Re: [time-nuts] Thunderbolt
Sorry if I missed this before, but is there a utility that will allow me control my PC's time from my Thunderbolt GPS-DO? The standard/reference NTP package (ntpd) has a driver that supports Trimble Palisade and Thunderbolt. For questions like that, it helps if you mention what OS you are interested in. For Windows, Meinberg maintains an installer packaged with a usually up-to-date version of ntpd. http://www.meinberg.de/english/sw/ntp.htm http://support.ntp.org/bin/view/Main/ExternalTimeRelatedLinks For Linux, *BSD and such, ntp/ntpd is normally part of the distribution. Depending upon how the ntpd you get was built, it may or may not include the Trimble driver. I think it is normally included. If not, I think the error message will be obvious, after you find it. If you have troubles getting it going, let me know (off-list) and I'll try to help. There are a lot of people with Thunderbolts. We should have a good web page for how to use them. -- These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. 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] Earthquake meets time ball
Shame that the rest of Lyttleton is wrecked! And I survived this one too, just about, almost had a desktop PC hit me in the head but I had the presence of mind to knock it away with my hands. It's pretty grim here but time still goes on. All the best everyone, Steve in Quakechurch On 24/02/2011, Murray Greenman murray.green...@rakon.com wrote: Hi, You may recall we discussed here some time back about how time was disseminated in days gone past, and mentioned Time Balls at various locations from Greenwich onward. I'd forgotten that there was (and still is) one at Lyttleton, NZ, right at the epicentre of the big earthquake. This historical building has as a result been badly damaged, but the ball and its tower still in place. See http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/image.cfm?c_id=1gal_gid=116950galler y_id=116940#7382812 73, Murray ZL1BPU ___ 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. -- Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV G8KVD The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. - Einstein ___ 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] OT: NZ Christchurch member
I heard he was still shaking :) Cheers, Steve On 24/02/2011, Raj vu2...@gmail.com wrote: Anyone hear from Time-Nut Steve Rooke from Christchurch ? Cheers -- Raj, VU2ZAP Bangalore, India. ___ 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. -- Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV G8KVD The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. - Einstein ___ 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] Earthquake meets time ball
In message AANLkTi=6V+Gwa_o-Z9YXkar5TKzPvGoQc9tLTkOOQ=y...@mail.gmail.com, Stev e Rooke writes: Keep smiling Steve, and let us know if we can do anything for you. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 p...@freebsd.org | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. ___ 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] Earthquake meets time ball
Many thanks, I appreciate your kind thoughts. If your any good at fixing power, water, sewerage and can get the ADSL up on my newly re-connected phone line, as dial-up is really boring, I'd welcome that with open arms. I do have a petrol generator now but getting it was a real bun-fight and I was lucky to grab one off the trailer as they were being delivered to the hardware store. Believe me they went like hot cakes. Getting petrol was a case of queuing for ages miles down the road just to be rationed to $50 worth of fuel for the car and the jerry-can to run the generator. Wish I had my old Land Rover right now as you practically need a 4x4 to drive on the roads around here. But we are coping ok and there is a great spirit here with many people dragging their bbqs into the streets and cooking up their meat from the freezer and offering to all who come by as it's going off in their freezers. There's a artesian well-head in a local school that is overflowing as the power is off and is cannot be controlled, and I can get to it on foot with bottles I can fill by holding them under the running water. All this water needs to be boiled and I'm lucky that I bought a propane gas little cooking hob last time we had a quake so I'm able to do that and heat up food. It's just like camping here as you have to dig a hole in the garden for the number 1's and 2's too. It's OK, we are surviving and it'll all sort itself out eventually. Sorry for this OT post. Cheers, Steve On 24/02/2011, Poul-Henning Kamp p...@phk.freebsd.dk wrote: In message AANLkTi=6V+Gwa_o-Z9YXkar5TKzPvGoQc9tLTkOOQ=y...@mail.gmail.com, Stev e Rooke writes: Keep smiling Steve, and let us know if we can do anything for you. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 p...@freebsd.org | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. ___ 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. -- Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV G8KVD The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. - Einstein ___ 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] SR-620 cal
Use the following adjustment sequence: 1. Set the Cal jumper to Cal Enable 2. Connect the reference to Ext Ref (rear) and Input A 3. Switch the counter to Ext Ref 4. Set the CalByte 50 for the best display (this is a very fine adjustement) 5. Switch the counter to Int Ref 6. Set the CalByte 4 for the best display (this adjustement is coarse, optimize!) 7. Set the Cal jumper to Cal Disable After this calibration my SR620 is with the external reference +/- 3 counts (9'999'999.9997x10'000'000,0003) previous value -210 counts with the internal reference +/- 6 counts previous value -25 counts Best regards Jürg Kögel ___ 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] Earthquake meets time ball
Steve Living in South Florida and have had two Hurricane eyes actually going over my house I feel with you. Only difference, we have a warning and if so choose, can get out of the way. Bert Kehren Miami In a message dated 2/24/2011 5:12:52 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, sar10...@gmail.com writes: Many thanks, I appreciate your kind thoughts. If your any good at fixing power, water, sewerage and can get the ADSL up on my newly re-connected phone line, as dial-up is really boring, I'd welcome that with open arms. I do have a petrol generator now but getting it was a real bun-fight and I was lucky to grab one off the trailer as they were being delivered to the hardware store. Believe me they went like hot cakes. Getting petrol was a case of queuing for ages miles down the road just to be rationed to $50 worth of fuel for the car and the jerry-can to run the generator. Wish I had my old Land Rover right now as you practically need a 4x4 to drive on the roads around here. But we are coping ok and there is a great spirit here with many people dragging their bbqs into the streets and cooking up their meat from the freezer and offering to all who come by as it's going off in their freezers. There's a artesian well-head in a local school that is overflowing as the power is off and is cannot be controlled, and I can get to it on foot with bottles I can fill by holding them under the running water. All this water needs to be boiled and I'm lucky that I bought a propane gas little cooking hob last time we had a quake so I'm able to do that and heat up food. It's just like camping here as you have to dig a hole in the garden for the number 1's and 2's too. It's OK, we are surviving and it'll all sort itself out eventually. Sorry for this OT post. Cheers, Steve On 24/02/2011, Poul-Henning Kamp p...@phk.freebsd.dk wrote: In message AANLkTi=6V+Gwa_o-Z9YXkar5TKzPvGoQc9tLTkOOQ=y...@mail.gmail.com, Stev e Rooke writes: Keep smiling Steve, and let us know if we can do anything for you. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 p...@freebsd.org | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. ___ 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. -- Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV G8KVD The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. - Einstein ___ 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] Earthquake meets time ball
Damn quakes - yet again - I am faced with having to repair the pendulum on my No. 36 clock. And I had only got it running again for a couple of weeks after fixing the damage from the September quake! Not all bad I guess- at least the rack mounted gear keeps going as long as the batteries hold up- out here in the nor'west of the city we only had a short break in the AC supply this time. ADSL was out for 36 hrs though till I chased 'em up and had the port reset. Real shame re the timeball station though- great old place- I hope they rebuild it. Dare say it will be way down the list of priorities. DaveB, NZ ___ 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] Fw: your 'quake
Hi All I though you might like to hear our member Steve Rooke is a survivor in Christchurch. This just received from him. Alan G3NYK - Original Message - From: Steve Rooke sar10...@gmail.com To: Alan Melia alan.me...@btinternet.com Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2011 6:55 AM Subject: Re: your 'quake Hi Alan, How's things with you? Well, it's pretty grim here, old man. My Mum and myself are OK and our houses are in pretty good shape but we both had extensive damage to the internal items. I have now come to stay with Mum temporarily and we have cleaned up the mess here so it is habitable. The inside of my house is completely trashed and I'll go back there to tackle it once things are stable enough to leave Mum on here own. Up until now we have not had water, sewerage, power and telephone services but the phone services have just been connected so I'm sending this via dial-up from my laptop running, for the moment, on battery power. The have no idea when the other services will be fixed and it could take weeks or even months. The roads around the place are totally wrecked with large cracks, bumps and sink holes with many of those which have swallowed large parts of cars and trucks which have driven into them. In addition there is a thick covering of liquefaction silt on the roads. Driving around here is very hazardous and really to be avoided unless completely necessary. The Central Business District has been very badly hit with every second building destroyed. It happened at 12:51pm on tuesday so many people were in those buildings working and there have been dozens of deaths. So far the official figure is 75 but that is ONLY the account of those bodies that have been identified, there are many more that have been recovered, many still lie dead on the streets and literally hundreds buried in completely collapsed buildings that had caught on fire and are really expected to be dead. A state of National Emergency has been called and this is the first time that has happened in the history of New Zealand as this is the worst disaster in our time. All we can do is listen to the radio running on batteries and cope with torches until those batteries run out. The news coming continuously over the radio... This just over the radio, the power company have just said that their infrastructure in this area of town is so badly damaged in the ground that they are likely to abandon it and put in a new overhead feed in it's place so that means it could take some considerable time. You see it is the suburbs to the east of the city, were we are, that have been the most hit. The quake was just 6.3 but was centred much closer to the city and much shallower too so that is why it has caused an order of magnitude worse damage than the 7.1 one back in September. I managed to get some water today by walking to a school nearby which has a well-head that is overflowing. I had to walk through the water around it and collect the overflowing water into plastic bottles. I hope it continues to flow as water here is not easy to get. I tried to get food and petrol today but the petrol stations nearby were closed and so were the shops... My battery said I had 3h left but it just cut out on me but I'm up on a generator that we bought today over the other side of the town. Had to queue for ages to get petrol for the car and the generator. Have the TV going now and can see some of the carnage finally. We only have 1.2kVA so not enough to drive everything bar the simplest things. I brought up the ADSL router but there is no connection so I guess NZ Telecom is not running at full capacity yet, so I'm still doing this on dial-up. Leave it at that for now. Kind regards, Steve PS. forward this around. On 24/02/2011, Alan Melia alan.me...@btinternet.com wrote: Hi Steve hope you and friends/ family are OKwe are all thinking of you, and the devastation to that beautiful city. Alan G3NYK -- Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV G8KVD The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. - Einstein ___ 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] Earthquake meets time ball
Glad to hear you are safe Steve - Time Nuts wouldn't quite be the same without you! Good luck down there mate. Rob -Original Message- From: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-boun...@febo.com] On Behalf Of Steve Rooke Sent: 24 February 2011 10:13 AM To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Earthquake meets time ball Many thanks, I appreciate your kind thoughts. If your any good at fixing power, water, sewerage and can get the ADSL up on my newly re-connected phone line, as dial-up is really boring, I'd welcome that with open arms. I do have a petrol generator now but getting it was a real bun-fight and I was lucky to grab one off the trailer as they were being delivered to the hardware store. Believe me they went like hot cakes. Getting petrol was a case of queuing for ages miles down the road just to be rationed to $50 worth of fuel for the car and the jerry-can to run the generator. Wish I had my old Land Rover right now as you practically need a 4x4 to drive on the roads around here. But we are coping ok and there is a great spirit here with many people dragging their bbqs into the streets and cooking up their meat from the freezer and offering to all who come by as it's going off in their freezers. There's a artesian well-head in a local school that is overflowing as the power is off and is cannot be controlled, and I can get to it on foot with bottles I can fill by holding them under the running water. All this water needs to be boiled and I'm lucky that I bought a propane gas little cooking hob last time we had a quake so I'm able to do that and heat up food. It's just like camping here as you have to dig a hole in the garden for the number 1's and 2's too. It's OK, we are surviving and it'll all sort itself out eventually. Sorry for this OT post. Cheers, Steve On 24/02/2011, Poul-Henning Kamp p...@phk.freebsd.dk wrote: In message AANLkTi=6V+Gwa_o-Z9YXkar5TKzPvGoQc9tLTkOOQ=y...@mail.gmail.com, Stev e Rooke writes: Keep smiling Steve, and let us know if we can do anything for you. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 p...@freebsd.org | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. ___ 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. -- Steve Rooke - ZL3TUV G8KVD The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. - Einstein ___ 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] HP 3586A/B/C entirely referenced to 10MHz: A solution
Hi Everyone, Some recent tests I have made on my HP 3586B Selective Level Meter have confirmed that the detected audio drifts a lot as a function of ambient temperature. A day/night change of 1.5 degree Celcius was clearly visible on Spectrum Lab samples. I could actually find out how many times and when the central home furnace had cycled in-out overnight. It gave a neat plot which I post here: https://www.onlinefilefolder.com/3sFcUl8Z8i8zy7 So I have been looking at modifying my HP 3586B SLM so that it becomes entirely synchronized off the external 10MHz reference. As you probably know, all stages exept the final one, the SSB LO (BFO), are derived from the 10MHz reference. The SSB LO chain is made of two free-running crystals used for LSB and USB detection. In my unit (3586B, option 003), the detection LO frequencies are 13775 Hz and 17475 Hz. These two frequencies are not directly math-related to any other internal reference (at least I could not personally find any). BTW, the IF LO rate is 15625 Hz. I have substituted a function generator instead of the internal oscillators just to see how much the off-centering would affect the audio quality, and found out that this works well as long as it is not too far off the designed LO rates. The closest 10MHz-derived integer rate I could find that will work for audio tone measurement is divide-by-726 (13774.104... Hz) in LSB. The closest USB rate would be divide-by-572 (17482.5... Hz), much farther than the LSB one. So the LSB rate difference of around 0.9 Hz can be neglected when keying in the frequency and listening to regular radio signals. When making absolute audio measurements, subtracting that delta is easy to achieve in post processing. Besides, the frequency and amplitude measurement capabilities of the instrument are not altered by this mod. To me this would seem like an acceptable compromise that is simple to implement and would add long-term stability. My intent is to have a single chip (in this case, an 8-pin PIC divider) do the trick, as we are dealing with tTL level signals here. But can I do better? How much more complex? Can I avoid PLLs? All mixer stages become synchronized to a single source. Is this an issue for reliable audio detection? Am I missing something here? As always, I truly enjoy your feedback and am quite convinced I will learn something new once more. Thanks, Bert, VE2ZAZ ___ 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] Looking for info about first true radio controlled clock
IRIG stands for InterRange Instrument Group which set the standards for the Atlantic Missile range, Pacific Missile Range and White Sands. I beleive that White Sands was the generator of most of the specs. I started working at the Cape in 1959 working on the Atlas. This was the days when most teleletry was analog. The inital data for a launch was printed out on multi-channel paper with the time on edge of the paper which was somewhere 18 inches wide with 8 channels of analog data. Don't nail me down on the exact data since it's been a long time.As I recall, the IRIG time codes were transferred all over the Cape to all contractors. IRIG B time code was amplitude modulated on a 1 KHz tone. 73, Harry, W3IIT (W9HQT then) -Original Message- From: jimlux jim...@earthlink.net Sent: Feb 22, 2011 11:53 PM To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Looking for info about first true radio controlled clock On 2/22/11 12:12 PM, Magnus Danielson wrote: Hi Jim! On 02/22/2011 02:34 PM, jimlux wrote: On 2/21/11 10:12 PM, Michael Lombardi wrote: I'm trying to determine the first product that could automatically decode and display a digital time code. Digital time codes were added to WWV in 1960 and WWVB in 1965. This was before they were added to any satellite signals, or before they were added to LF stations in Europe, such as DCF77. Telegraphic time codes, of course, were around much earlier. the IRIG standaards started in the late 50s, and I'm pretty sure that they used time code when recording on instrumentation recorders earlier than that. You'd record a bunch of analog signals using FM on a multitrack recorder, and because the playback speed varies and the tape stretches, you need something to recover actual timing. The NASA 36 bit time-code seems to pre-date both IRIG and WWV broadcast. NASA didn't exist until 1958, but I suspect that there were folks doing time code and it just came along for the ride. The original WWV broadcast where in fact done in the NASA 36 bit time-code. STANDARD FREQUENCY AND TIME SERVICES http://tf.nist.gov/general/pdf/1746.pdf I have yeat not found the NASA time code history or for that matter the NASA standard for it. funny, now that you mention it.. we use NASA 36 bit in places at work, but, all my stuff uses IRIG in one form or another. CCSDS time codes reference NASA 36 bit.. maybe a reference it's in the back of the CCSDS standard. the first instrumentation recorders were used in the late 40s or early 50s there's also a famous spread spectrum system used during WW2 with identical phono records with random noise, but I think those were sync'd by hand. They where synced by hand, but the turn-tables ran on synchronous motors locked to a common frequency broadcast, so the system had an external (common) frequency steering. Cheers, Magnus ___ 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] HP 3586A/B/C entirely referenced to 10MHz: A solution
Hi Bert, I am wondering if you would not do better using a DDS. Specifically, I am thinking of the Analog Devices 9913 which has the ability to fractionally modify the accumulator. I hadn't really put much thought in it, perhaps a regular DDS would work as well. BillWB6BNQ Bert, VE2ZAZ wrote: Hi Everyone, Some recent tests I have made on my HP 3586B Selective Level Meter have confirmed that the detected audio drifts a lot as a function of ambient temperature. A day/night change of 1.5 degree Celcius was clearly visible on Spectrum Lab samples. I could actually find out how many times and when the central home furnace had cycled in-out overnight. It gave a neat plot which I post here: https://www.onlinefilefolder.com/3sFcUl8Z8i8zy7 So I have been looking at modifying my HP 3586B SLM so that it becomes entirely synchronized off the external 10MHz reference. As you probably know, all stages exept the final one, the SSB LO (BFO), are derived from the 10MHz reference. The SSB LO chain is made of two free-running crystals used for LSB and USB detection. In my unit (3586B, option 003), the detection LO frequencies are 13775 Hz and 17475 Hz. These two frequencies are not directly math-related to any other internal reference (at least I could not personally find any). BTW, the IF LO rate is 15625 Hz. I have substituted a function generator instead of the internal oscillators just to see how much the off-centering would affect the audio quality, and found out that this works well as long as it is not too far off the designed LO rates. The closest 10MHz-derived integer rate I could find that will work for audio tone measurement is divide-by-726 (13774.104... Hz) in LSB. The closest USB rate would be divide-by-572 (17482.5... Hz), much farther than the LSB one. So the LSB rate difference of around 0.9 Hz can be neglected when keying in the frequency and listening to regular radio signals. When making absolute audio measurements, subtracting that delta is easy to achieve in post processing. Besides, the frequency and amplitude measurement capabilities of the instrument are not altered by this mod. To me this would seem like an acceptable compromise that is simple to implement and would add long-term stability. My intent is to have a single chip (in this case, an 8-pin PIC divider) do the trick, as we are dealing with tTL level signals here. But can I do better? How much more complex? Can I avoid PLLs? All mixer stages become synchronized to a single source. Is this an issue for reliable audio detection? Am I missing something here? As always, I truly enjoy your feedback and am quite convinced I will learn something new once more. Thanks, Bert, VE2ZAZ ___ 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] OT: NZ Christchurch member
Steve, Isn't Bruce Griffiths in your area ? I am wondering how he is doing ? BillWB6BNQ ___ 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] HP 3586A/B/C entirely referenced to 10MHz: A solution
Bill you beat me to the punch. I completely agree that a DDS would allow both frequencies with very very small offsets. Granted its more complicated and costly. But then it would be locked. I have 5 3586s all running so am always interested in possible updates and was aware of the bfo. Regards Paul. On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 3:48 PM, WB6BNQ wb6...@cox.net wrote: Hi Bert, I am wondering if you would not do better using a DDS. Specifically, I am thinking of the Analog Devices 9913 which has the ability to fractionally modify the accumulator. I hadn't really put much thought in it, perhaps a regular DDS would work as well. BillWB6BNQ Bert, VE2ZAZ wrote: Hi Everyone, Some recent tests I have made on my HP 3586B Selective Level Meter have confirmed that the detected audio drifts a lot as a function of ambient temperature. A day/night change of 1.5 degree Celcius was clearly visible on Spectrum Lab samples. I could actually find out how many times and when the central home furnace had cycled in-out overnight. It gave a neat plot which I post here: https://www.onlinefilefolder.com/3sFcUl8Z8i8zy7 So I have been looking at modifying my HP 3586B SLM so that it becomes entirely synchronized off the external 10MHz reference. As you probably know, all stages exept the final one, the SSB LO (BFO), are derived from the 10MHz reference. The SSB LO chain is made of two free-running crystals used for LSB and USB detection. In my unit (3586B, option 003), the detection LO frequencies are 13775 Hz and 17475 Hz. These two frequencies are not directly math-related to any other internal reference (at least I could not personally find any). BTW, the IF LO rate is 15625 Hz. I have substituted a function generator instead of the internal oscillators just to see how much the off-centering would affect the audio quality, and found out that this works well as long as it is not too far off the designed LO rates. The closest 10MHz-derived integer rate I could find that will work for audio tone measurement is divide-by-726 (13774.104... Hz) in LSB. The closest USB rate would be divide-by-572 (17482.5... Hz), much farther than the LSB one. So the LSB rate difference of around 0.9 Hz can be neglected when keying in the frequency and listening to regular radio signals. When making absolute audio measurements, subtracting that delta is easy to achieve in post processing. Besides, the frequency and amplitude measurement capabilities of the instrument are not altered by this mod. To me this would seem like an acceptable compromise that is simple to implement and would add long-term stability. My intent is to have a single chip (in this case, an 8-pin PIC divider) do the trick, as we are dealing with tTL level signals here. But can I do better? How much more complex? Can I avoid PLLs? All mixer stages become synchronized to a single source. Is this an issue for reliable audio detection? Am I missing something here? As always, I truly enjoy your feedback and am quite convinced I will learn something new once more. Thanks, Bert, VE2ZAZ ___ 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] To Bert from Burt...
Bert, I run my 3586B from an external GPS controlled reference. There's no practical relationship for the product detector L.O. that would be easy or likely worth the effort. Here's a link to my FMT Methodology that describes what I've done. If you're interested in the I.F. pickoff point information let me know and I can e-mail to you information on How I Did It. See: http://www.k5cm.com/k6OQK%20FMT%20NEW.htm Burt, K6OQK Hi Everyone, Some recent tests I have made on my HP 3586B Selective Level Meter have confirmed that the detected audio drifts a lot as a function of ambient temperature. A day/night change of 1.5 degree Celcius was clearly visible on Spectrum Lab samples. I could actually find out how many times and when the central home furnace had cycled in-out overnight. It gave a neat plot which I post here: https://www.onlinefilefolder.com/3sFcUl8Z8i8zy7 So I have been looking at modifying my HP 3586B SLM so that it becomes entirely synchronized off the external 10MHz reference. As you probably know, all stages exept the final one, the SSB LO (BFO), are derived from the 10MHz reference. The SSB LO chain is made of two free-running crystals used for LSB and USB detection. In my unit (3586B, option 003), the detection LO frequencies are 13775 Hz and 17475 Hz. These two frequencies are not directly math-related to any other internal reference (at least I could not personally find any). BTW, the IF LO rate is 15625 Hz. I have substituted a function generator instead of the internal oscillators just to see how much the off-centering would affect the audio quality, and found out that this works well as long as it is not too far off the designed LO rates. The closest 10MHz-derived integer rate I could find that will work for audio tone measurement is divide-by-726 (13774.104... Hz) in LSB. The closest USB rate would be divide-by-572 (17482.5... Hz), much farther than the LSB one. So the LSB rate difference of around 0.9 Hz can be neglected when keying in the frequency and listening to regular radio signals. When making absolute audio measurements, subtracting that delta is easy to achieve in post processing. Besides, the frequency and amplitude measurement capabilities of the instrument are not altered by this mod. To me this would seem like an acceptable compromise that is simple to implement and would add long-term stability. My intent is to have a single chip (in this case, an 8-pin PIC divider) do the trick, as we are dealing with tTL level signals here. But can I do better? How much more complex? Can I avoid PLLs? All mixer stages become synchronized to a single source. Is this an issue for reliable audio detection? Am I missing something here? As always, I truly enjoy your feedback and am quite convinced I will learn something new once more. Thanks, Bert, VE2ZAZ Burt I. Weiner Associates Broadcast Technical Services Glendale, California U.S.A. b...@att.net www.biwa.cc K6OQK ___ 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] NZ Quake
Certainly glad to hear Steve is okay. Is Bruce located anywhere near the damage? Jerry ___ 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] NZ Quake
Hi I believe Bruce is in Hamilton, different island altogether. It would not surprise me to find he (and most of the rest of the country) are engaged in one part or the other of the recovery effort. Bob On Feb 24, 2011, at 5:53 PM, gsteinb...@aol.com wrote: Certainly glad to hear Steve is okay. Is Bruce located anywhere near the damage? Jerry ___ 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] To Bert from Burt...
Burt, I am interested by that mod also. Thanks in advance, Didier KO4BB Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry -Original Message- From: Burt I. Weiner b...@att.net Sender: time-nuts-boun...@febo.com Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 13:12:25 To: time-nuts@febo.com Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement time-nuts@febo.com Subject: [time-nuts] To Bert from Burt... Bert, I run my 3586B from an external GPS controlled reference. There's no practical relationship for the product detector L.O. that would be easy or likely worth the effort. Here's a link to my FMT Methodology that describes what I've done. If you're interested in the I.F. pickoff point information let me know and I can e-mail to you information on How I Did It. See: http://www.k5cm.com/k6OQK%20FMT%20NEW.htm Burt, K6OQK Hi Everyone, Some recent tests I have made on my HP 3586B Selective Level Meter have confirmed that the detected audio drifts a lot as a function of ambient temperature. A day/night change of 1.5 degree Celcius was clearly visible on Spectrum Lab samples. I could actually find out how many times and when the central home furnace had cycled in-out overnight. It gave a neat plot which I post here: https://www.onlinefilefolder.com/3sFcUl8Z8i8zy7 So I have been looking at modifying my HP 3586B SLM so that it becomes entirely synchronized off the external 10MHz reference. As you probably know, all stages exept the final one, the SSB LO (BFO), are derived from the 10MHz reference. The SSB LO chain is made of two free-running crystals used for LSB and USB detection. In my unit (3586B, option 003), the detection LO frequencies are 13775 Hz and 17475 Hz. These two frequencies are not directly math-related to any other internal reference (at least I could not personally find any). BTW, the IF LO rate is 15625 Hz. I have substituted a function generator instead of the internal oscillators just to see how much the off-centering would affect the audio quality, and found out that this works well as long as it is not too far off the designed LO rates. The closest 10MHz-derived integer rate I could find that will work for audio tone measurement is divide-by-726 (13774.104... Hz) in LSB. The closest USB rate would be divide-by-572 (17482.5... Hz), much farther than the LSB one. So the LSB rate difference of around 0.9 Hz can be neglected when keying in the frequency and listening to regular radio signals. When making absolute audio measurements, subtracting that delta is easy to achieve in post processing. Besides, the frequency and amplitude measurement capabilities of the instrument are not altered by this mod. To me this would seem like an acceptable compromise that is simple to implement and would add long-term stability. My intent is to have a single chip (in this case, an 8-pin PIC divider) do the trick, as we are dealing with tTL level signals here. But can I do better? How much more complex? Can I avoid PLLs? All mixer stages become synchronized to a single source. Is this an issue for reliable audio detection? Am I missing something here? As always, I truly enjoy your feedback and am quite convinced I will learn something new once more. Thanks, Bert, VE2ZAZ Burt I. Weiner Associates Broadcast Technical Services Glendale, California U.S.A. b...@att.net www.biwa.cc K6OQK ___ 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] OT: NZ Christchurch member
On 24/02/11 10:38, Steve Rooke wrote: I heard he was still shaking :) Did he get any amazing waveforms out of mother earths shaker-table? PS. Happy to hear you are alright and still has a sense of humor intact. Cheers, Magnus Cheers, Steve On 24/02/2011, Rajvu2...@gmail.com wrote: Anyone hear from Time-Nut Steve Rooke from Christchurch ? Cheers -- Raj, VU2ZAP Bangalore, India. ___ 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] OT: NZ Christchurch member
What is the conversion factor for Richter to dBm? :) Bob As a guy with degrees in geology and EE. I really should know this...:) On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 8:11 PM, Magnus Danielson mag...@rubidium.dyndns.org wrote: On 24/02/11 10:38, Steve Rooke wrote: I heard he was still shaking :) Did he get any amazing waveforms out of mother earths shaker-table? PS. Happy to hear you are alright and still has a sense of humor intact. Cheers, Magnus Cheers, Steve On 24/02/2011, Rajvu2...@gmail.com wrote: Anyone hear from Time-Nut Steve Rooke from Christchurch ? Cheers -- Raj, VU2ZAP Bangalore, India. ___ 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] OT: NZ Christchurch member
On 2/24/11 5:23 PM, Bob Bownes wrote: What is the conversion factor for Richter to dBm? :) Bob As a guy with degrees in geology and EE. I really should know this...:) Especially since both are log scales.. The problem is that Richter is log magnitude displacement on a particular kind of seismometer (which is sort of a low pass filter) and dBm is log power. However, there should be some sort of scale factor that converts it. I think it's energy goes as amplitude^1.5. there's also a scale factor for how far the seismograph is from the epicenter. ___ 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] OT: FS. SETI Radio Astronomy Ground Station
From another list, -John = Original Message Subject: Re: For Sale Ground station. From:Rachel Tortolini dr.rtortol...@gmail.com Date:Thu, February 24, 2011 8:07 pm -- Greetings: I have a radio astronomy/seti/ground station for sale minus the antenna. The equipment covers microwave to baseband and fft signal processing. the equipment fills 12 six foot racks. (It covers 10 by 30 foot storage locker. Must sell as I have Parkinson's Disease and must retire. Anyone sincerely interested may contact me and a database can be sent with pictures, etc. Location is Hawaii. You will need a mover but it is all packed and ready to go. I am willing to negotiate price compensation for your shipping cost. Please contact me off-list. Rachel = ___ 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] NZ Quake
Hamilton (in the North Island) is around 680km or thereabouts north of Christchurch (in the South Island). Didn't feel a thing, although I knew about it within a few minutes.. Bruce Bob Camp wrote: Hi I believe Bruce is in Hamilton, different island altogether. It would not surprise me to find he (and most of the rest of the country) are engaged in one part or the other of the recovery effort. Bob On Feb 24, 2011, at 5:53 PM, gsteinb...@aol.com wrote: Certainly glad to hear Steve is okay. Is Bruce located anywhere near the damage? Jerry ___ 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] PN sequence generation using GPS
jim...@earthlink.net said: yes.. back in the day, people had proposed various time of day sync strategies, but they all seemed require more complexity and mass than it was worth. ... I'm embarrassed that I didn't see this sooner... If you use something like time-of-day to synchronize the PN generators, that throws out one of the main reasons for using spread spectrum. It will work fine if only a few people use it, but as soon as everybody uses the same setup, they will all land on top of eachother because they will be using the same sequence of frequencies at the same time. So rather than (logically) resetting the PN generator at midnight (aka loading it with some constant like all 1s), we need to load it with a random seed known to both parties. The military version would probably distribute that seed with the crypto keys. If two people are arranging a contact, they could use the low order bits of the contact time as the random seed. If your PN generator has N bits of internal state, you need N bits of randomness. If you roll the dice to pick a minute within a quarter hour and a second, you get 10 bits. If you need more, you will have to do something like specify fractions of a second. -- These are my opinions, not necessarily my employer's. 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.
