Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Magnus Danielson
Hi Jim, On 11/03/2013 05:21 AM, Jim Lux wrote: On 11/2/13 7:40 PM, Magnus Danielson wrote: On 11/03/2013 02:45 AM, Bob Camp wrote: Hi I believe that you are talking to two very different groups, one who actually design the crystals and the other who use the products that are designed. One

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Attila Kinali
Hi Tom, On Sat, 2 Nov 2013 16:06:06 -0600 Tom Knox act...@hotmail.com wrote: Our house standard F1 a cesium fountain is used roughly one month every few months to characterize roughly 12 5071A cesium standards steering about 5 MHM 2010 cleaned up with a number of 8607 option 08 oscillator.

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread GandalfG8
Hi Bob I've seen this topic discussed here before and it does seem to raise some quite strong emotions and there does seem to be some confusion. I can remember quite clearly, historically at least, 5MHz being commonly promoted as the optimum frequency for crystal oscillators on the basis

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Bob Camp
Hi Rubiola is looking at resonators he can buy off the shelf. They are constrained by the commonly available packages. The Q x F product does not suddenly stop going up at 5 MHz. There is good documentation that it keeps on going as the frequency goes down. Is Q everything - of course not.

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Jim Lux
On 11/3/13 4:27 AM, Magnus Danielson wrote: Hi Jim, Ground-based GPS-like transmitters could be a nice option to consider. Well, that's basically what we do today. We transmit a very stable carrier with some tones or a PN sequence modulated onto it. The spacecraft recovers it, generates a

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Tom Knox
My questions exactly. For the moment I think question 4 may be covered in Archita Hati's paper State-of-the-Art RF Signal Generation From Optical Frequency Division. The other questions are what drives many Time-Nuts I know. Thomas Knox Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 03:40:40 +0100 From:

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Tom Knox
I am not the right person to explain, So anyone with more knowledge please feel free to jump in. I think basically the reasoning is as a single clock the system at some point it would need mantainance or repair. So time is maintained with an algorithm that monitors all the clocks and

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Magnus Danielson
Hi, On 11/03/2013 05:22 PM, Tom Knox wrote: I am not the right person to explain, So anyone with more knowledge please feel free to jump in. I think basically the reasoning is as a single clock the system at some point it would need mantainance or repair. So time is maintained with an

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Said Jackson
Bob, et. al., Lots of opinions in this discussion, but none of it discusses the elephant in the room affecting todays' vendors: Random crystal instability versus manufacturing techniques. I can buy oscillators from multiple vendors that have -115dBc at 1Hz or better and noise floors of

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Tom Knox
Thanks Jackson, I think I have seen that lately, I thought that was a GPS problem related to the transition between holdover and locked but I was unable to reproduce it with a GPS simulator. It is really pronounced on the C-Mac in the unit. Thomas Knox CC: time-nuts@febo.com From:

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Attila Kinali
On Sun, 3 Nov 2013 09:33:57 -0800 Said Jackson saidj...@aol.com wrote: Crystal jumps are the biggest menace facing users of crystals/oscillators today and so far I have never been given a reasonable explanation from any of the vendors out there what causes it and how to avoid it or how they

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Bob Camp
Hi Given that a full blown electroless BVA crystal typically costs $900 a piece, you are unlikely to find them in sub-$400 oscillators. There is pretty good evidence that they also can have jumps that need to be screened out…. Testing wise, looking at any part with a 2 to 5 ppt ADEV for sub

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread WarrenS
Said Jackson posted: Crystal jumps are the biggest menace facing users of crystals/oscillators today. Are you including both phase jumps and frequency jumps together? Is one more or likely to happen than the other? Is it mostly a jump that effects just the phase or freq, or is there

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread SAIDJACK
Forgot one comment: the good parts' plot also shows a very nice crystal retrace stabilization in the red EFC trace over about the first 6 days or so. After that the crystal goes into it's long term crystal aging mode. Retrace is one big reason why its best to let crystals run continuously..

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Hal Murray
Do low cost recycled Rubidiums have any quirks equivalent to frequency jumps in crystals? -- These are my opinions. I hate spam. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Said Jackson
The partial answer is: yes as they typically use 10MHz crystals too. But the loop BW is so wide (10Hz or more) that the crystal jumps get compensated very quickly. We have not seen any real frequency jumps in 100's of CSACs we tested that use vapor cells just like RB's do, so from my

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Magnus Danielson
On 11/03/2013 10:28 PM, Hal Murray wrote: Do low cost recycled Rubidiums have any quirks equivalent to frequency jumps in crystals? Consider that they have a crystal as a fly-wheel oscillator, so if that does a frequency jump, it will show, but be tracked in. If the oscillator does a

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Tom Knox
They have crystals so it would seem so. I wonder are the jumps are model, brand, or design dependent and to what degree? Also thanks to everyone contributing their knowledge and experience to the thread. I for one am learning a great deal. I am still interested if anyone has insights to

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Magnus Danielson
Hi, Let me point out one little thing. While you can pick up stuff from the many comments here, remember that this is a field of a whole myriad of effects and challenges. Different insight at different periods have provided for different truths and design approaches. Some of the issues can be

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread EWKehren
We are looking at room temperature 5 and 10 MHz XO's for cleaning up Rb and DDS. Filter time 1 to 20 seconds and thermal mass to keep temperature influence low. Hard to find XO's, so what we are testing is older TCXO's where we remove the TC and use the tuning circuit for loop control. Any

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Magnus Danielson
Bert, On 11/03/2013 11:51 PM, ewkeh...@aol.com wrote: We are looking at room temperature 5 and 10 MHz XO's for cleaning up Rb and DDS. Filter time 1 to 20 seconds and thermal mass to keep temperature influence low. Hard to find XO's, so what we are testing is older TCXO's where we

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Tom Knox
Magnus you are spot on, Quartz is one of those areas that is still as much art as science. Thomas Knox Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 23:13:20 +0100 From: mag...@rubidium.dyndns.org To: time-nuts@febo.com Subject: Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot Hi, Let me point out one little thing.

Re: [time-nuts] The 5MHz Sweet Spot

2013-11-03 Thread Said Jackson
Bert, Let me know if you can do stable 1s loops in the analog domain with reasonable cap sizes say 220uF. I would be impressed. I tried. Bye, Said Sent From iPhone On Nov 3, 2013, at 14:51, ewkeh...@aol.com wrote: We are looking at room temperature 5 and 10 MHz XO's for cleaning up Rb and

[time-nuts] Computing GPS Distance Error in Time

2013-11-03 Thread Bob Stewart
I'm experimenting with an Adafruit receiver (MTK3339) and I'd like to be able to compute the time error delta between each reported position.  I can guess it's a vector difference between each two successive points converted to ns, but beyond that, I don't know what to do.  IOW, I need to know