000. I wrote it because I looked for more information before I bought one, and couldn't find much. It's relevant because (as of this writing), you can buy a full system on the usual auction site for about $150 plus shipping. For those of you lamenting the dearth of cheap Thunderbolts, this looks like one of the best deals going. The description of these objects does not include GPSDO, so time-nuts may have missed it. Search for one of the part numbers in the subject line and you should find it. So what is it? It's a dual GPSDO built by HP as a reference (Redundant Frequency and Time Generator, or RFTG) for a Lucent cell-phone base station, built to Lucent's spec KS-24361. Internally, it's a close cousin of a later-model Z3805A. Externally, it looks to be almost a drop-in replacement for the earlier RFTG system built to Lucent's spec KS-24019. That was a redundant system containing one rubidium (LPRO, in the one I have) and one OCXO in two almost-identical boxes. That spec went through several revisions with slightly different nameplates and presumably slightly different internals. You can generally find one or two examples on the auction site (search for RFTG or KS-24019). ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
In the link below there's a photo of one of the units with a ruler against it - 11 wide. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Dave M Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 10:22 AM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Stu, Many thanks for the heads-up on htese units. Great deals. Can you advise the size of these units? Are they full-size 19 rack mount or the half-size units like the Z3801A? Can the REF-1 unit (the one with the GPS receiver) be operated separately from the REF-0 unit? There is a mod on Didier's site to add the 10 MHz output to the RFTGm unit at http://www.ko4bb.com/manuals/download.php?file=05)_GPS_Timing/Lucent_RFTGm_RFTGm-II-XO_GPSDO_modification_to_add_10MHz.pdf. I don't know if the mod will apply to the units on Ebay right now, but it's quite possible that it does. Cheers, Dave M Stewart Cobb wrote: Fellow time-nuts, This (long) post is a review of the HP/Symmetricom Z3810A (or Z3810AS) GPSDO system built for Lucent circa 2000. I wrote it because I looked for more information before I bought one, and couldn't find much. It's relevant because (as of this writing), you can buy a full system on the usual auction site for about $150 plus shipping. For those of you lamenting the dearth of cheap Thunderbolts, this looks like one of the best deals going. The description of these objects does not include GPSDO, so time-nuts may have missed it. Search for one of the part numbers in the subject line and you should find it. So what is it? It's a dual GPSDO built by HP as a reference (Redundant Frequency and Time Generator, or RFTG) for a Lucent cell-phone base station, built to Lucent's spec KS-24361. Internally, it's a close cousin of a later-model Z3805A. Externally, it looks to be almost a drop-in replacement for the earlier RFTG system built to Lucent's spec KS-24019. That was a redundant system containing one rubidium (LPRO, in the one I have) and one OCXO in two almost-identical boxes. That spec went through several revisions with slightly different nameplates and presumably slightly different internals. You can generally find one or two examples on the auction site (search for RFTG or KS-24019). ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Hi Glen, I'm looking at this unit, but I have to say that I can't make any sense from the listing. I don't know what the REF-0 and REF-1 units do, and I don't know whether they need to be connected to a Z3810AS, which I don't have. Could you or someone elaborate on exactly what these are? Bob - AE6RV From: Glen Hoag h...@hiwaay.net To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 11:04 AM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Dave, The seller is offering the REF-0 and REF-1 units at $75 each plus shipping. When I searched for Lucent KS-24361, I found the original item with both, as well as the individual units. --Glen Hoag h...@hiwaay.net ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Oh, duh. Sorry. I missed the relevant post. Never mind. Now I'll go feel embarrassed for awhile. Bob From: Bob Stewart b...@evoria.net To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 11:59 AM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Hi Glen, I'm looking at this unit, but I have to say that I can't make any sense from the listing. I don't know what the REF-0 and REF-1 units do, and I don't know whether they need to be connected to a Z3810AS, which I don't have. Could you or someone elaborate on exactly what these are? Bob - AE6RV From: Glen Hoag h...@hiwaay.net To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 11:04 AM Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Dave, The seller is offering the REF-0 and REF-1 units at $75 each plus shipping. When I searched for Lucent KS-24361, I found the original item with both, as well as the individual units. --Glen Hoag h...@hiwaay.net ___ 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 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Stu said: Power is applied to the connector labeled +24VDC and P1, in exactly the same way as the earlier RFTG units. Apply +24V to pin 1 and the other side of the power supply (GND or RTN) to pin 2. In these units, that power supply goes directly to an isolated Lucent DC/DC converter brick labeled IN: DC 18-36, 1.9A. Presumably you can run both units with a 4-amp supply. Hi Stu, I decided to get a set of these as a reference for my own GPSDO development efforts. Now to power it. From your description, it looks like a pair of laptop supply bricks might fit the bill. I'm looking at one here that says DC 22.5-18V 2.0-2.5A. Does that sound reasonable or should I get something a bit better? Bob From: Stewart Cobb stewart.c...@gmail.com To: time-nuts@febo.com Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2014 11:53 PM Subject: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Fellow time-nuts, This (long) post is a review of the HP/Symmetricom Z3810A (or Z3810AS) GPSDO system built for Lucent circa 2000. I wrote it because I looked for more information before I bought one, and couldn't find much. It's relevant because (as of this writing), you can buy a full system on the usual auction site for about $150 plus shipping. For those of you lamenting the dearth of cheap Thunderbolts, this looks like one of the best deals going. The description of these objects does not include GPSDO, so time-nuts may have missed it. Search for one of the part numbers in the subject line and you should find it. big snip ___ 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.
Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system
Arg! I read the whole article on the mod but just didn't see the ruler. Oops! Thanks for the alert, Dave M Anthony Roby wrote: In the link below there's a photo of one of the units with a ruler against it - 11 wide. Anthony -Original Message- From: time-nuts [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Dave M Sent: Monday, October 20, 2014 10:22 AM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Lucent KS-24361, HP/Symmetricom Z3809A, Z3810A, Z3811A, Z3812A GPSDO system Stu, Many thanks for the heads-up on htese units. Great deals. Can you advise the size of these units? Are they full-size 19 rack mount or the half-size units like the Z3801A? Can the REF-1 unit (the one with the GPS receiver) be operated separately from the REF-0 unit? There is a mod on Didier's site to add the 10 MHz output to the RFTGm unit at http://www.ko4bb.com/manuals/download.php?file=05)_GPS_Timing/Lucent_RFTGm_RFTGm-II-XO_GPSDO_modification_to_add_10MHz.pdf. I don't know if the mod will apply to the units on Ebay right now, but it's quite possible that it does. Cheers, Dave M Stewart Cobb wrote: Fellow time-nuts, This (long) post is a review of the HP/Symmetricom Z3810A (or Z3810AS) GPSDO system built for Lucent circa 2000. I wrote it because I looked for more information before I bought one, and couldn't find much. It's relevant because (as of this writing), you can buy a full system on the usual auction site for about $150 plus shipping. For those of you lamenting the dearth of cheap Thunderbolts, this looks like one of the best deals going. The description of these objects does not include GPSDO, so time-nuts may have missed it. Search for one of the part numbers in the subject line and you should find it. So what is it? It's a dual GPSDO built by HP as a reference (Redundant Frequency and Time Generator, or RFTG) for a Lucent cell-phone base station, built to Lucent's spec KS-24361. Internally, it's a close cousin of a later-model Z3805A. Externally, it looks to be almost a drop-in replacement for the earlier RFTG system built to Lucent's spec KS-24019. That was a redundant system containing one rubidium (LPRO, in the one I have) and one OCXO in two almost-identical boxes. That spec went through several revisions with slightly different nameplates and presumably slightly different internals. You can generally find one or two examples on the auction site (search for RFTG or KS-24019). ___ 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.
